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The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power ReviewI have to admit it: I'm a presidential cultist. In 8th grade I memorized all the presidents with their years of service. In high school I read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, a book that inspired me during a particularly rough time in my life. To this day I follow politics like most men follow sports.
So it's not easy or natural for me to recommend a book that celebrates the likes of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge and deconstructs Woodrow Wilson, FDR, or my beloved TR.
Yet if you're like me, you have this nagging sense that something has gone terribly wrong. In a country founded on the anti-monarchical principle that government is "of the people," we have come to lust after a king - a man who will heal our hurts, save us from our enemies, educate our children, protect us from the weather, and guarantee our material comforts.
In this book, you'll learn how we got here. After starting out with the Founders and the debate over whether the nation's chief executive should have a title, you'll be introduced to the concept of Unitary Executive theory and its chief proponent, Professor John Yoo, who as a young lawyer in the post-9/11 Office of Legal Counsel, provided the intellectual firepower for George W's expansive view of presidential prerogative. You'll also meet Clinton Rossiter, whose book, The American Presidency, published in the 1950s, documented how such an expansive view was palatable to the American people who had come to expect their president to be World Leader, Protector of the Peace, Chief Legislator, Manager of Prosperity, and Voice of the People, among other things.
Along the way, you will gain an appreciation for the Quiet Ones - John Adams to Calvin Coolidge - and why, out of commitment to republican principles, they kept their mouths shut (for the most part). You'll see how the Progressive movement's program to take power away from political bosses and give it to "the people" has ironically resulted in creating the greatest political Boss of all. That same movement also gave us our first models of modern Heroic Presidents - TR and Wilson. Interestingly, while TR may have been the Luther, it was Wilson who was the Calvin - the great intellectual systematizer and practical political implementer of the theology of presidential power. "The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can," Wilson declared.
Journalists and scholars, who are, by trade, usually in the Progressive camp, are indicted for aiding and abetting the creation of this un-republican Big Man.
The book falls short of a true classic (and a 5-star rating) due to the following.
The author spills a lot of ink over the imperialistic sins of George W. Bush (3 of 9 chapters), which will unfortunately limit the book's shelf life once the current occupant leaves office. He failed to engage at least one of the standard presidential biographies. Anyone evaluating LBJ is obliged to engage Robert Caro's penetrating 3-volume study, and yet I didn't see one reference to it. There is also a fair amount of dieseling of the author's main point in the book's nearly 300 pages.
His discussion of Lincoln is surprisingly short. He justifies this on the premise that the chief executives from 1865 to 1901 reverted to the antebellum model, and thus Lincoln didn't permanently change the game. And yet all the executive over-reaches of power which the author decries were dramatically displayed in Lincoln. While one may explain this away as a singular historical moment, I have also suspected that Lincoln, and specifically, his Emancipation Proclamation poses something of a dilemma for Libertarians. While emancipation from slavery is certainly libertarian, it took a very un-libertarian Executive Order and a bloody civil war to achieve it. Whether it's by design or oversight, the lack of a thorough discussion of Lincoln and the impact his deification in the post-war North must have had on the young Roosevelt cousins and Wilson was a missed opportunity.
Despite his amassing the evidence of presidential abuses of power, the author's proposed remedies are surprisingly brief (5 pages) and timid - airing some thoughts about the proposed Separation of Powers Act and tinkering with the War Powers Resolution. The author prefaces his lack of solutions by noting that we are already too far gone: until we adjust our expectations of the presidency, no legislative solution will be sufficient to tame the creature we have created. Nevertheless, since we are dealing in the realm of ideas, the author could have taken the opportunity to be bolder.
These shortcomings are relatively minor given the depth with which the author has built his case and the importance and timeliness of his message. To those of you who are growing tired of your addiction to The Politico and RealClearPolitics.com, this book will be your first step toward sobriety.
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