Addington's Presidency 2006

I encourage you to read this New Yorker article by Jane Mayer, "The Hidden Power: The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror".

She very clearly lays out a portrait of the fundamentally different approach to legality, as it applies to the executive branch, taken by the current administration. For George W. Bush, checks and balances, indeed legal precedent itself, can be bypassed at will under the blanket excuse of "fighting the war on terror".

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside.

"Few legal scholars share"? How about few Americans who have any knowledge of 20th century history?

And how's this approach working out for us? Well, there isn't much evidence it's done any good at all:

Not a single terror suspect has been tried before a military commission. Only ten of the more than seven hundred men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo have been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

Indeed, it appears to have done us a great deal of harm:

As for the Administration’s legal defense of torture, which Addington played a central role in formulating, [historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.] said, “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world—ever.”

How can we tolerate torture as an acceptable practice by a civilized nation? Why hasn't every church and veterans organization been speaking out against this monstrosity along with the ACLU? And how can anyone with a shred of patriotism stand by and let our nation's values be trampled in the mud like this?

Bruce Fein, a Republican legal activist, who voted for Bush in both Presidential elections, and who served as associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, said that Addington and other Presidential legal advisers had “staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He’s said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President’s reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world’s a battlefield — according to this view, he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It’s got the sense of Louis XIV: ‘I am the State.’ ”

Didn't we fight a war a couple hundred years ago to get rid of that attitude? And I certainly don't think the architects of that war and the resulting legal structures would have approved of the "signing statement", as a weaselly alternative to vetoing a bill with which the President does not agree.

Do read the whole article. It gives a good precis of events of the last 40 years as they relate to the rise and strategies of the current power holders. The small details of the character portraits also underscore that classic distinction between the patriarchal strong father model of the conservatives and the egalitarian statesman model of the middle of the road or liberal approach to governance.

Comments

Addington's Presidency

I encourage you to read this New Yorker article by Jane Mayer, "The Hidden Power: The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror".

She very clearly lays out a portrait of the fundamentally different approach to legality, as it applies to the executive branch, taken by the current administration. For George W. Bush, checks and balances, indeed legal precedent itself, can be bypassed at will under the blanket excuse of "fighting the war on terror".

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside.

"Few legal scholars share"? How about few Americans who have any knowledge of 20th century history?

And how's this approach working out for us? Well, there isn't much evidence it's done any good at all:

Not a single terror suspect has been tried before a military commission. Only ten of the more than seven hundred men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo have been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

Indeed, it appears to have done us a great deal of harm:

As for the Administration’s legal defense of torture, which Addington played a central role in formulating, [historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.] said, “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world—ever.”

How can we tolerate torture as an acceptable practice by a civilized nation? Why hasn't every church and veterans organization been speaking out against this monstrosity along with the ACLU? And how can anyone with a shred of patriotism stand by and let our nation's values be trampled in the mud like this?

Bruce Fein, a Republican legal activist, who voted for Bush in both Presidential elections, and who served as associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, said that Addington and other Presidential legal advisers had “staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He’s said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President’s reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world’s a battlefield — according to this view, he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It’s got the sense of Louis XIV: ‘I am the State.’ ”

Didn't we fight a war a couple hundred years ago to get rid of that attitude? And I certainly don't think the architects of that war and the resulting legal structures would have approved of the "signing statement", as a weaselly alternative to vetoing a bill with which the President does not agree.

Do read the whole article. It gives a good precis of events of the last 40 years as they relate to the rise and strategies of the current power holders. The small details of the character portraits also underscore that classic distinction between the patriarchal strong father model of the conservatives and the egalitarian statesman model of the middle of the road or liberal approach to governance.

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