Dissent within King George's ranks

by kos

Tue Dec 20, 2005 at 01:23:10 PM PDT

Former Rep. Bob Barr (from paper edition of WaPo):

The American people are going to have to say, 'Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.'

George Will:

Because of what Alexander Hamilton praised as "energy in the executive," which often drives the growth of government, for years many conservatives were advocates of congressional supremacy. There were, they said, reasons why the Founders, having waged a revolutionary war against overbearing executive power, gave the legislative branch pride of place in Article I of the Constitution.

One reason was that Congress's cumbersomeness, which is a function of its fractiousness, is a virtue because it makes the government slow and difficult to move. But conservatives' wholesome wariness of presidential power has been a casualty of conservative presidents winning seven of the past 10 elections.

On the assumption that Congress or a court would have been cooperative in September 2001, and that the cooperation could have kept necessary actions clearly lawful without conferring any benefit on the nation's enemies, the president's decision to authorize the NSA's surveillance without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake. Perhaps one caused by this administration's almost metabolic urge to keep Congress unnecessarily distant and hence disgruntled.

David Keene, Executive Director of the American Conservative Union, on today's Diane Rehm Show:

Keene: [...] Having said that as a description of their justification of it, the claim that in trying to protect Americans and pursuing his powers as commander in chief that a President has power that inherently trumps the rest of the Constitution is a sort of exaggerated claim of power on behalf of this President or any other President for that matter [...]

Rehm: How do you see this action in using a branch of government such as
the NSA to spy on American citizens?

Keene: I think its Presidential overreaching and I think most Americans would certainly oppose it. Just as we have been at the forefront of the call for reform of the Patriot Act, the reauthorization.

Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General under Reagan, on today's Diane Rehm Show:

Fein: It's more power than King George III had at the time of the revolution in asserting the theory that anything the President thinks is helpful to fighting the war against terrorism he can do. That was why he claimed he can ignore the torture convention [...]

Rehm: Bruce Fein, why couldn't the National Security Agency do exactly what the President wanted if they had simply gone to this special secret court?

Fein: It could have, the secret court is inclined to ratify virtually every warrant that has ever been asked by the executive branch.

Rehm: So why didn't the President go to the court?

Fein: Because I think the President believes that he is the only unit of government capable of running a war.