Forty years ago many Americans celebrated the demise of the imperial
presidency with the resignation of Richard Nixon. Today it is clear they
celebrated too soon. Nixon's view of presidential powers, summed up in his
infamous statement that, "when the president does it that means it is
not illegal," is embraced by the majority of the political class. In
fact, the last two presidents have abused their power in ways that would have
made Nixon blush.
For example, Nixon's abuse of the Internal Revenue Service to persecute
his political opponents was the subject of one of the articles of impeachment
passed by the US House of Representatives. As bad as Nixon's abuse of the IRS
was, he was hardly the first president to use the IRS this way, and the
present administration seems to be continuing this tradition. The targeting
of Tea Party groups has received the most attention, but it is not the only
instance of the IRS harassing President Barack Obama's political opponents.
For example, the IRS has demanded that one of my organizations, Campaign for
Liberty, hand over information regarding its major donors.
Nixon's abuse of federal power to spy on his "enemies" was
abhorrent, but Nixon's abuses of civil liberties pale in comparison to those
of his successors. Today literally anyone in the world can be spied on,
indefinitely detained, or placed on a presidential "kill list"
based on nothing more than a presidential order. For all his faults, Nixon
never tried to claim the power to unilaterally order anyone in the world
detained or killed.
Many today act as apologists for the imperial presidency. One reason for
this is that many politicians place partisan concerns above loyalty to the
Constitution. Thus, they openly defend, and even celebrate, executive branch
power grabs when made by a president of their own party.
Another reason is the bipartisan consensus in support of the warfare
state. Many politicians and intellectuals in both parties support an imperial
presidency because they recognize that the Founders' vision of a limited
executive branch is incompatible with an aggressive foreign policy. When
Republicans are in power "neoconservatives" take the lead, while
when Democrats are in power "humanitarian interventionists" take
the lead. Regardless of party or ideological label, they share the same goal
-- to protect the executive branch from being constrained by the
constitutional requirement that the president seek congressional approval
before waging war.
The strength of the bipartisan consensus that the president should have
limitless discretion in committing troops to war is illustrated by the
failure of an attempt to add an article dealing with Nixon's "secret
bombing" of Cambodia to the articles of impeachment. Even at the low
point of support for the imperial presidency, Congress still refused to rein
in the president's war-making powers.
The failure to include the Cambodia invasion in the articles of
impeachment may well be the main reason Watergate had little to do with
reining in the imperial presidency. Because the imperial presidency is rooted
in the war power, attempts to rein in the imperial presidency that do not
work to restore Congress' constitutional authority to declare war are doomed
to fail.
Repealing Nixon's legacy requires building a new bipartisan coalition in
favor of peace and civil liberties, rejecting what writer Gene Healy calls
"the cult of the presidency," and placing loyalty to the
Constitution above partisanship. An important step must be restoring
congressional supremacy in matters of war and peace.
