#68 - The Bottom Line About Executive Power

You have two kinds of people:

Group A: These people believe that executive power is a good and that problems aren't a cause of allowing executive power but cause of people who use it. The problem with this position is that there is no way to truly determine what's "good" use of executive power if it's in the hand of those that wield. Power Corrupts.

Group B: These people think executive power unchecked is dangerous no matter what the intentions or actions that are being taken unilaterally. People have issue with these people cause they worry about rare circumstances in which they would justify unilateral action.

I belong to group B, most of the time there is no reason for executive unchecked power like signing statements and the patriot act and those rare occasions people fear don't seem dire enough to me to justify such dangerous power being wielded.

Sometimes I feel like I'm watching Lord of the Rings, and the one ring is executive power which everyone wants to wield and Ron Paul is the innocent hobbit with a pure heart that can fight off the temptation of power in his quest to destroy it.


So Where do the candidates stand on executive power:

"And while all the Democrats condemned Bush's use of signing statements, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama each said that they would use them too - just less aggressively. Obama said the problem with Bush's signing statements is not the device itself, but rather that Bush has invoked legal theories that most constitutional scholars consider "dubious" when reserving his alleged right to bypass certain laws.

"No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush administration has gone much further than that," Obama said.

By contrast, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson called for an end to signing statements altogether.

Among the Republicans, their stance was echoed by McCain and Paul, both of whom said they would never issue a signing statement. Romney, by contrast, praised signing statements as "an important presidential practice.""