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US Presidents on Presidential Power
Tod Landis writes "Responding to George Bush's statement that he will preserve executive power for his "predecessors", I've assembled a
collection of quotes from those predecessors. Most saw executive power differently..."
Poetateoe
politics.slashdot.org = Bush Bashing?
Smooth.
What, has slashdot become so anti-Bush that we're taking plain text documents written by the submitter as "news" in the politics section now?
While I admit this is a good resource, the predecessor mistake was *YEARS* ago- this is hardly new or any more relevant than yet another "Bush is an idiot" post. Those of us who care about intelligence in a president already know Bush is an idiot- those who don't care just like the fact that they've got a president with the same intelligence and learning disabilities that they have. This issue isn't going to change anybody's vote one way or the other.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm no fan of the Dub, but any collection of quotes can easily manipulated to suit your viewpoint via selection bias. It would be better to examine the actions previous presidents took with regard to defending the presidential "turf."
Ceci n'est pas un post.
Woodrow Wilson said he wouldn't send troops to Russia? Then WHY DID HE INVADE SIBERIA?
Put some context in with those quotes, you leftist.
And was the Afghani war (US invasion, not the soviet one) authorized by congress?
These quotes seem to suggest it's unconstitutional for anyone other than Congress to declare war.
Congress still has (and did have) the right to declare war, and they turned it over to Bush to use at his disposal. (In theory, at least, I don't think he actually declared anything.)
Why not a collection of quotes about how Congresspeople are lemmings?
gears? we don't need no stinking gears.
Can someone please provide context for that quote by Bush?
I can only find quotes of that individual sentence. I can't even tell what executive powers he says he's preserving, so, as a raving liberal, I can't even tell why this quote means I should hate Bush.
What executive powers?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
WTF?
I'm sitting here with a book on my desk call "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents" by Richard E. Neustadt. Perhaps you should read it. It's very easy to pick & choose random quotes & show an agreement that's really not there. Give me a few minutes & I could create a list of quotes that shows that Bush has a very conservative view of President Power.
In case you're seriously interested, a few other good books are
"The Paradox of the American Presidency" by Thomas E. Cronin
and
"The Ferocious Engine of Democracy" (2 volumes) by Michael P. Riccards.
Truman had major runins concerning the Korean war. He wanted to preserve exactly the same thing as Bush. Does it make it right? Probably not. Is it OT for slashdot? Definitely.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Is the the Politics section of /. or the Kerry cheering section? I thought that the editors said they would have a balanced selection of stories in this section?
/.? I wish they would hurry up and close the pending sale.
WTF has happened to
Doesn't CmdrTaco have a personal blog somewhere to bash Bush instead of doing so on what was once a good news site?
Not only are the quotes out of context, but they are used in error. Furthermore, congress hasn't declared war since WWII, so it's hard to pretend that Bush doesn't have any precedent if he did go in without approval. Of course, there was approval so this whole "news story" is a farce. Way to go and pull a Dan Rather. At least he finally had to apologize.
Can we mod an entire article as -1 flamebait? Please? And I don't even like the shrub....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Notice that there are no quotes that occurred in the last 30 years. I'm pretty sure that when Bush refers to his predecessors, he's thinking more of Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter, not Washington/Adams/Jefferson.
This article has nothing to do with "executive power".
The President has the power to write "Executive Orders". These were meant to be used as quick action rules to act on certain situations before congress and the Senate could debate and decide on a proper strategy (because committees are slow).
Congress has been trying to restrict those abilities and THAT'S what Bush is defending.
WAR POWERS (which W is NOT talking about in his quote) are a still hotly debated topic. Executive Orders can be used to facilitate combat (as has been done with Iraq) but the President has combat powers above and beyond the Executive Orders so restricting those doesn't necessarily stop the other.
Bush is not the first to have done this. Clinton did it with Bosnia, Bush Sr. did it with Panama, Reagan did it with Grenada, etc;
The whole power structure of wars, waging wars, military action, etc is still a hotly debated topic in congress and this article does no justice in bringing out the real issues.
