The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Congress and the Assault on the Executive Branch
They want you to think that this is about President Bush; it isn't--this is about Congressional leaders in the Democrat party looking for ways that the Legislative Branch of the Government can emasculate the Executive Branch and the Presidency. This is a practice that started in the Lyndon Johnson/Richard Nixon era, resulting in things like the War Powers Act, the FISA laws, and a runaway Supreme Court's decision in the Watergate matter that a President did not "necessarily" have the right to keep audio tapes of his private conversations private. Even knowing the outcome of the Watergate investigation, it is arguable from what I know about the Constitution--having read it, studied it, and having read every page of The Federalist Papers--that that fateful decision that the court handed down far overreached the Court's authority. The court ruled that--under certain (undefined) circumstances--the public is entitled to any and all of the President's private conversations with his advisors.
Even so, no Legislative act is likely to accomplish what the Democrats in Congress want. So their current course of action in their "Investigation" is to go to Court and to use the power of Congressional subpoena in order to force the Executive Branch to put his own personal attorney and his principal advisors to testify in a "perjury witch hunt" akin to that which was used against Scooter Libby. To ask a Federal Judge for this kind of power over an entire Branch of Government (yes, the President IS the Executive Branch)--simply because of unsubstantiated politically-motivated "suspicions" play well with the Democrats' Red Meat loving base--is to have reached the point where Congress is openly and blatantly taking advantage of an unpopular War and unpopular President in a naked attempt to steal Constitutionally-granted powers away from that President. This cuts to the very core of Constitutional authority and the Separation of Powers.
Here is the bottom line: if a President of the United States does not have the right to confidential discussions with his own private Lawyer (e.g. Harriet Meirs), his Attorney General, or any other member of his Cabinet--if he cannot seek advice and counsel without every conversation being subject to subpoena--then how can he possibly function properly or effectively? This is more than a power grab: this is very, very dangerous. Even criminal felons in the US are afforded a non-negotiable the right to private conversations with their counsel which is not subject to a subpoena in court; so you are telling me that the Democratic Congress is to going to go before a Federal Judge and assert that the President of the most powerful nation on Earth is not entitled to his own counsel?
Using a reductionist question, if the Court (a Branch of government) has authority over the President (another Branch), who then has the right to the Court's private deliberations?
Even so, no Legislative act is likely to accomplish what the Democrats in Congress want. So their current course of action in their "Investigation" is to go to Court and to use the power of Congressional subpoena in order to force the Executive Branch to put his own personal attorney and his principal advisors to testify in a "perjury witch hunt" akin to that which was used against Scooter Libby. To ask a Federal Judge for this kind of power over an entire Branch of Government (yes, the President IS the Executive Branch)--simply because of unsubstantiated politically-motivated "suspicions" play well with the Democrats' Red Meat loving base--is to have reached the point where Congress is openly and blatantly taking advantage of an unpopular War and unpopular President in a naked attempt to steal Constitutionally-granted powers away from that President. This cuts to the very core of Constitutional authority and the Separation of Powers.
Here is the bottom line: if a President of the United States does not have the right to confidential discussions with his own private Lawyer (e.g. Harriet Meirs), his Attorney General, or any other member of his Cabinet--if he cannot seek advice and counsel without every conversation being subject to subpoena--then how can he possibly function properly or effectively? This is more than a power grab: this is very, very dangerous. Even criminal felons in the US are afforded a non-negotiable the right to private conversations with their counsel which is not subject to a subpoena in court; so you are telling me that the Democratic Congress is to going to go before a Federal Judge and assert that the President of the most powerful nation on Earth is not entitled to his own counsel?
Using a reductionist question, if the Court (a Branch of government) has authority over the President (another Branch), who then has the right to the Court's private deliberations?
Labels: Congress, Executive Branch, Executive Privalege, President Bush
