Glenn Greenwald's latest on Rudy Giuliani calls out the former New York City mayor for the disturbing assertion that the President can somehow fund the Iraq war without Congress appropriating the funds. According to Giuliani, the commander-in-chief possesses an "inherent authority to support the troops." Stunning.
Go read the whole thing.
When it comes to an authoritarian mindset, Dick Cheney has nothing on Mayor Rudy. Let that one sink in. At least Cheney has the good sense to hide behind the shrubbery. Giuliani won't even pretend to respect the Constitution. No wonder the wingnuts love him.
Greenwald writes:
Really, what country is Giuliani describing? It's basically an open embrace of the Iran-Contra theory of Government -- where Congress cuts off funding, the President can just go find a secret fund somewhere else and fund it anyway. To his credit, Lowry recognized just how extreme and damaging these statements are, and so he pursued it further with Giuliani after the event:
In a brief press availability in front of his campaign bus, I asked Rudy whether he was saying Bush could veto the supplemental and, in the absence of a deal with Congress, fund the troops in Iraq under his own authority. "If he vetoes it, he's going to have to find a way to support the troops," Rudy said. "They have given him the authorization to fight the war," and "Bush has the power to redirect the money and time to work something out" with Congress. The last bit suggests that maybe Rudy is thinking in terms of only the next few weeks and not making a broader claim about presidential authority (although he kept on saying "inherent authority" over and over).
We are beginning to see the consequences of the Pandora's Box of authoritarianism that Bush and Cheney opened following nive-eleven. That the leading Republican candidate for 2008 can casually discuss presidents funding their own wars and legally arresting U.S. citizens without judicial review, is a sign of how much damage has already been done.
ADDENDUM
More on how dangerous Giuliani is:
Jim Sleeper, writing at TPMCafe, discusses Mayor Giuliani's governing style and concludes that:
A man who fought the inherent limits of his mayoral office as fanatically as Giuliani would construe presidential prerogatives so broadly he’d make George Bush’s notions of "unitary" executive power seem soft.
And Matt Stoller explains that Giuliani's authoritarianism is a feature, not a bug:
[Conservatives] are authoritarians. Gay marriage, abortion, taxes, national security, none of it really matters to them. What they are looking for is an authoritarian to look like he's taking charge, and the way an authoritarian takes charge is to attack liberals and stomp on people who aren't like them.