Oh, well. At least the color scheme here doesn't make you blind.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It would be nice to see the context of each quote.
For my part, I simply added the following grain of salt: Consider that when quoted perhaps the president in question was actively trying to avoid making a decision on going war.
It then becomes a way to avoid getting the president involved in a discussion which he does not wish to comment on.
I see little value in this list of quotes. Did the "researcher" also look into the opposite view from those same presidents? While it's nice to have a little taste of each, did the researcher fully consider all the views of the president, or are they letting their users assume that this sound byte represents each president's complete perspective on executive power?
-Adam
And I have gone to the trouble of examining each quote only to find it misapplied.
You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
"You mean that Bush should have ... gotten congressional authority before he went to war? You mean ... like he did in Iraq and Afg
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
authorized Bush to go after Iraq. He did not make the choice on his own. The House of Representatives voted 296-133 in favor and the Senate voted 77-23 in favor. How was this a unilateral decision on Bush's part?
/.
More Bush Bashing on
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
The quotes above were culled from an appendix to War Powers of the President and Congress, by W. Taylor Reveley III. Finally, here is what Richard Nixon had to say, in a David Frost interview taped in 1977:
"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal"
Richard Nixon, The Experts Speak, p. 80.
Before 1950, no President or member of Congress believed that the executive branch could wage war without debate in Congress, when such debate was possible.
Not only is your accusation - using quotes out of context - not what Rather was accused of; not only does it have nothing to do with what Rather was accused of; not only is it presented in a completely different context (nat'l news vs. personal website), your accusation is superfluous, because of what the author of the page put at the bottom: he points out himself that the line was blurred after 1950. Finally, there wasn't approval of any of Bush II's wars, as congress simply gave him the right to go to war. Which is the frickin' problem in the first place.
Has anybody managed to get Slashdot politics articles off their customized front page? The prefs don't work in my case.
Despite my consummate dislike for Bush (Sr, Jr, whatever), I don't read the same "Bushism" into his statement. You have to consider that Presidents, whether in power or out of power, have quite a lot of executive protection that extends well past their term(s) in office. I suggest that perhaps Bush was simply stating that he intended to protect these extended post-term executive powers. This is actually a fairly common statement, since the current president would want the same treatment once he/she is no longer in office.
OK, in the case of Bush Jr, Congress gave him the power to wage war in Iraq. Here are some examples of "war" that wasn't declared by Congress.
Eisenghower - Korea
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon - Vietnam
Reagan - Greneda
Clinton - Bosnia
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
That movie is hilarious. Vote for Will Ferrell. He's smarter than that guy that looks like him but can't speak as well and isn't funny, except unintentionally.
It isn't bashing if even God is against Bush.
I am getting quite tired of the baseless claims that people are making. We complain and complain because of the poison that is in politics. Well, let's get our act together and fix it.
Starting right now, let's all be a lot more civil.
Despite our political differences, we are all countrymen, in the national sense and in the sense that we all live in this world. We should respect each other and never ever attack someone's character. Let their actions speak for their character. People will be smart enough to judge for themselves. This includes everyone from John Kerry to George Bush to Saddam Hussein down to everybody in this forum.
We are all able to share our opinions. When we do, let's be clear by prefacing such statements with "I believe" or "I think" or "My opinion is". Let's never ever try to represent opinion as fact.
When we do discuss fact and logic, let's be very careful to get things right the first time. Quote your sources accurately.
The way you attack factual and logical arguments is by attacking the individual claims. For instance, if I claimed that Sadr City is now peaceful, you would attack that claim by showing me reports that it is not. You wouldn't attack that claim by calling me a liar.
If you want to end the poison in politics, you end it with yourself first. Here are my points again.
1. NEVER attack a person or their character.
2. ALWAYS preface your opinions with "It is my opinion that..." or "I feel that...".
3. ALWAYS support claims of fact with evidence, and always quote that evidence accurately. Show your logic in clear steps.
