Restoring Power to the Emasculated Executive Branch?!

When the Bush-Cheney administration took power three years ago, it wanted to restore power to an executive branch that it believed had withered in influence. The White House is"spinning" its foot-dragging with respect to creating the 9/11 commission, allowing the commission to see the President's daily intelligence briefings, and allowing Condi Rice's public testimony under oath by saying that the President and Vice President didn't want to see presidential power eroded even further.

Do they really believe this line of reasoning or not? Either answer is troubling. If they don't, then it is a cynical rationale for not cooperating with a commission inquiry that could produce (and has already has produced) embarrassing facts. If they do, then I guess they haven't heard about the"imperial presidency." Many of the founders believed that the Congress and the states would be the most powerful players in the federal system. In reality, wars and crises associated with them over the years have increased the size, power and influence of the executive branch far beyond what the original Constitution had envisioned.

One of the most important examples of diminished congressional influence has been the erosion of the very important congressional war power. Since Harry Truman, presidents have taken us to war without a formal declaration. George W. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, maintained that he needed no congressional authority at all to attack Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War but sought legislative branch approval only as a courtesy. Bill Clinton bombed Kosovo and threatened to invade Haiti with no congressional authorization at all.

So the Bush administration's expediency in submitting to the unrestricted questioning of its highest officials by an independent panel investigating the origins of the administration's"war on terror" does erode some of the executive's authority. And that erosion of already excessive presidential power is good for the republic.