(promoted from comments)
I think we need to have a serious national discussion about the nature of the power of the executive in our country.
The basic dichotomy here is the fear that we will be paralyzed into inaction if a more pluralistic form of decisionmaking is used on major policy initiatives, whether that involves a less obsequious cabinet, more consultation with the executive and congress, or a simple responsiveness to the tide of national opinion, but at the same time the excessive power invested in the executive branch this day and age has resulted in disaster.
Our founders distrusted a strong executive branch. They fought and died to remove the tyrannies of Kings and rule by a distant ruling body that did not have an appreciation of the needs of the people. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were a Congress; our own revolutionary movement was, perhaps uniquely, itself the result of a democratic process and not simply people taking up arms behind a charismatic rebel leader, as was the case in nearly every other successful revolution.
(more)
Yet the Constitutional process started in the years following the war established an executive much stronger than perhaps was originally envisioned when we broke from Britain. As we (should) all know, this was designed to provide balance to the sometimes intransigence of an elected legislature that by definition seeks to represent competing interests and concepts of American liberty and values. In looking at the most recent Congress, it's clear that both the bad and the good of this system were in play. A corrupt Congress, unchecked by either the judiciary or the executive, spent its time divvying up the people's money and working on behalf of the few while lining their own pockets. In the meantime, the President essentially established himself as independent of any second-guessing, able to act alone. For a wise man, this may not have been a problem. But such, sadly, was not the case.
The good, of course, was the exercise of the will of the people via the midterm elections; thank god for the two-year election cycle in the House. It was designed to be responsive to the national will, and despite the gerrymandering and other dirty tricks, to a degree it has.
Yet we still see a President who is able to react to this obvious rebuff of his policies by deciding, well, I'm going to double-down (the latest Iraq "plan"). The congressional majority is clearly not strong enough at this point to put serious check on him.
I make this point apropos of the upcoming (or rather, already-commenced) Presidential election cycle. I would like to see a serious discussion about how to restore the balance of powers in our federal system, both among all three branches, and among the federal government, the states, and the people.
It seems to me that this must, paradoxically for the candidates, include a discussion about how to rein in the excesses of the executive. I have no doubt that a wise President who understands the enormous power of national consensus can move towards this goal him or herself by simply eschewing the exercise of power by fiat. But I also fear the temptations of the office, and that we may yet elect another unwise person to the office by whatever circumstance. Thus I think my proposed discussion must extend to the inherent structure of the balance of powers within the Constitution, or at least the de facto exercise thereof.
It's obvious, to me at least, that our federal system is out of whack. The power of the purse has been disbursed via a strange combination of micromanagement via earmarking and enormous black budgets for military and intelligence programs and the lack of accountability for both of these types of spending. We all hope, of course, that the new majority in Congress will address this. But the issue of the Executive itself must be taken head-on, and I can think of no better forum for this than our process for chosing an executive.
So I would urge all of you, as your attention and time and interest and dollars start to be sucked into the process of selecting a candidate for our party, and in turn for the nation, to think about this and do what you can to introduce the issue into the campaigns. This may sound like a dry, abstract matter, but it's also one that cuts right to the fundamental reason we staged a revolution in this country and then established a written constitution: the very nature of governance in a democracy based on the concept of fundamental, inalienable human rights.
I probably need not give you a laundry list of specifics, but ask yourself how we have torture, the elimination of habeas corpus as a fundamental right, executive search and seizure without court review, signing statements, unitary warmaking without end, taxation without representation, and a whole litany of abuses of executive power strikingly similar to that list outlined in the Declaration of Independence if our balance of powers is working.
This is above and beyond about how bad a job Bush has done: it's the question of how he managed to get away with it.