Memory Lane

As we await tonight's speech, here are a couple other Presidential moments that Obama would do well to emulate.

Bill Clinton Address On Health Care Reform, September 1993.

Though eventually the reform failed, this speech was so successful that Clinton's approval ratings soared. If it had come near the end of the debate, as Obama's will, instead of right at the beginning, maybe Clintoncare would have had a chance. He put the choice on health care in very moral terms, challenging the Congress to get it done. And he framed the concept of health care as a choice for security - the peace of mind knowing that you will not go broke if you or a member of your family gets sick, and you will be able to find the care you need at an affordable cost. This is some great rhetoric:

And now it is our turn to strike a blow for freedom in this country, the freedom of Americans to live without fear that their own Nation's health care system won't be there for them when they need it. It's hard to believe that there was once a time in this century when that kind of fear gripped old age, when retirement was nearly synonymous with poverty and older Americans died in the street. That's unthinkable today, because over a half a century ago Americans had the courage to change, to create a Social Security System that ensures that no Americans will be forgotten in their later years.

Forty years from now, our grandchildren will also find it unthinkable that there was a time in this country when hardworking families lost their homes, their savings, their businesses, lost everything simply because their children got sick or because they had to change jobs. Our grandchildren will find such things unthinkable tomorrow if we have the courage to change today.

This is our chance. This is our journey. And when our work is done, we will know that we have answered the call of history and met the challenge of our time.

Then there's this speech: Lyndon Johnson's Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise, March 1965.

This came at the beginning of Johnson's first full term, and he started with "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy." Faced with a southern flank that wanted no part of civil rights, Johnson spoke eloquently about the need to solve "an American problem" with honesty and respect for individual rights. It's an amazing speech:

The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.

For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans-we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal"--"government by consent of the governed"--"give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.

To apply any other test--to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth--is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.

These two knew how to put their opponents up against a rhetorical wall. I hope we see some of that tonight.

Alternatively, Obama could just crib from Robert Reich on the public option. 2:30 of brilliance.

Change Has Come

Barack Obama is now our nation's 44th President. More important from my perspective is that George W. Bush is our nation's 43rd ex-President. You could feel that in the crowd, from the NAA-NAA-HEY-HEY-GOODBYE to the burst of exultation after the swearing-in (which John Roberts mangled and the new President stumbled through a little nervously, and wouldn't you be?):



Waiting for the first wingnut post alleging that because Obama didn't say the oath exactly as it is written in the Constitution, he is NOT OFFICIALLY PRESIDENT!!!1!

Still some kinks to be ironed out. The White House's email signup page is broken right now as well. And their RSS feed really should not be partial. But this feels very different. Mainly because of the miscreants that have to scurry out the back door.

America can exhale.

Oh, and Dick Cheney can now get back to closing the Bailey Savings & Loan.

This Incredible Moment

I don't want to rush past this moment too quickly. Today Barack Obama became the first African American nominee of a major party in history. That is a tremendous accomplishment that I honestly wasn't sure I'd see in my lifetime. I talked to some California electeds about the meaning of this moment.

Steve Westly jumped aboard with Obama early. He told me that he decided to support him in 2006 when he saw Obama appear at a rally in 2006 for Phil Angelides. All that year prospective Presidential candidates were coming through the state to campaign. John Kerry got maybe 100 people to events. Hillary Clinton got 300 or 400. Barack Obama had practically the entire USC campus out on the Quad that day. And Westly saw that this was something special, the kind of moment that you saw with the Kennedys.

My seatmate Debra tells me that this whole election cycle has almost been beyond belief. These are things that she never thoght she would see. "I was a girl who wasn't allowed to take a drafting class in high school. The world has changed."

Kamala Harris has her own story. She was the first African-American district attorney in the history of San Francisco. In a speech for the new majority PAC Vote Hope, she spoke on this, and the fact that Obama's nomination represents a hope for every person of color in America.

Let's stop and reflect on this for a second. An African American nominee. Of our party. The party of inclusion. The party of all Americans.

Looking The Part

It's amazing that all it takes for the media to swoon over John McCain is for him to huff and puff while Russia goes ahead and does whatever it wants anyway.

