On this whole executive power debate, I think Matt's right to say that the problem is less the scope of executive authority and more the absence of serious Congressional checks on his behavior (though I think that's partly for the historical reasons my commenters pointed out yesterday). Put another way, it's not that the president shouldn't have a wide range of motion, but that Congress should have a broader range of tools capable of reining him in.
Or maybe not. Matt mentions that impeachment exists for high crimes and misdemeanors, but not bad choices and poor decisions. But note how the Republicans warped that clause to assail Clinton. Do we want to lower the bar for the future? Which gets to the trouble with some of this: There are a lot of measures I'd like to put in place to help this Congress restrain this president. There are fewer that I'm comfortable instituting in order to help future Republican Congresses cynically destroy future Democratic presidents. We're in a moment right now where it's the executive who's been dangerous and irresponsible. Ten years ago, it was the Congress. And this will all flip again.
Additionally, it's worth keeping in mind how atypical George W. Bush is. Most presidents do have general constraints on their behavior. They care about their personal popularity. They care about their party's prospects. They care about their successor's campaign. Bush has no successor, no party loyalty, and appears to have decided that he'll be loved 40 years from now, much like Truman. He's a uniquely hard guy to constrain (an argument I make in greater detail here). If this becomes a pattern with modern presidents, you really will need to institute new rules in order to check their power, as the old constraints will have ceased to be operative. But this wasn't the case with Clinton, Bush 43, Reagan, etc. Lots of folks talk about how atypically awful Bush is, and maybe they're right.
Unless, of course, we elect Giuliani.
