GOP Does The Wrong Thing--For The Wrong Reason

In an action ignored by the MSM in the tidal wave of financial crisis and bail out bill votes, Senate Republicans blocked an enhanced Iranian economic sanctions bill for the second time in roughly a month. The bill which had already been passed by the House was a melding of two previous bills (one "authored" by Senator Obama) would have both taken action against companies doing business with Iran's banking and energy sectors and encouraged divestment in foreign companies commercially involved with the mullahocracy.

On 2 October Sen Wayne Allard of Colorado exercised his "prerogative" to stall passage.

Unsurprisingly Senate Majority Leader Reid accused the Republicans of playing politics with the legislation because of Obama's connection with it. No doubt that is part of the story.

But, only part.

The rest of the story revolves around the word, "prerogative."

How's that?

Earlier attempts to pass the components of the bill as two separate enactments were resolutely opposed by the White House. The opposition came not because the Cheney-Bush Administration had suddenly gone soft on Iran. No. Nothing like that at all.

The opposition came, not because the neocon ninnies of the Current Administration hated Iran less, but because they love the "prerogatives" of the Presidency more.

Of all the sins committed by the Current Administration--and they are legion--none has been greater than its single minded fixation upon elevating the power of the Presidency to heights undreamed of by such "imperial" presidents as Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt. The goal pursued so diligently by the neocon theoreticians under the direction of Dick Cheney was to exalt the power of the President to a level surpassing that advanced by Alexander Hamilton.

As Vice President Cheney made clear and public more than seven years ago, well before 9/11, the Administration had the intent of permanently "strengthening" the Offices of the President and Vice President. He put it in terms of regaining power lost to the Congress since Watergate and its aftershocks. But, it was clear that his vision was not limited to simple restoration of authority.

He wanted more. Much more.

Along with his personal legal counsel, David Addington, Cheney used the Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as a sort of in-house Supreme Court for the Administration, as well as his close personal relationship with George W. Bush to pursue the end of firmly installing the Unitary Presidency Theory as the axis mundi of American government.

The pursuit of secrecy along with the invocation of executive privilege were part of the process. So also was the constant reiteration of the discredited notion of "inherent powers" deriving from the President's role as Commander-in-Chief.

Brilliant but warped young neocon lawyers exemplified by John Yoo cranked out the necessary opinions from the bowels of the OLC which made "legal" reprehensible actions such as the use of waterboarding and other mechanisms of "intensified interrogation." Or, the unending confinement of "unlawful enemy combatants."

The neocon views of Yoo and Company justified the President's action of unilaterally abrogating the ABM Treaty with Russia (OK, to err on the side of accuracy, the Soviet Union.) The notion that the Senate having ratified the treaty and thus, under something called "the Constitution," giving it the force of Federal law should ratify the abrogation was brushed aside as an unnecessary and Constitution eroding infringement on the President's sole "prerogative" to conduct foreign policy.

Cheney, Yoo and all the other neocon ninnies overlooked then, as they have more recently, the slight consideration of historical fact.

During the run-up to and the waging of the War of Independence, much patriotic vitriol was poured on the idea of the British monarch's "royal prerogative." During the writing of the Constitution and the campaign to see it ratified, the proponents of the new US organic document took great pains to show how the American president would not have any shadow of the much hated "prerogative." (Take a look at Federalist 69 for a good example of this. Madison at his most incisive.)

The President as Commander-in-Chief is "First General" of the US military. He has the authority to conduct the war. He does not have the authority to decide to have a war so that he might conduct it.

Congress is given the sole power to decide when the US is going to wage a war. Then the President, not the Congress, conducts it.

In a similar way, the President conducts foreign policy. He does not have the "prerogative" to define it on his own authority. Neither does he have the sole capacity to formulate it.

Given that the Constitution is silent on the precise distribution of authority to formulate and define the foreign policy of the US, it stands to reason that Congress and Executive must engage in the messy game of conflict-and-consensus.

When Congress wants to take the lead in foreign policy, particularly when it considers legislation which places it in the role of not simply formulating policy but directing a specific mechanism of implementation, the Executive has both the right and obligation to inform Congress as to its stance on the proposed act. If Congress passes legislation which the Executive finds unacceptable in the conduct of foreign policy, then the correct course of action is to veto the bill.

Claiming "prerogative" is not the right thing to do.

But, at least the claim was consistent with the Current Administration's multi year campaign to manufacture the-all-powerful-presidency from the gossamer of historical distortion and legal logic rooted only in a will-to-power.