4. ALWAYS attack the claims and the logical steps people make with more or contrary evidence.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The word is "Successors", right? He wanted to preserve them for his successors.
There must be some kind of bi-partisan time-travel scheeme at work here. Or maybe that episode from Futurama with Nixon's head is becomming reality. That would be so cool! Go mechs!
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
You might start by reading Declaration of War over at wikipedia. It's far more informed than your little diatribe. Editors: this is not news, this is nonsense!
Granted, far more interesting news on the warmongering front can be found here, and I quote:
"...the Prime Minister faced yet more unwelcome news over the weekend. Confidential Foreign Office documents were leaked to a London-based newspaper confirming once and for all that Mr Blair invaded Iraq, not, as he has repeatedly claimed, because he believed Saddam Hussein had WMDs, but because both he and George Bush wanted regime change. The papers also confirm that Mr Blair knew invasion for regime change was illegal under international law, and that he realised the only way of getting a sceptical British public and Parliament to back Bush's war was by mounting a case that Saddam was a threat to the world."
Hey everyone,
OK, Bush has proven that he should never have had the job. Tax cuts to the richest 1% of the country while creating the biggest deficit in USA history is just one of the many counterdictions that make him a Republican Party Muppet.
BUT...
This article(?) is quite skewed. W did have Congressional approval when we hit Iraq.
Let's all remember why Liberals consider themselves free-thinkers. It is because THEY THINK FOR THEMSELVES! This only makes Dems/Libs look just a much like followers as the Reps/Cons. Please don't put any more side-hosed aticles up for discussion, when the article itself has flawed logic. This only hurts the Kerry Campaign.
PS - I am a card-carrying Lib, and I hate "Farenheit 9/11" for the same reason.
"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority." - Dr. Who
so I can't really get upset about what you post on it. But I can offer you this middle-finger. You can have the other one when/if Kerry is elected and we surrender to Canada.
796F75617265616E65726400
One Russian boomer off the coast of New York can render the eastern seaboard uninhabitible in five minutes. Waiting around for congress to vote to declare war would get us all killed.
There's a good reason the power has shifted over time.
The source code is free, right?
Someone should use it to create a politically right tech news site.
Wait, forget politically right. I'd just be happy with a site that was neutral.
Okay, so there's a bunch of quotes from previous United States Presidents about how the president can only send troops to war if Congress has approved such military action.
Exactly as they did in the case of Iraq.
As one Senator in particular put it, in a September 2002 New York times op-ed, "If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement... even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act."
On October 11, that Senator voted to authorize military action in Iraq. A majority of his colleagues on Capitol Hill did likewise, and Congress passed the measure authorizing Bush to use military force in Iraq. The Constitutional process was followed, just as the elder statesmen in the article would have had it.
As for the Senator quoted above, he later began to wildly flip-flop on the issue, and several others, in an attempt to stake out political ground for a Presidential bid. His name is John Kerry.
The original Bush quote had nothing to do with the war in Iraq. By juxtaposing it with the quotes in the article the submitter is attempting to imply Bush's specific quote is both tyrannical and completely at odds with his predecessors. In reality, his quote demonstrates his appreciation of the authority of past presidents and his acceptance of the accepted precedences. Taking one of Bush's quotes out of context and submitting it as "news" in an attempt to discredit him further ranks right next to CBS using faked documents.
I'd like to mod
Let's all remember why Liberals consider themselves free-thinkers. It is because THEY THINK FOR THEMSELVES!
-1, Unsubstantiated Groupthink.
Did i accidentaly type cbs.slashdot.org instead of politics.slashdot.org?
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for the redistribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican and she expressed that feeling openly.
One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs such as his opposition to placing higher taxes on the rich and creating more welfare programs. In the middle of her heartfelt diatribe, based on the lectures given by far left professors at her school, he stopped her and asked her point blank - how she was doing in school?
She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know it was tough to maintain. She had to study all the time and never had time to go out to party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying. Also, she was taking a more difficult curriculum than most students.
Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Mary."
She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "She barely has a 2.0 GPA and all she takes are easy classes. Plus, she never studies."
To explain further, she continued emotionally - "But Mary is so very popular on campus. College for her is a blast; she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over."
Her father then asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0." He continued, "That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."
The daughter, visibly shocked by the father's suggestion, angrily fired back - "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine. I did without and Mary has done little or nothing; she played while I worked real hard!"
The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
ALWAYS preface your opinions with "It is my opinion that..." or "I feel that...".
Not "I feel that...". Rather, "I think that". Opinions are not feelings. Emotions are feelings. People say "I feel that..." when they know their opinions are on shaky ground, because people don't have to justify "feelings". You're entitled to feel however you want to about something and there's no wrong way to "feel". But thoughts and opinions can be disputed and shown to be wrong, so people try to let their thoughts off the hook, and make them not subject to dispute, by calling them "feelings". It's a cop-out. You can say "I feel happy", or "I feel angry", but if you start off saying "I feel that", chances are that you're trying to disguise your belief as an impugnable feeling.
Sorry but you seem to be wrong. I site just about every post on the Slashdot 'Political' subsite. Very liberal, and very stupid.
We need to re-instate congress into the war approval process. The reason the executive branch has been able to use this power since WWII is because no president has been punished for its abuse. I'm not saying that we should punish this president for going into war, as we had plenty of precident to use force without a declaration of war, but perhaps this country needs to look into stiffer punishments for presidents who use force without declarations of war.
"As if it wasn't obvious what decision he was going to make..."
Big time. Anyone with any brains whatsoever could see what Bush had planned. And how his administration used politics to get most people to support it.
"Moreover, even if we accept Kerry's argument that it came as a surprise to him that Bush would use any excuse to invade Iraq, it seems rather dishonest to vote to give the President blanket authority to declare war and then complain when that decision is made."
Pretty much. I think Kerry is way off on this one. But he doesn't know any other way to be against the current mess without contradicting his original vote.
"The truth is that Kerry, like virtually every other Democrat, was afraid of being labelled "unpatriotic" and "weak on defense" and so took the politically safe position."
Yup.
"Why don't we debate that, instead?"
Not as much interest. Not as much emotion. Not as much flamage.
"Why not talk about how we use patriotism as a political weapon?"
I think that would be a good topic. The first step would be to define "patriotism" (as opposed to "nationalism"). Too many of those words have been stolen by the politicians and re-assigned meanings.
"Why not talk about how that, more than anything Bush has done, needs to change if we're going to have a healthy democracy?"
Yup. But polarization is SOOOOO much more entertaining. That's why you only see the freaks on the news.
"The issue is not so much that Bush led us into a quagmire, it's that we and our elected representatives allowed him to lead us there."
Allowed.
Supported!
Endorsed.
And failed to consider any other options.
But they won't care. It isn't like our politicians are the ones who will die over there. Dead Iraqis won't be voting in our election.
Personally, I don't believe that anyone who voted for the war even CARES if people die in it or how big of a mess it becomes. They just like to PRETEND they care for the media. It's all about being tougher and getting the most votes.
We really need to overhaul our voting system and get a third party in.
People tend to have emotional reactions FIRST and then their brains kick in and try to paint it as "logical" by rationalizing it.
Not to mention that most people pick up their political views the same place (and the same way) they pick up their religion. At home.
So when you disagree with someone's political position, you are attacking his place in the world and everything he's been taught is good and right and holy.
That's why attack ads are so popular. They WORK and they work WELL. They play to the fundamental building blocks of politics: fear, unknown, different.
Nothing, and I do mean _nothing_, the president of the united states can do in five minutes will make the slightest difference in the "war on terror".
Au Contraire Monfrer! Our glorious leader spent the five minutes after he learned we were under attack reading "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren. The teacher has gone on record as saying he made the right decision to continue reading, because if he had jumped into action right then and there, the children might have been scared! All you cheese eating surrender monkeys just wish you had strong, steady leadership like that.
