Worst Column Of the New Year?
That’s what Powerline is asking about this Craig Crawford column in CQ. I certainly couldn’t vote against it at this point but I’m sure worse will appear throughout the year. Here’s just some of the things that Crawford says:
The debate Congress will engage in coming weeks is as old as the Constitution itself. Do presidents have inherent power to do just about anything they want to do, if it is for the right reasons? In other words, is anything legal if a president does it for national security?
Considering that Lincoln jailed a journalist during the Civil War and that FDR censored certain types of articles during WWII, I’d say that the to that last question is yes. Almost anything is legal if a “president does it” to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic as his oath of office mandates.
Implied in this paragraph is the notion that President Bush is acting recklessly. That implication isn’t accidental but it couldn’t be further from the truth, which seems to be held hostage in Mr. Crawford’s column.
While assuring us that he is not seeking “dictatorial powers” after news leaked of his warrantless surveillance orders, the president liberally defined his powers under the Constitution in a way that would make strict constructionists squirm, saying he “absolutely” had the power to ignore FISA, created by an act of Congress.
Mr. Crawford has this turned upside down. The Constitution mandates that the President protect us from all enemies. It’s extremely logical that intercepting conversations between AQ terrorists living in Afghanistan and people who are part of sleeper cells living here in the U.S. is a way of protecting us from our enemies. Therefore, logic would follow that any legislation enacted that would impede the President’s ability to protect us would be unconstitutional.
What happened to his passionate defense of strict constructionism, the idea that interpreting the Constitution should not go beyond the strict intent of its founders?
What’s so difficult about this? What part of the Constitution prohibits President Bush from protecting us from our enemies? If President Bush’s actions are so anti-constitutional, why is there abundant case law supporting his position? In the end, Mr. Crawford’s implication that the President’s actions go against the original intent of our Founding Fathers is silly.
For instance, the president wants the most restrictive interpretation of the Constitution when it comes to a right to privacy, the underpinning of abortion rights. But turn the debate to his own executive power and suddenly he is willing to go way beyond the intent of the framers, who labored mightily to limit the presidency to what Alexander Hamilton described as “much inferior” to the British monarch. That is why they made the legislative branch Article I, relegating the executive to Article II.
Mr. Crawford again doesn’t have a clue about the Constitution. While it’s true that the Founding Fathers envisioned the Legislative Branch as the branch of government that had the most responsibilities, it’s foolish to think that they envisioned an Executive Branch that took orders from the now 535 members of Congress on how to prosecute a war.
In reality, wartime gives the President a far bigger role than Congress. Can you imagine making military decisions if consensus had to be reached between 435 congressmen and women and 100 senators then they had to iron out their differences in conference committees as they do with all other legislation? That’s a silly notion and then some.
As for Crawford’s saying “the president wants the most restrictive interpretation of the Constitution when it comes to a right to privacy, the underpinning of abortion rights”, he’s again about as off the mark as is humanly possible. If he can show me where in the Constitution the right to abortion is found, I’ll gladly admit defeat.
When Crawford says “turn the debate to his own executive power and suddenly he is willing to go way beyond the intent of the framers”, he’s again assuming that the legislative branch is a superior branch of government. That’s absurd. As any law professor or history professor will tell you, the Founding Fathers created a government of three co-equal branches of government. The executive branch is there to execute the duties spelled out in the laws passed by the legislative branch or that the Constitution assigns, with the Constitution taking precedent over legislation. PERIOD.
Protecting us from our enemies is one of the most basic duties assigned to the Executive branch. It’s just that simple.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing