Friday Afternoon

Well, you know how I feel about Bush. I think from a conversative standpoint you've got judges and you've got tax cuts. You've got the two wars, but even those haven't gone too great - Afghanistan doesn't get a ton of press coverage but it's not a peachy situation either.

Now, as to tax cuts, again, I'm no economist, but it seems like we'll pay for them at some point. As to the judges... well, wouldn't you expect that from a Republican president?

The one strain between both Alito and Roberts - and I like Roberts from what I've seen, insofar as he seems to know his stuff, and he has led a pretty harmonious Supreme Court so far - but they both have a tendency to yield to the executive. I came across quite a few articles yesterday, talking about the concept of the "unitary executive". For instance:

The Supreme Court's embrace of the “unitary executive” would sound the death knell for independent regulatory agencies as they have existed since the Great Depression, when they were structured with shared control between the Congress and the President. Putting the agencies under the President’s thumb would tip the balance of Washington power to the White House and invite abuses by letting the Executive turn on and off enforcement investigations.

For instance, if the “unitary executive” had existed in 2001, Bush might have been tempted to halt the SEC accounting investigation that spelled doom for Enron Corp. and his major financial backer, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay. As it was, the relative independence of the SEC ensured that the accounting probe went forward and the fraudulent schemes propping up the Houston-based company were exposed.

This to me is the scariest part of the Bush administration's legacy. While of course the president should not have his hands tied in matters of war, this to me seems to cross the line. What has happened now is that Bush has 4 justices on the court that are sympathetic to this idea of presidential power; I don't think a serious case has come before them that has tested it, but I would assume that all four would come down on the side of the executive. And, were another justice, say Souter, to retire, that would give Bush a solid majority in his favor.

How will the Supreme Court rule on cases of presidential power post-Bush? Will the concept of an all-powerful executive remain in vogue, if, say, Hillary Clinton is in power (I know that this is the bogeyman that conservatives often wave against presidential encroachment, so I use her here)?

Furthermore, it doesn't seem like that concept is all that conservative, especially from a libertarian conservative's point of view. Of course, in other conservative ways they pass with flying colors - so I guess it's all about your perspective.

Steve - you mentioned that:

Fortunately we have all those foreigners pumping money into our system (which is how we've been getting away with this for so long).

What if foreigners cease pumping money into our system? What happens, and how likely, is that scenario?

Well, I'm off for the weekend. I'll catch up on Sunday.