Libertarians for Ron Paul

New President Won’t Tame Executive Power

“Joe Biden hardly brings the glamour and excitement to his ticket that Sarah Palin does to hers, but he surely warmed civil libertarian hearts at the vice-presidential debate when he forcefully denounced “dangerous” theories designed to “aggrandize the power of a unitary executive.” After seven years of an administration that has recognized few, if any, limits on executive power, it’s only natural that many people look to the Obama-Biden ticket to put the presidency back in its proper constitutional place.”

“But there are good reasons to doubt that an Obama administration would meaningfully de-imperialize the presidency.”

“From Truman and Johnson’s undeclared wars to the warrantless wiretapping carried out by FDR, JFK, LBJ and Nixon, the Imperial Presidency has long been a bipartisan phenomenon. In fact, our most recent Democratic president, Bill Clinton went even further than his predecessors in his exercise of extraconstitutional war powers. Prior presidents had unilaterally launched wars in the face of congressional silence. But Clinton’s war over Kosovo in 1999 made him the first president to launch a war in the face of several congressional votes denying him the authority to wage it.”

Full column by Gene Healy @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9713