Balkinization: "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy"

"Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy"

Charlie Savage

This is Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe. Jack Balkin has invited me to introduce my new book, “Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy,” to this audience. “Takeover” goes beyond my reporting last year on the Bush-Cheney administration’s signing statements. It is a comprehensive investigation into the administration’s efforts to expand presidential power. Early readers have also called it a legal history of the administration and an intellectual biography of the vice president, and I would like to think that both descriptions are apt.

The first quarter of the book is a history of executive power, especially from Watergate to the Clinton administration, interwoven with the story of Dick Cheney’s rise and the unfolding of his three-decade agenda of restoring White House authority to what it had been before Nixon’s fall. The remainder of the book is an accounting of how Cheney’s long-term goal organized the administration’s policies and actions from its first day in office, before 9/11, and how the war on terrorism helped throw that pre-existing inclination into overdrive.

"Takeover" is a structured as a narrative, with scenes and characters, and it tells the stories of key figures such as David Addington, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, Jack Goldsmith, Jim Haynes, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and others. I interviewed many former members of the administration legal team, both on the record and on background, and also drew on many memos about executive power written by these lawyers both during the current era and in the past. Some of these memos will be familiar to readers of this blog, but I also uncovered many interesting documents that have never before received public discussion.

The book also provides constitutional analysis written for a non-specialist audience. For example, it discusses at length the invention and evolution of the Unitary Executive Theory, explaining the administration legal team’s use of an enhanced version of the theory to convert “inherent” presidential powers into "exclusive" ones that Congress cannot regulate. It also explores the politics of presidential power, rising secrecy, signing statements, the torture ban fight, and White House efforts to impose greater political control over the military Judge Advocates General, Justice Department lawyers, and other career executive branch officials. Throughout the book, I argue that executive power is not a partisan issue – future Democratic presidents will also be able to draw on these same powers to impose their own agendas unilaterally. (I also made this argument in an essay in the October issue of the Atlantic Monthly and in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air earlier this week.)

"Takeover" has received some flattering early praise from commentators and legal scholars from across the political spectrum, including John Dean, George Will, Richard Epstein, Larry Tribe, Mickey Edwards, and Norman Ornstein. Harold Koh, the dean of Yale Law School, called it the “definitive account” of “the systematic effort at constitutional revolution pressed by the Bush-Cheney Administration since September 11.” In the book’s first full-length review last weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle called the book “a masterful work of investigative journalism” that ”deserves to be remembered as one of the key texts of the Bush years.”

My aim in writing this book was to both provide a text that would be interesting and valuable to specialists who have been paying close attention to these issues, such as the readers of this blog, while also reaching a broader readership. More information can be found at CharlieSavage.com. In addition, I have been invited to file daily guest-author postings next week at TPM Café, and may cross-post some of those entries here if they seem geared to a legal audience.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Professor Balkin for lending me this platform.

Posted 2:41 PM by Charlie Savage [link]

Comments:

Thanks for the introduction. I'll have to wait to read your book until the local library gets it.

# posted by

Charles : 3:02 PM

Thank you for posting. I hope you will respond to comments.

Was Goldsmith a member of the "War Council" or was this an artifact of the early days of the WOT?

Was Bybee a part of this War Council, or was it only his Deputy, Yoo?

Was the inclusion of Yoo a part of the Compartmentalization issue Ashcroft objected to? In other words was Yoo answering to Addington et al rather than Bybee/Ashcroft in the 2001-2003 DOJ?

Is Goldsmith writing now because he wants to spite Addington? In other words, Goldsmith advocated congressional inclusion in establishing the unitary executive and Addington did not- post-Patriot act and Post 2007-FISA suggests going to Congress gets more than you ask for. Goldsmith is vindicated. Or was Goldsmith really concerned about Civil Liberties?

Do you think the Prosecutor purge and nomination of Gonzlaes and Flanigan for #1 and #2 in DOJ reflected an attempt to remove the last obstacle of unitary executive? In other words, make sure men like Comey and Goldsmith and Philbin could be managed...?

Thanks!!!

# posted by

drational : 3:07 PM

Sounds like a very interesting book. I look forward to reading it.

# posted by

Steve M : 5:05 PM

It has always seemed me that there's little difference between signing statements, which in effect have the president saying that the executive branch reserves the right to ignore, either by lack of enforcement or outright breaking, particular aspects of laws passed by the congress, and Clinton's attempt at implementing line item vetoes. The "supreme court" found Clinton's mini vetoes to be unconstitutional. Now I'm not a lawyer and also not of the sense of legal purity to believe the current courts wouldn't simply find that a law or decision might apply differently to a Democrat rather than a Republican. I think the 2000 election decision pretty much sealed that understanding. Still, though there are differences in signing statements from line item vetoes, in effect they are the same and if one is unconstitutional, the other should be.

# posted by

Amos Anan : 11:17 PM

Thank you, Mr. Savage, for bringing this set of critical issues to our attention, in the Globe and now in your book.

# posted by

jrw : 11:46 PM

I look forward to reading you book and blogs at TMC.

After following your articles in the Boston Globe and your presentation at the "Presidential Conference" at the Mass. School of Law last year the high standard you set for yourself is evident.

There has never been a time when we needed REAL journalists as much as now.

# posted by

electra : 4:45 AM

I am reading the book right now, and it is quite good. I find I have to put it down frequently, however, as what it so cogently describes makes me seethe.

# posted by

Unknown : 11:50 AM