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Discovering The Imperial Presidency

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein writes a peculiar column in the WaPo today in which he seems surprised that the President of the United States is considered the leader of his political party. Ezra writes:

The White House health-care summit on Thursday is supposed to mark a return to politics as it should be practiced -- the president leading the legislative process, the two parties talking things out, bipartisanship flowering, order restored.

For months, members of Congress have complained that the president should take a more active role in the health-care reform process. But the president of the United States is not, as we sometimes seem to think, the president of the United States Congress. He can sign or veto a bill, but that's about it. The president's powers within the legislative process -- as opposed to after its completion -- are unofficial and informal. He can give a speech or invite congressional leaders to the White House for a chat, but he has no firm control over the proceedings. Legislating is the legislature's job.

(Emphasis supplied.) How very quaint. Perhaps that vision would be a better one, but it has been a long time since such has been the case. This is has always been the silliest of defenses from the Village Dems for the Obama Administration -- the proclaiming of its legislative irrelevancy. More . .

Of course, it is also hypocritical - as the Village Dems also insist that Congress enact the "Obama Agenda." If I read Klein correctly, there should not be an Obama Agenda, that it is for the Congress to have an agenda. I am pretty sure he does not believe it. so why write it? Perhaps Ezra will explain.

One of the more amusing passages in Klein's column is his idea that Presidential meddling exacerbates unseemly partisanship:

[W]hy is there so much partisanship and so little progress? At least in part, we can blame the president. According to data gathered by University of Maryland political scientist Frances Lee, when the president -- and not just this particular president, but any president -- takes a public position on an issue, the chances of a party-line vote on the matter skyrocket.

Oh for crissakes. Of course when the President takes a public position on an issue it creates more partisanship. That is precisely why a President will do so, to instill discipline in his OWN party; so that HIS position becomes the Party position. does this REALLY need explaining?

For better or worse, the legislative agenda taken up by this Congress was the agenda Obama requested. Does anyone really think they would have decided to work on health care? Why in Gawd's name does Ezra think that health care comes up on the Congressional agenda meaningfully in the first place? It is because a President decides it is also HIS agenda. Unless and until a President decides he wants to take on health care, it sits idly as an issue in Congress, with bills perfunctorily proposed and unmoved.

Obviously this is elementary stuff for most of us, but apparently not so much for Village Dems. Beyond being blind to the obvious, they should of course be familiar with the idea of the Imperial Presidency. Ironically, in a NYTimes Op-Ed piece upon the installation by the Supreme Court of George W. Bush to the Presidency in December 2000, "Presidential" historian (whatever that means) described the rise of the Imperial Presidency (and also the end of the Imperial Presidency -- how'd that work out?). Beschloss wrote:

The grand age of presidential power began in the 1930's with Franklin Roosevelt and started to decline in the early 1970's with Richard Nixon. Although presidential power has been slipping for some time, whoever was elected the 43rd president would have been the first leader to govern fully out of the wake of the imperial age. George W. Bush's ability to navigate this new era could determine the success of his presidency.

The founders never intended to have an imperial president. Always worried about tyranny, they drafted a Constitution that gives a president limited authority and forces him to use his political skills to fight for influence as he squeezes laws out of Congress and prods the American people to think in new ways.

The age that brought us robust presidential authority in place of the arrangement envisioned by the founders was born of domestic crisis. The failure of Herbert Hoover and Congress to shake the Great Depression encouraged Americans to demand that Roosevelt assume unprecedented influence over economic and social affairs. The New Deal's relative success led to a national consensus for centralizing power, and as power flowed to Washington, the executive branch swelled. Before Bill Clinton proclaimed it dead in 1996, the era of big government was a boom time for presidential authority.

(Emphasis supplied.) "The failure of Herbert Hoover and Congress to shake the Great Depression encouraged Americans to demand that Roosevelt assume unprecedented influence over economic and social affairs." Apparently, for Village Dems, similar failure encourages arguing for a pre-FDR Presidency.

This is all nonsense of course. They do not want a "pre-FDR" Presidency. They know the power of the Presidency. Instead, they want a climate where THIS President and his Administration are insulated from blame, while the credit redounds to it (how many times have they recounted how every PRESIDENT since Truman has failed on health care. How come they do not write that every Congress since 1948 has failed?) It is cynical, disingenuous and ultimately absurd.

No one buys it, least of all the electorate. It has been absurd since this whole line of thinking was first offered up last summer by the Village Dems. Now it has reached the pathetic stage.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 21, 2010 (boomark / email).