Letters to the Editor
-
what a fool
Dictatorial!!? Keep talking, fella. I love your way with words. Get the McBush message out there loud and clear.
-
Slackers!
Do you ever get the impression that all these guys got C- or lower in all their civics classes from 6th grade on?
-
I doubt this will improve his "communication" apparatus in the first place.
I'm not dismissing the importance of this development. That McCain is pulling in staff from Kristol's bunch, while not unexpected, is no less disturbing or frightening.
However given the sheer number of contradictions, flip-flops, errors, and plain old Bushisms the Senator has made in public thus far, I doubt even a reincarnated W.E.B. Du Bois could help him at this point. I suspect Goldfarb and the rest know this as well, and consequently will resort to plain old mud-slinging in lieu of actual substance.
More's the pity.
-
Moron
These neocons are living proof that if you say absolutely anything with enough conviction quite a few people will buy it and you'll have a successful career.
I wonder how this moron squares the fact that the Constitution requires the congress to declare war with his "near dictatorial" outlook?
-
At the risk of pointing out the obvious:
"o no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security."
That's true. Only congress has the power to declare war - At least, that's what I always thought.
Also, Glenn: In your second sentence, you start with "Last April", but then talk about a conversation "yesterday" - A little confusing from a timeline perspective.
-
What did those pesky Founders do again?
Just add this one to the list that contains the "this nation was founded in Christianity" myth.
-
Compare:
True enough, but they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war. So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security
Vs...
The Congress shall have Power To
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress;
So apparently someone is lying and I don't suspect that it's the Constitution.
-
Next year?
Oh, I imagine next year they will find many reasons to abandon their interpretation of the near dictatorial power of the president.
"What? We never said such a thing."
-
Founders?
It would be a better world if everyone, on all sides, would cut the veneration of the Founders.
Their French allies won the Revolutionary War for them
and after that they set up a system designed to keep the vast majority of the population from being able to vote and concocted various schemes to protect slavery.
A
-
Be careful what you ask for
I will bleach my computer later, but I went to the Goldfarb article and clicked on his link about endowing the President with "near dictatorial" power. The link is to Federalist Number 70. Here is what I think may be the key passage:
But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds to censure and to punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where there are a number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable. "I was overruled by my council. The council were so divided in their opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on the point.'' These and similar pretexts are constantly at hand, whether true or false.
Link: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed70.htm
With all the clamoring for Bush to be dictator, how many of the neocons have been willing to have him step up and take responsibility for the evils he has unleashed on the world? One could make the argument that Weekly Standard exists only to first suggest and then cheer on and then completely disavow every mistake Bush has made. In that regard, what better choice to be involved in a McCain Administration than Goldfarb? Goldfarb can regurgitate his vile mix directly to McCain without our ever having to see it first.
-
Glenn your criticism is a bit off ...
Yes, using the word "dictatorial" is dumb rhetoric, but he has a good point. The executive branch is given the vast majority of power when it comes to foreign policy. The legislature gets to declare war, approve treaties and provide funding and that's about it.
Since the US doesn't declare war anymore, regardless of how dire the conflict is, and it rarely starves the military of funding, regardless of how dire the conflict is, the legislature has almost no direct impact on foreign policy in the US any longer.
On the more general topic of "national security," I do think the legislature has more impact because there they can actually bring their power of the purse to bear to a goodly extent to affect executive priorities (e.g. - implementing 9/11 recommendations, etc.).