The Bush years have justifiably given rise to fears of a new Imperial Presidency. Yet despite the controversy surrounding the administration’s expansive claims of executive power, both Left and Right agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility. The Imperial Presidency is the price we seem to be willingly and dangerously agreeable to pay the office the focus of our national hopes and dreams. Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency argues that the Presidency needs to be reined in, its powers checked and supervised, and its wartime authority put back under the oversight of the Congress and the courts. Only then will we begin to return the Presidency to its proper constitutionally limited role. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
Over the course of the 20th century, the presidency burst its constitutional bonds and accrued powers beyond the Framers’ wildest imaginings. Given that the modern president has acquired the power to launch wars at will and reshape American law in accordance with wartime demands, the character of the person holding that office has become a matter of far greater consequence than it was at the Founding. And yet, while the presidency has grown, the method of selecting “the most powerful man in the world” has evolved in a way that makes the elevation of a latter-day Washington extremely unlikely. Probity and restraint don’t seem to be the sort of virtues that regularly come coupled with fundraising ability, popular appeal, and the sort of ambition that makes years of living out of a suitcase and constantly mouthing inanities tolerable. It is, one supposes, possible that a character of Cincinnatus-like integrity could emerge from the modern presidential campaign, with all it demands—but if that happens, it’s the sheerest of accidents. And even a Cincinnatus would have his virtue sorely tested by living for a few years in the atmosphere that surrounds the modern president.
Not much happening here. I’ll be going out for breakfast and shopping tomorrow. When I get back I’ll be in a different space in the Park. I was asked to move so a Big Rig could get in my old space. They are to big to fit in the space where I will move to.
The basement door remains off. The neighborly help has not tried again but I do have an appointment with RV City to fix it and install the window rubber channels. So I might have those things fixed before leaving here.