Garry Wills: Enemy of the State!!

While I very much understand the view there has been a massive concentration of power in the Executive Branch since well before the Bush Administration, and share the hope that everything will change,  the softly cynical resignation of Wills' column irritated me enough to write a more thorough response.

I supported Obama knowing full well that any American president has a tendency to maintain executive power.

But I also believe this is a president with tremendous knowledge of and respect for the Constitution. Wills' column, while making a nod that he is not doing so, still equates Bush and Obama- this is not only ludicrous but a feed for hopeless cynicism, which is the tone sounding through the column. 

Oscar Wilde's line- the cynic knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing - describes Wills curmudgeonly indulgence. He is saying little has changed, here are these egregious examples of the concentration of executive power, and because Obama is not doing everything we want, it's more or less hopeless.

But this is destructive to its own cause. I am far to the left, but I recognize that this is the classic progressive error.  What you have now is a Congress and a President that have made vitally important strides towards restoration of basic constitutional rights and processes.  You have a President who truly knows the Constitution and its value. This has to be acknowledged to make progress.

At the same time, the Administration needs to have its ass sued, frequently. Wills makes the point that Obama continued holding secret White House visitor logs, and reversed only when sued.


All true. But I think the larger point is that they actually reversed policy, almost cheerfully, when successfully sued. The Bush Administration didn't give a levitating copulation for a legal ruling. It's the difference between returning your problem computer to Costco, arguing and getting your money back, and returning it to Steve's Freshly Stolen Laptops.

The difference in the legal system will be monumental. Obama's judicial appointees are far, far, far, far more likely to look favorably on constitutional rights, to start restoring balance to our system of power-sharing, to start putting the teeth back in the Bill of Rights.  And the Administration is likely to, get this, willingly enforce judicial rulings that go against their desires. That is an essence of the constitutional sharing of powers.

And until Obama, this whole system was on its way to dying.  I must remind you that it had gotten so bad under Bush that the ACLU frequently stopped trying to protect the Constitution by lawsuits, because the rulings of these right wing freaks were laying waste to our most ancient rights. Imagine, for a moment, President Mitt Romney.

Now, we have been restored, not to constitutional health, but to constitutional life. What we have now is a damaged relationship between executive power and the US Constitution. What we had was growing dicatorial authority in the Executive.

The reason I am angry at Wills here is because if you fail to recognize this, if you indulge in a hegemonic view of the executive, of Obama as some sort of warm fuzzy dictator barely distinguishable from Bush in his grab for power,  you will miss this new opportunity to rebuild our legal and constitutional system, an opportunity that Obama's election has permitted at all.

You will be left saying that there is almost no point in speaking up for the Constitution, like Wills' does in this column, at the very moment when democratic political action and coordinated legal action has its best chance to save Constitutional law, the Bill of Rights, respect for the law, and the proper sharing of powers.

Time to write letters supporting Obama's judicial nominees, who generally believe in a constitutional system with Balls- of Rights- so to speak. Time to join the ACLU, if somehow you missed that during the Bush years.