Charlie Savage - field report on his book tour
Tue Sep 18, 2007 at 02:20:42 PM PDT
I had the pleasure to attend a presentation by Charlie Savage, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and reporter for the Boston Globe who broke the Presidential Signing Statements story. He was here in Seattle at his second stop to promote his newly published book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.
I have not read the book yet, but I now have it on order and look forward to reading Charlie's analysis to supplement my earlier reading of many of his articles from the Boston Globe as well as recent blogging at TPM Cafe.
This diary is more or less a report on his presentation and the Q&A afterwards.
The presentation was sponsored by the American Constitution Society and was hosted by one of the large Seattle law firms, K&L Preston Gates LLP. I'm not sure if the venue had an effect on the demographics of attendance but I was struck by the fact that 60-70% of the 50 or so attendees looked to be white men and women between the ages of 55 to 65. Had they held it across the street at the Central Library, I wonder if the crowd wouldn't have been a little more diverse.
If you haven't already read his 4 posts over at TPM Cafe, I really urge you to do so. Charlie does a much better job of summarizing his book than I could possibly share here. During the presentation he touched upon the history of Executive Power dating back to the founding fathers. He spent some time outlining the relatively recent accretion of Executive Power which occurred during the Cold War, and then the legislative rollback that occurred after the Nixon resignation. He went on to spell out the role Dick Cheney has played in the new extra-constitutional power grab, ever since he worked as Chief of Staff for Jerry Ford.
Say what you like about Dick, he has been consistent on this issue throughout his career.
Charlie then summarized some of the abuses of this Administration. But some of the interesting elements of the prsentation occurred in the Questions and Answers.
First, let me report that Charlie is very intelligent and thinks well on his feet. He fielded questions from a variety of topics and spoke with knowledge and authority on all of it. One of the questions that was asked that I was ready to ask had someone not jumped in first was... "is it too late? Can we do anything to roll back this power grab?"
Charlie was rather blunt in his answer. He stated within a couple of different answers that the precedent has been set. And that precedent could possibly be used by an unscrupulous (my word) President 5, 20, 50 years from now to justify some actions in response to an entirely different crisis. He was pretty direct about the fact that this Genie was going to be difficult to get back into the bottle.
Most of the questions were very good and his answers were all excellent. They mostly revolved around the topic of the book so I'll let people read the book and his TPM postings for that kind of content.
But I did get a chance afterwards and speak with him on a topic outside the context of the book which dealt with his role as a reporter from the mainstream media. I asked him if he looked at himself as in any unique role as a representative of the media who have taken a critical look at this Administration, along with Knight Ridder/McLatchy, and others. His answer might be a bit surprising to some.
Charlie said he really tries to stay away from being a scold (my word) to his peers. And then he said something that I found very insightful. He said that he didn't move to Washington DC until 2003. He was in Miami and then at Harvard during the 9/11 time period. He noted that his wife and kids weren't in harm's way during that event. He said that he's thought many times about whether his reporting and investigation would have taken on a different flavor had he lived in DC or NY on 9/11. He liked to think that the tone and content wouldn't have been effected in that scenario, but he was honest by saying he couldn't say for sure.
The beltway insiders, to be sure, have failed us in many ways over the last 7 years. But Charlie got me to see things from a little bit different perspective today.
If you get a chance to see Charlie on his book tour, I recommend it. His event page is linked to from the TPM Cafe articles. He's not a professional speaker so don't expect to be bowled over by charisma and jokes and other common speaking ploys. But what he does bring is a keen intellect and a certain passion for his topic. The Q&A is definitely a big part of his presentation, and is very informative. He is honestly curious about what others think and feel on these issues.
I want to conclude by saying that Charlie Savage is a modern American Hero. The humility that I saw in him within this presentation, only confirms his heroic qualities, in my opinion.
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