Catonians: Too Late Smart
Glenn Greenwald obviously has more stomach for surfing conservative websites than I can pretend to. It's good to have other foragers out there covering for my squeamishness. Knowing the opposition is always helpful, even if it's only in the limited sense of prepping for combat. This excerpt from Unclaimed Territory is a reminder than there are other bennies besides a peek in their playbook:
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The right-wing Cato Institute has published an extremely well-documented and scathing condemnation of the Bush administration's multiple abuses of power. Later today, I will post about the entire report (.pdf), which is truly excellent; the Executive Summary says this:
Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power.
In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad, a view that includes:
* a federal government empowered to regulate core political speech—and restrict it greatly when it counts the most: in the days before a federal election;
*a president who cannot be restrained, through validly enacted statutes, from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror;
* a president who has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as "enemy combatants," strip them of any constitutional protection, and lock them up without charges for the duration of the war on terror— in other words, perhaps forever; and,
* a federal government with the power to supervise virtually every aspect of American life, from kindergarten, to marriage, to the grave. President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.
In every single respect, this administration has been devoted to one principle and one principle only -- an expansion of its own power. That is its driving philosophy and its ultimate goal, and it is hardly surprising that a true conservative organization like the Cato Institute ("true conservative" in the sense that they are devoted to limited federal government power, rather than the worship of authoritarian power as Bush followers are) would find this administration anathema to every important political value and principal which this country has.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Bush administration has violated every tenet of this strain of conservatism for the last five years, conservatives will not be permitted to distance themselves from this administration -- as they are transparently and pitifully trying to do now that Bush's presidency is failed and is dying a rapid death (see e.g., this characteristically dishonest attempt by Jonah Goldberg to characterize the two failed Republican Presidents - Nixon and Bush - as "liberals" in order to imply that their failure is not a failure of conservatives; funny how we never heard any of that when The Commander had approval ratings in the 60s). With rare and noble exception, conservatives did not repudiate Bush until very recently. To the contrary, they have vigorously supported and claimed him (while he was popular), and he is their creation. They are and should be stuck with him.
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The right-wing Cato Institute has published an extremely well-documented and scathing condemnation of the Bush administration's multiple abuses of power. Later today, I will post about the entire report (.pdf), which is truly excellent; the Executive Summary says this:
Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power.
In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad, a view that includes:
* a federal government empowered to regulate core political speech—and restrict it greatly when it counts the most: in the days before a federal election;
*a president who cannot be restrained, through validly enacted statutes, from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror;
* a president who has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as "enemy combatants," strip them of any constitutional protection, and lock them up without charges for the duration of the war on terror— in other words, perhaps forever; and,
* a federal government with the power to supervise virtually every aspect of American life, from kindergarten, to marriage, to the grave. President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.
In every single respect, this administration has been devoted to one principle and one principle only -- an expansion of its own power. That is its driving philosophy and its ultimate goal, and it is hardly surprising that a true conservative organization like the Cato Institute ("true conservative" in the sense that they are devoted to limited federal government power, rather than the worship of authoritarian power as Bush followers are) would find this administration anathema to every important political value and principal which this country has.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Bush administration has violated every tenet of this strain of conservatism for the last five years, conservatives will not be permitted to distance themselves from this administration -- as they are transparently and pitifully trying to do now that Bush's presidency is failed and is dying a rapid death (see e.g., this characteristically dishonest attempt by Jonah Goldberg to characterize the two failed Republican Presidents - Nixon and Bush - as "liberals" in order to imply that their failure is not a failure of conservatives; funny how we never heard any of that when The Commander had approval ratings in the 60s). With rare and noble exception, conservatives did not repudiate Bush until very recently. To the contrary, they have vigorously supported and claimed him (while he was popular), and he is their creation. They are and should be stuck with him.
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posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:57 PM
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