For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”

First - Honolulu is a major city, and not secluded in any way. Second, McCain has "displayed" his foreign policy credentials in ways that are ignorant:

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

Presumptuous:

Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president.

Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: "If I may be so bold, there was another president . . ."

He caught himself and started again: "At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America's advocacy for democracy and freedom."

And thuddingly stupid, not to mention dangerous, involving himself in a foreign conflict where one of his staffers is a registered lobbyist for one side, talking to the Georgian President several times a day, which obviously sends mixed messages, and advocating what amounts to war with nuclear-armed Russia.

But none of that, of course, matters. I understand fully the optics of this. Whether McCain is cynically using the conflict to make himself look Presidential or not, the contrast between the two candidates when you have the sound off is pretty glaring. If Obama comes back tomorrow at the Saddleback Church event in Orange County (the first joint event of the campaign) and looks the part a little bit then this could blow over. However, there is a contrast here that the right will be sure to exploit. And it certainly gives reporters the shakes to see bravely bold McCain strongly calling for the mass deaths of their sons and daughters. That makes him "serious."

An Historical And Cultural Perspective To This Election

I want to share something that hit me today in the midst of my July 4th. It's not particularly profound or revelatory but I think it is, however flawed, important - an important lesson about how we are witnessing something truly different in this country this election year.

Have you ever tried to recite the names of the Presidents in order? Somehow I've managed to shoehorn that into my brain. After reading a little Presidential puzzler that came in my morning LA Times, I decided to run through the list again.

George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
James Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland (first term)
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland (second term)
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush

Not that this is a criterion for much of anything, but I look at that list of names, and consider someone named Barack Obama in there, and there's a certain twinge of pride. To have all those white Protestant men and this other name, and face, brushed up against them, is almost shocking. There's barely a whiff of ethnicity in that last - Van Buren and Roosevelt are Dutch, at least, and a few are Irish. If you want to graphically understand one of the differences that we could see in this election, read that list aloud and say "Barack Obama" afterwards. It's quite jarring.

I think policy matters, and direction for the country matters, and to put 43 Presidents on one side and this man on the other doesn't make a lot of sense. But there's another side, a side of imagery suggested by heritage, the cultural wallpaper, if you will, that says "yes, this really is a sea change, this really is a revolution of sorts." I think that will have an undeniable effect nationally and globally. On the policy side it's up to us and engaged citizens like us to never let up with pressure and move this candidate in the right direction. On the imagery side, if you stop and think, there really is a marvel to this, a small miracle, something so unexpected and brave. There's a significance to it. I don't know if I can put it totally into words. But read that list and you may find it as well.

Happy 4th.

UPDATE: On the flip side.

Seriously, He's Setting The Bar of "Worst President" Way Out Of Reach

Dana Milbank turns his eye to the most powerful man in the world, who's wrapping up his reverse-Joe-DiMaggio-56-game-hitting-streak of a Presidency:

7:13 a.m.: The South Lawn. President Bush, determined to dispel doubts about his relevance, grants an early-morning interview to Robin Roberts of ABC News's "Good Morning America." Joined by the first lady, he fields hard-hitting questions about . . . the White House grounds. "It's a beautiful place," the president discloses. "In the spring, the flowers are fantastic. In the fall, the -- it's just such a -- kind of a place that's so fresh. In the winter, of course, it's got a lot of snow. [Laughter.] Summer is real hot, but it's -- we love it out here. It's beautiful."

7:58 a.m.: By e-mail, the White House Communications Office sends out its "Morning Update." It lists two events on Bush's schedule for the entire day: a "Social Dinner in Honor of Cinco de Mayo" and, an hour later, post-dinner entertainment. To react to the main news of the day -- thousands of deaths from the cyclone in Burma -- Bush sends his wife out to make a statement. She criticizes the Burmese government for its failure "to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm's path" and "to meet its people's basic needs." Reporters, too tactful to draw parallels to New Orleans, quiz her instead about daughter Jenna's wedding, and the names of future grandchildren. "George and Georgia, Georgina, Georgette," the first lady says.

