The name David Addington draws a blank look from most people. Well, get familiar with it because he is a driving force behind the imperial presidency of George W. Bush. Addington is among those who feels the presidency was castrated back in the 1970s and that our nation has suffered as a result. Addington favors a monarchical presidency, one that applies no restrictions on the power and actions of the sitting president.
Remember the fluff about the so-called harmonic convergence from 1987? The election of George Bush and the terrorism of 9/11 can be called the anti-harmonic convergence. This confluence provided the opening for people like Bush, Addington, Dick Cheney and the like to promote fear, insecurity and instability as our new national anthem, along with the destructive myth that only the president of the United States can protect us and unfettered he must be, or else. But this approach is not new–this is a political philosophy that’s been in the making for decades, awaiting implementation. Cheney has been fighting the fight ever since President Richard Nixon self-immolated and Congress rightfully muscled back into the equation of our supposed governing troika of a presidency/courts/Congress coalition.
It all the same slippery slope. Misanthropes such as these can alarmingly be found throughout history–hoarding information, secrecy is most holy, exclude–not include, we, and only we, are right, your input is not necessary, marginalize perceived opponents, whiners are enemies, compromise is disloyalty, existing law and precedent are documents best used for toiletpaper.
Here are a few excerpts from Jane Mayer’s June 26, 2006 superb article (http://tinyurl.com/jxuae) on Addington and the other Bush Administration constitution slayers in The New Yorker:
On December 18th, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, joined other prominent Washington figures at FedEx Field, the Redskins’ stadium, in a skybox belonging to the team’s owner. During the game, between the Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, Powell spoke of a recent report in the Times which revealed that President Bush, in his pursuit of terrorists, had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without first obtaining a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as required by federal law. This requirement, which was instituted by Congress in 1978, after the Watergate scandal, was designed to protect civil liberties and curb abuses of executive power, such as Nixon’s secret monitoring of political opponents and the F.B.I.’s eavesdropping on Martin Luther King, Jr. Nixon had claimed that as President he had the “inherent authority” to spy on people his Administration deemed enemies, such as the anti-Vietnam War activist Daniel Ellsberg. Both Nixon and the institution of the Presidency had paid a high price for this assumption. But, according to the Times, since 2002 the legal checks that Congress constructed to insure that no President would repeat Nixon’s actions had been secretly ignored.
According to someone who knows Powell, his comment about the article was terse. “It’s Addington,” he said. “He doesn’t care about the Constitution.” Powell was referring to David S. Addington, Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and his longtime principal legal adviser…
…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…
…Earlier this month, the American Bar Association voted to investigate whether President Bush had exceeded his constitutional authority by reserving the right to ignore portions of laws that he has signed. Richard Epstein, the University of Chicago law professor, said, “What’s frightening to me is that this Administration is always willing to push the conventions to the limits–and beyond. With his signing statements, I think the President just goes too far. If you sign these things with a caveat, do the inferior officers follow the law or the caveat?”
Bruce Fein (a Republican) argues that Addington’s signing statements are “unconstitutional as a strategy,” because the Founding Fathers wanted Presidents to veto legislation openly if they thought the bills were unconstitutional. Bush has not vetoed a single bill since taking office. “It’s part of the balancing process,” Fein said. “It’s about accountability. If you veto something, everyone knows where you stand. But this President wants to do it sotto voce. He wants to give the image that he’s accommodating on torture, and then reserves the right to torture anyway.”
David Addington is a satisfactory lawyer, Fein said, but a less than satisfactory student of American history, which, for a public servant of his influence, matters more. “If you read the Federalist Papers, you can see how rich in history they are,” he said. “The Founders really understood the history of what people did with power, going back to Greek and Roman and Biblical times. Our political heritage is to be skeptical of executive power, because, in particular, there was skepticism of King George III. But Cheney and Addington are not students of history. If they were, they’d know that the Founding Fathers would be shocked by what they’ve done.”
