The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive PowerCato Institute, 2008 - 367 pages The Bush years have justifiably given rise to fears of a new Imperial Presidency. Yet despite the controversy surrounding the administration's expansive claims of executive power, both Left and Right agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility. The Imperial Presidency is the price we seem to be willingly and dangerously agreeable to pay the office the focus of our national hopes and dreams. Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency argues that the Presidency needs to be reined in, its powers checked and supervised, and its wartime authority put back under the oversight of the Congress and the courts. Only then will we begin to return the Presidency to its proper constitutionally limited role. |
From inside the book
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Page 49
... ( March 4 , 1933 ) By the first decade of the 20th century , Woodrow Wilson had a national platform as president of Princeton University , and a new book , Constitutional Government in the United States . “ Our life has undergone radical ...
... ( March 4 , 1933 ) By the first decade of the 20th century , Woodrow Wilson had a national platform as president of Princeton University , and a new book , Constitutional Government in the United States . “ Our life has undergone radical ...
Page 61
... March , Roosevelt took a page from Carlyle and declaimed , “ In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism , leaders to whom are granted great visions , who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true ; who can ...
... March , Roosevelt took a page from Carlyle and declaimed , “ In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism , leaders to whom are granted great visions , who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true ; who can ...
Page 79
... ( March 23 , 1984 ) By the postwar era , Washington's humble term " chief magistrate ” could no longer adequately describe an office that in power and responsibility had expanded far beyond Hamiltonian hopes or Jeffer- sonian fears . The ...
... ( March 23 , 1984 ) By the postwar era , Washington's humble term " chief magistrate ” could no longer adequately describe an office that in power and responsibility had expanded far beyond Hamiltonian hopes or Jeffer- sonian fears . The ...
Page 90
... March 1951 , Truman generously allowed that Congress had the right to express itself on the Korean War question : “ I don't mind their talking about anything they want to . This is a free country . They can make any number of speeches ...
... March 1951 , Truman generously allowed that Congress had the right to express itself on the Korean War question : “ I don't mind their talking about anything they want to . This is a free country . They can make any number of speeches ...
Page 94
... March 13 , 1962 , Army General Lyman L. Lemnitzer , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , presented Robert McNamara , President Kennedy's defense secretary , with a memo detailing " Operation Northwoods " : a plan to covertly engineer ...
... March 13 , 1962 , Army General Lyman L. Lemnitzer , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , presented Robert McNamara , President Kennedy's defense secretary , with a memo detailing " Operation Northwoods " : a plan to covertly engineer ...
Contents
15 | |
49 | |
79 | |
105 | |
Superman Returns | 137 |
War President | 165 |
Omnipotence and Impotence | 197 |
Why the Worst Get on Top and Get Worse | 233 |
Toward Normalcy | 267 |
Other editions - View all
The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power Gene Healy Limited preview - 2009 |
The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power Gene Healy Limited preview - 2009 |
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Popular passages
Page 85 - Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Page 71 - I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
Page 91 - Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander In Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
Page 41 - Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Page 43 - Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies ; from these proceed debts and taxes ; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
Page 304 - Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually confided to the federal councils.
Page 44 - That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, unmindful of the high duties of his office and the dignity and proprieties thereof...
Page 49 - ... as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.
Page 159 - Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.