This one is going to be disappointing to anyone who is not a presidential studies geek, but I get this impression of the similarity from the concerns expressed by Senator Robert Byrd about his concern that Obama is using administrative mechanisms to subvert the constitutional process of confirmations. Specifically, his selection of White House staffers to deal with a variety of serious issues means that he has decided to keep control over policy firmly in the White House and is giving major policy responsibilities to people who are loyal only to the president. Nixon did this repeatedly. This is something that Clinton did as well, and something for which Byrd was critical back in the 90s.
The point here is that in almost every way Obama is a throwback to the modern era for presidents, one where substance of policy was central to decision making, and political considerations are filtered through the policy goals of the President. this is good. But it seems like even Obama uses tools of the postmodern presidency to scoot around the constitutional system of separated institutions sharing power. The tendency to build on the informal powers of his predecessors to speed up the deliberative and implementation processes means that at least in one respect, Obama is subject to the forces of inevitability that determine the parameters and approaches of all presidents.
Thanks for the explanation. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with the idea that Obama is working around the separation of powers. That's gotten us in deep (throat) before. Some of us who live within the Beltway--breathing political air without having a political science background--have followed the White House staff developments wondering if a "subrosa Cabinet" was being formed.
ReplyDeleteSo, what do we watch for and when do we raise concerns about this?