12:39 p.m.: The White House Briefing Room. On the podium, the understudy to the understudy to the substitute to the understudy to Bush's first White House press secretary is giving a sparsely attended briefing on what he knows about Burma blocking relief efforts ("I am not aware of that report"), about the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to a Burmese dissident ("no announcements at this point"), and about word that the Saudi crown prince is dying ("I have not seen those reports"). The news of the day thus dispensed with, the questioning turns to why West Point allows its graduates to play pro football immediately but the Naval Academy does not.

Meanwhile the country is veering toward despondency, with small towns literally falling off the map due to failed conservative policies.

"I don't know what to tell you about Muncie, but it's a dying town," says Ron Cantrell, working the cash register of a dusty liquor store on the south side of town, where things are bleakest. "It's almost dead. It's like a cockroach lying there with its legs in the air."

Cantrell, 51, says he'll be voting Democratic this election. He's not sure for whom yet, but Democratic for sure. Hillary or that guy, whatever his name is.

"As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans have turned things to [expletive]," he says. "I'm working two jobs now just so I can put gas in my van."

Cantrell talks about what it was like when his dad came up from the South, like so many others, to work in the parts plants in Muncie. How the city was thriving then. If people think this is Middle America, he says, they're wrong. Muncie doesn't represent Middle America anymore.

Probably.

"Well, I hope Middle America is a little better than what's around here," he says. "Otherwise, that's depressing."

Seeing these two articles back to back, the word that springs to mind is "decadence." The society is crumbling while the grand poohbahs of politics obsess over nonsense. And right at the head of this fall of the Roman Empire is George W. Bush, America's worst President by leaps and bounds. But let's not divorce him from his party; he is a symbol of failed conservative leadership that has revealed itself in clear ways.

Why We Should Be Better Than This

I want to amplify clammyc's remarks from yesterday about the tension and over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized the online version of this primary race. It hasn't characterized the offline version of this race, by the way; in the election of 1800 Thomas Jefferson was called an "atheist," "rapist," and "infidel," and I don't think any Federalist was denounced, rejected or repudiated. But I want to take a look at why this race has become so hotly contested, practically to the exclusion of all else, and not just in the traditional media where that's expected, but pretty much everywhere. I have a somewhat novel interpretation.

This is George Bush's fault.

Under 7-plus years of Bush, we've seen Congress cowed and the courts made irrelevant. We've seen a President ignore the popular will on a whole host of issues, break the law with total impunity, protect his cronies from prosecution or harm, and run roughshod over international law and our Constitution at home. Since 2001 we've come to believe that electing a President is akin to electing a 4-year dictator, because that's been the practical effect of Bush policies.

So why wouldn't it get heated, even among friends, over this decision about which dictator to install for the next four years? That's why these petty concerns and personal features have been magnified as the struggle between candidates with similar platforms becomes literally a battle of life and death.

There's of course a lot of evidence to support the dictator theory of American politics, but in actuality this is fiction. We have a broken Constitution, a shattered Constitution, but not one that is beyond repair. And if we neglect that repair, it won't matter who is President, because the fundamentals of the system will inevitably lead to more Bushes and more Cheneys and more Condis and more Rumsfelds. Until we get under control the restoration of the balance of power among the three branches of government, this energy and anger over the Presidential race is little more than a distraction, and we'll sink further and further away from the government the Framers envisioned.

Today Lawrence Lessig is presenting his "Change Congress" initiative in Washington. Here are some of his thoughts from an editorial in the Huffington Post.

Though "change" is the dominant rhetoric of this presidential campaign, everyone realizes that fundamental reform can't come from a president alone. If there are problems in the way Congress now works, for example, no president can fix those problems alone. Any fix would require the cooperation of the very institution that needs changing -- Congress.

Not surprisingly, however, not everyone in Congress is eager for change. Whatever they say, and however strongly they may deny it, there are many who have grown used to a system they understand well. And many of those are not about to support radically reforming that system, at least until pushed.

But the 111th Congress will be the freshest that Washington has seen in more than a decade. There are more than 67 "open seats" in this years' election; the last time we were anywhere close to that number was 1996 (62). This fact has led some to think about strategies for getting Congress to take seriously the idea of remaking itself.

Lessig organizes his movement to change Congress around issues like public financing for elections, transparency in Congress and earmark reform. He aims to use a wiki to track reform-minded candidates all over the country and track them from the outside.

