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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..."
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.