Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush
I’ve been caught out reading conservatives again. I always think it’s noteworthy when there’s widespread agreement between the ideological left and the ideological right in criticizing a policy or a politician. Somehow I ended up at the Cato Instutite website and spied Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush, an anti-Bush screed by Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch, know primarily for their anti-Clinton screeds. Anyway, their white paper makes for an interesting read. Nothing new, but it is a concise analysis of Bush’s presidency ranging from signing the McCain-Feingold legislation to harrassing non-violent protesters (both action the authors see as attacks on First Ammendment rights) and contrasting this with Jefferson pardoning persons convicted by the Supreme Court under the Sedition Act, saying that in Jefferson’s opinion, the judiciary had trammeled the First Ammendment rights of the convicted. They also discuss the administration’s torture memos, expanded authority to arrest and more. The paper is littered with pearls like:
Under this sweeping theory of executive power, the liberty of
every American rests on nothing more than the grace of the White House.78
Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power.
Anyway, it’s worth a read.
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