This is exactly the kind of initiative the progressive online community should be embracing. Rather than relentlessly focusing on the top dog, and reinforcing a theory that the President is a dictator who wields full control of the government, we should use the other institutions of power to build a reform movement from the bottom up. And we should also empower that movement with a mandate to repair the broken institutions that have failed us in the Bush era and would normally rein in executive power and overreach. And that means supporting initiatives like the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. At this point 22 Congressional challengers have signed on to the plan, which seeks not only to end the war, but to ensure we never make such a historic foreign policy mistake again, and really change the conversation around national security. The candidates come from places like Idaho and Maryland, Ohio and Maine, Montana and New Jersey, Florida and Colorado and Washington and Virginia. We have far more leverage and power to impact this debate and these candidates than we ever will in the Presidential race. And it actually is far more important at this stage.

We don't elect dictators. We elect Presidents, and we have a host of structures in place to hold them accountable. Unfortunately, the last seven years have seen a total breakdown of those structures. The reaction to that ought to be to repair those structures and build this movement, not bicker back and forth about who has what delegate in what state. I'm not saying the Presidency is irrelevant - that's obviously not true - but I'm saying that we shouldn't be lulled into thinking that the President equals the government. That's only true in the rampantly illegal era of Bush - and we need to roll that back if we want to keep some semblance of a democracy.

Just Six More Months, Please!

David Petraeus is bucking for a column in the New York Times.

We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.

As Andrew Bacevich said the other day, this was actually the real goal of the surge - to keep our troops stuck in Iraq for as long as possible, so the occupation could be passed off to the next President. The idea was to create enough security success in the short-term by flooding the zone with troops to offer a propaganda victory, to allow the neocon wags to sputter "We're winning!" and forestall the inevtiable drawdown. Now, death tolls are actually rising again, and the Shiite militia cease-fire could be ending. But Iraq has moved off the front page, and the endless shouts of victory from the right have dampened any effect of this new data. And the warhawks are essentially running interference for those like Bush and Petraeus who are simply trying to prolong matters.

As for St. Petraeus, he has his own reasons for setting this trap for the next President.

Indeed, Petraeus can basically write his next round of orders. But wherever he goes, his next important campaign probably won't be on any battlefield. It'll be political. For the past year, the GOP has laid the groundwork to enlist Petraeus as its standard-bearer in the fairly likely event that the party loses in November to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. You read it here first. Plant your lawn signs now. Petraeus 2012: Surging to the White House.

We're also starting to hear about Petraeus being shifted over to NATO Commander, where he could serve under the next President, as they would be unlikely or even unable to uninstall the Hero of the Surge. Like that wouldn't be just a minefield, right? Remember when Colin Powell blocked Clinton's effort to allow gays in the military, deeply embarrassing the President at the beginning of his term? Powell doesn't have 1/10th the ambition of Petraeus.

This is just one of the dozens of landmines that Bush is going to put in place to make himself look better and to trip up his successor. He doesn't much care about the future of the country, only saving his own skin.

More On Bubba

Ezra Klein hits on something here about Bill Clinton's attack-dog tactics against Barack Obama. He's been far, far more uncompromising about Obama than he's ever been to George W. Bush.

But even as he's got that right, he's also got a responsibility to the millions of Democrats -- and Americans -- who worked on his campaigns and fought in his battles, who sacrificed and toiled so he could have this place in our polity, and who expected he would use it to push for progressivism, not just for his family. It's not that I don't understand, and on some level admire, Clinton's ferocious advocacy for his wife. But he's got to balance that with his responsibility to the rest of us. Over the past seven years, Clinton has largely checked his criticisms of Bush and bit his tongue in order to retain his role as a statesman. Throwing that restraint out the window in a Democratic primary will do enormous damage to his reputation.

I'm not one to tell Bill Clinton to shut up; it's a free country and the rules binding Presidents are merely advisory. But the fact that he reserves his greatest anger for when he or his family are involved, rather than when his legacy and the struggle of the millions who voted for him are at stake, is very revealing.

