"Congress has been a big part of the problem," declared Cheney, a veteran of
the Ford administration. "A fundamental problem has been the extent to which
we have restrained presidential authority over the last several years. ...
We have been concerned with the so-called myth of the imperial presidency.
"We must restore some balance" between Congress and the White House, Cheney
insisted.
Gingrich vehemently disagreed. "What we need is a stronger Congress, not a
weaker Congress," he shot back. "The greatest danger of the Reagan
administration is that conservatives will decide they can trust imperial
presidents as long as they are right-wing when they are imperial."
I'd be curious to know if Gingrich still feels that way, now that his hungry
eyes seem focused on the presidency. But the Newt of 1980 was definitely on
to something. Today, most people object to the imperial presidency only when
the other party controls the White House.
At Sunday's conference, for example, Sen. Barack Obama proclaimed that
"people are tired of Scooter Libby justice." Clinton's pardons for loyalist
Susan McDougal, billionaire tax evader Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists
apparently slipped down the memory hole.
For eight years, the right screamed bloody murder about Clinton's
overreaching. He minted new executive privileges, "accidentally" rummaged
through the FBI files of political opponents and sought electronic
wiretapping powers - during peacetime - that today are denounced. Some on
the right feared we were on a slippery slope to tyranny. Liberals often
chortled about such right-wing paranoia.
Today, the dynamic is reversed. Liberals fret over creeping fascism while
conservatives give Bush the benefit of the doubt. Both sides are open to
charges of hypocrisy, and neither is immune to partisan amnesia. The only
consistent crowd are the Libertarians, who distrust all government power.
I wish I had some solution to offer, but my guess is there is none. Indeed,
you can be sure that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, someone will
denounce her as "the most radical president we've ever had" - whether it's
true or not.