Of course not. Bush and Cheney knew exactly what they wanted, and they wouldn't accept any CIA report that didn't agree with their presuppositions. That isn't leading, that is managing a lie.
When you lie to someone, you take their liberty by preventing them from acting on accurate information.
Decieving Congress on war matters is a serious felony. By trying to claim that an authorization gained under false pretenses is an actual authorization, you are not only aiding and abbetting the felons, you are also undermining your own reputation, the reputation of your family, your church, your employer, and your party.
When you are given your heavenly rewards, I pray that God reminds you in full omniscient detal of all the birth defects and cancers which would not have occured if those convicted drunk drivers had not obtained the authorization of force that they had to lie to obtain. Here's a preview.
You're right that we can debate the wisdom of the vote, and that, dear Pudge, is most certainly on topic.
If I hire Dick Cheney to tell you and 74 of your friends that some person is going to bomb Washington with anthrax drones that don't acutally exist, aluminum centrifuge tubes that don't actually exist, and yellowcake from Nigeria that doesn't actually exist, and you all vote to bomb that person first, does that mean you authorized it?
Of course not. Bush and Cheney knew exactly what they wanted, and they wouldn't accept any CIA report that didn't agree with their presuppositions. That isn't leading, that is managing a lie.
When you lie to someone, you take their liberty by preventing them from acting on accurate information.
Deceiving Congress on war matters is a serious felony. By trying to claim that an authorization gained under false pretenses is an actual authorization, you are not only aiding and abbetting the felons, you are also undermining your own reputation, the reputation of your family, your church, your employer, and your party.
When you are given your heavenly rewards, I pray that God reminds you in full omniscient detail of all the birth defects and cancers which would not have occured if those convicted drunk drivers had not obtained the authorization of force that they had to lie to obtain. Here's a preview.
Thanks for posting that. From the article text, I assumed that Bush was mixing up 'predecessors' and 'successors'. But what he was saying actually makes perfect sense in context. And it's even a fairly commendable sentiment.
Riiiiight. Because taking action to enforce U.N. resolutions was not a good enough reason for Bush and Blair. No, they needed a better reason.
Puhleeeze. Your tinfoil hat needs some tweaking.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
George Bush got Congressional approval for both Afganistan and Iraq.
"Excuse me, kids, I have to go to the bathroom really bad, all of the sudden. Bill, one of my Secret Service guys, will finish reading the book to you, and I'll be back in a few minutes."
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
When the president is a jackass, pinning the tail on that donkey is not partisanship, it's the truth. We're not required to spin your moron into a semblance of competence. Maybe it's time you listened to some of your fellow Americans (and global geeks) who are telling you that Bush is a fool.
--
make install -not war
Bush is the classic fratboy. Every movie since the 1960s with nerds in college has featured the fratboys in power as the enemy: stupid, scheming, privileged, and losers in the end. But on the small screen, Bush is their hero. Hollywood, why hast thou forsaken us?
--
make install -not war
Well I could post a whole line of comlaints and gripes, but they all have been said and debated, but what still is left is why in the heck should the congress give themselves a pay raise even when they get "contributions" from lobbiests to vote a certain way. With all the money given out congress shouldn't even use our tax money to pay themselves.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
I don't know if you remember or not, but during the time when the war was still being debated the Bush administration made it quite clear that they were willing to go to war with Iraq without Congressional approval. They received such approval largely for political reasons, not because of any communicated belief in the constitutional process. I am particularly struck by this when comparing it against Eisenhower's quote:
"There is going to be no involvement of America in war unless it is a result of the constitutional process that is placed upon Congress to declare it. Now, let's have that clear."
Eisenhower wanted a formal declaration, something that this Congress did not, in fact, give, nor did Bush ask for it.
For what it's worth, I think Eisenhower was the last good Republican president.
Uh- Eisenhower didn't get it either- that's why he sent in "trainers" and "observers" to Vietnam.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.