UPDATE: Howard Wolfson calling any criticism of Bill Clinton a right-wing talking point is puzzling. Lying about Obama's statements is a right-wing talking point? Does someone want to explain that?

This Shit Is Really Important

It's great fun to slag on the fact-free media and slag on the small sliver of Iowans that will actually participate tonight and slag on this crazy process that has taken over how we select the next President. It values personality over policy, money over ideas, media favorability over issue favorability.

But it's important to step back and understand just how crucial this choice actually is.

Democrats will start 2009 having lost a full branch of government for a generation. We may hope that George Bush's departure from the stage will result in him being erased out of history like wiping clean a chalkboard, but his legacy will resonate for decades.

After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts.

The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.

And despite the Republicans' loss of control of the Senate, 40 of Bush's judges won confirmation this year, more than in the previous three years when Republicans held the majority.

We all know that Republicans bottled up a lot of Clinton judicial nominees in committee, and Pat Leahy has not really done the same. But even if he did, we're talking about 20 of the last 28 years with conservative judges being put up for confirmation. You can fault this Senate for confirming too many Bush nominees, and to an extent they have, but it's just a fact of life that elections have consequences, and the federal bench may be the most wide-reaching consequence.

There are appeals courts out there which will be sharply conservative for a long time to come. These hopes of public financing of elections, rolling back the unitary executive, ending the surveillance state and official secrecy, and on and on, are going to run into a stone wall with this kind of court. And that's not just the Supremes, where Roe v. Wade hangs by a thread. It's the appeals courts and the US district courts, which are packed with Federalist Society-approved jurists for some time to come.

We can't afford another term's worth of those appointments. They fly largely under the radar except for a couple high-profile fights, and they're not typically something you can base a campaign on (though the Supreme Court is different, and you can make that an issue). But make no mistake, the conservative movement knows exactly how important this is.

Conservatives tend to agree on that point. They say the ideological makeup of the courts has grown into a major issue on the right, and it has brought Republicans together, whether they are social conservatives, economic conservatives or small-government libertarians.

"This issue unites the base," said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group that lobbies for Bush's judicial nominees. "It serves as a stand-in for the culture wars: religion, abortion, gay marriage and the coddling of criminals." [...]

While Republicans find themselves somewhat divided heading into the election year, Bush is widely praised for his record of pressing for conservative judges.

"From Day One, President Bush made the judiciary a top priority, and he fought very hard for his nominees," said Washington attorney Bradford Berenson, who worked in the White House counsel's office in Bush's first term. "He was less willing to compromise than President Clinton. As a result, in raw numbers, he may end with somewhat fewer judges than Clinton had."

Bill Clinton let Orrin Hatch pick a lot of his judges. George Bush went for broke. As a result, there are hundreds of movement conservatives placed around the country as long-term thorns in the side of progressive governance. It's the right of the President to have those selections. The next one MUST reverse this trend.

Charlie Savage on the takeover of American democracy

In his remarks, Savage commented that we have seen through the years that Constitutional balance is always challenged in wartime. But he noted that the Bush imperial project began long before 9/11, though certainly the invoking of national security and the war on terror greased the wheels quite a bit. In a meeting of the Office of Legal Counsel right after the first inauguration, Alberto Gonzales specifically told his legal team to search for instances to expand executive power. And pulling the strings behind all of this was a man whose formative years in Washington saw the contraction of that power, and who vowed ever since then to restore it.

The invoking of inherent executive powers in the name of national security and war dates back to John Adams and the Alien & Sedition Acts. But in the late 1940s, Harry Truman invoked national security and the state secrets privilege in several instances, including starting the Korean War without a full Congressional declaration, and attempting to commandeer the steel mills for the war effort. This view of inherent powers, in particular surveillance powers which were inevitably used to spy on political opponents, continued through the age of Nixon and Watergate, after which Congress reasserted itself and put all sorts of restrictions on Presidential power. From the view of the 33 year-old White House Chief of Staff in the Ford Administration, Dick Cheney, it looked like a siege (Ford's legal counsel, by the way, was a guy named Antonin Scalia). The undercurrent of his subsequent career, both in the House of Representatives and as Secretary of Defense, was arguing for more executive power. His view was that the Founders got it wrong, that the Republic would be more secure if less people were involved in the decision-making regarding national security and war. In this argument, Cheney turns the entire system of government that has served us well for 230 years, which was designed to prevent concentrated power and remain suspicious of any governmental entity that would hold such power, on its ear. In seeking less power for Congress, even as a Congressman (see his minority report on the Iran-Contra affair, which argued that the real lawbreakers were Congressional investigators for performing oversight in the first place), Cheney essentially saw that the nation is more likely to take aggressive action if a single President is in control of national security matters, rather than a coalition of more diverse voices like the Congress. This view is also counter to traditional conservatism and their typical suspicion of government.

