{"id":37404,"date":"2017-02-24T04:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=37404"},"modified":"2017-02-23T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T21:50:16","slug":"the-danger-of-expanding-presidential-power-when-your-party-is-in-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/02\/24\/the-danger-of-expanding-presidential-power-when-your-party-is-in-power\/","title":{"rendered":"The danger of expanding Presidential power when “your” party is in power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Danny Sjursen<\/a> on the somehow unforeseen problems when “the other party” comes to power:<\/p>\n

Many Americans were fond of Barack Obama. He left office with some of the highest approval ratings of his entire term. On foreign policy, as in most matters, he seemed reflective, deliberate, and rational. An effective communicator, he maintained composure and presidential poise, no matter the topic. In rare moments of frustration, Obama channeled \u201cdisappointed sitcom dad\u201d rather than \u201cblustering bully.\u201d Love him or hate him, Obama was a gentleman. And that\u2019s the problem. Mainstream progressives \u2013 who cried foul at George W. Bush\u2019s every move \u2013 looked the other way as Obama expanded unfettered presidential power in foreign affairs. Why? Because they trusted him \u2013 his judgment, character, and motives. Maybe that trust was warranted. Here\u2019s the catch: the 22nd amendment. No president may serve for more than eight years, no matter how beloved (by some). Furthermore, each chief executive creates important precedents for his successor. For this reason, many liberals \u2013 and perhaps the former president himself \u2013 may come to lament Obama\u2019s principal foreign policy legacy: the unbridled expansion of executive power in matters of (endless) war.<\/p>\n

Presidential primacy is nothing new, of course. Executive power has gradually expanded for centuries, especially since World War II. The Obama administration eschewed imprudent, large-scale, conventional invasions, but his legacy is also defined by a sustained campaign of extrajudicial killings of terrorists, expanding the range and geographic scope of military operations, and cracking down on media leaks and whistleblowers. In each sphere, Obama\u2019s hawkish behavior surpassed even that of George W. Bush. This is one reason why Republican criticism of Obama\u2019s supposedly \u201cweak\u201d and \u201cfeckless\u201d foreign policy<\/a> was so confusing. Sure, it\u2019s fair to debate the wisdom of the Iran nuclear deal, his handling of the Syrian civil war, and his near-total withdrawal from Iraq. These are thorny issues worthy of complex analysis. But to label Obama a \u201cdove\u201d<\/a> is just empirically false.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Finally, we turn to the much maligned \u201ccrooked\u201d media<\/a>. Sure, the recent invective between journalists and the Trump administration is spiraling out of control. Yet, even here, Obama\u2019s legacy presents cause for concern. All early campaign rhetoric to the contrary, the last administration was notoriously opaque<\/a> on certain aspects of national security. In fact, Obama used the controversial 1917 Espionage Act<\/a> to prosecute more leakers and whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. While there\u2019s certainly a need for reasonable levels of government secrecy, the classification process and national security state have grown increasingly pernicious<\/a>. When in doubt, government agencies\u2019 default course is to reflexively classify. No matter their political persuasion, citizens ought to desire a free, fair press. Independent journalists require anonymous sources to maintain the transparency Americans once held dear. More prosecutions and threats of serious jail time will inevitably reduce the likelihood courageous sources will step forward. And given President Trump\u2019s contentious \u201crunning war<\/a>\u201d with the press, Obama\u2019s precedent may only be the beginning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Danny Sjursen on the somehow unforeseen problems when “the other party” comes to power: Many Americans were fond of Barack Obama. He left office with some of the highest approval ratings of his entire term. On foreign policy, as in most matters, he seemed reflective, deliberate, and rational. An effective communicator, he maintained composure and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,53,13],"tags":[158,1037,668],"class_list":["post-37404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-politics","category-usa","tag-barackobama","tag-donaldtrump","tag-georgewbush"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9Ji","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37405,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37404\/revisions\/37405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}