The unitary executive theory was a product of the Reagan legal team, and two of the staffers on that team would go on to be appointed by George W. Bush to the US Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Originally the unitary executive was about Presidential control over executive agencies - after 9/11, it naturally moved into matters of national security. The new argument, conceived by John Yoo in a series of famous documents while working for the Office of Legal Counsel, was that Congress has no limiting effect on how the President can defend the nation. One of the reasons that Yoo, a midlevel staffer, was able to wield so much power in his own right was that there was no confirmed head of the Office of Legal Counsel until December of 2001, no mitigating force on the decision-makers in the White House. Throughout the time between 9/11 and then, the inmates were running the asylum. And inmate Yoo was telling the Cheney Adminstration what they wanted to hear. Yoo was using tortured and circular logic to argue a revisionist view of the Constitution, claiming that the Founders DID want a king, only an American one who was elected every four years. In one memo which had 25 footnotes, 8 of them referred to Yoo's own writing, so he essentially couldn't find anyone to approvingly cite this theory other than himself.

A lot of this is familiar; centralizing power over career bureaucracies, nullifying Congressional statutes through signing statements, asserting wide surveillance powers that even deeply conservative Justice Department officials were willing to resign over, Guantanamo, the destruction of habeas corpus, invoking state secrets at every opportunity, the Cheney energy task force meetings, pulling out of the ABM treaty, etc., etc. But Savage put it all together in a cogent argument that saw the expansion of Presidential power as not only pervasive, but easily the most successful product of Bush's two terms as President. The Administration used ingenious ways to achieve these goals; their first invocation of executive privilege was in reference to documents from a Clinton-era scandal that Congress wanted to see. It looked like this honorable gesture, Bush defending Clinton, but at root was this idea of preserving Presidential secrecy, and the precedent was made.

During the question and answer period, I asked Savage that, given that a good bit of his reporting for which he won a Pulitzer came out of things in the public record, like signing statements and court documents and such, why did he appear to be the only journalist in Washington who was connecting the dots and seeing the importance of this radical interpretation of executive power? He kind of declined to answer that question, but later on, he mentioned that he didn't arrive in DC until October of 2003. So he missed the entire post-9/11, pre-Iraq War hysteria when the traditional media became supine and afraid. The reporting in those two years was not confrontational and not rigorous. And I believe it had a lasting effect on those who were writing during that time. Because Savage was removed from that, I believe he had a completely perspective on this Administration, and wasn't dulled by the fog of fear. He said, "I'd like to think I wouldn't have been changed from having my wife and family in Washington at that time when everyone thought it was a continuing target, but I don't know."

It should be said that Savage is incredibly pessimistic about rolling back these powers (so am I). One reason is that Presidential precedent is so often cited by future Presidents as a rationale for whatever new policy they want to undertake; how many times in the past few years have we heard about Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War? Presidential prerogative is, as Justice Jackson called it in the Korematsu opinion, a "loaded weapon" that can be pulled out at any time. So future Presidents will have an entirely new toolkit of expanded powers, cracks in the Constitutional system that can be exploited over and over again.

The other main problem is that our courts do not offer advisory opinions. And so if nobody can show standing for a case, it cannot be brought. And so most of the national security issues, which are after all secrets for the most part (we don't even fully know the extent of them), will never have the chance to be taken before a court. In effect, the Office of Legal Counsel acts like an internal Supreme Court on the executive branch, deciding if they are in compliance with executing the laws of the nation. And so you really have the executive branch enforcing the laws against itself. And that is a recipe for real disaster.

It was a fascinating evening and should be an even more fascinating book, which I am eager to read.