In a little-noticed interview with Michael Tomasky in the Guardian America this week, Hillary Clinton was asked, "What specific powers might you relinquish as president, or renegotiate with Congress - for example, the power to declare a U.S. Citizen an enemy combatant?" Clinton didn't name any "specific powers" she might "relinquish." But consider what she did say:
Well, I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer. Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection. But when you take the view that they're not extraordinary powers, but they're inherent powers that reside in the office and therefore you have neither obligation to request permission nor to ask for ratification, we're in a new territory here. And I think that I'm gonna have to review everything they've done because I've been on the receiving end of that. There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the Constitution. There were other actions they've taken which could have obtained congressional authorization but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle.
Tomasky followed up by asking whether a president can "actually give up some of this power in the name of constitutional principle?" To which Clinton said, "Absolutely," and suggested that she might be doing that as a result of "the review that I undertake when I get to the White House."To the extent that the administration's "power grab" has prevented another 9/11, those most supportive of Clinton's willingness to "relinquish" some of that power - besides the hard left in the Democratic party - can be found in certain caves, camps, and cells. Surely Clinton did not intend to encourage terrorists at war with us, but that would seem to be the effect. Nor is it obvious why Clinton would want to open herself to the charge (to put it in the terms reasonable to expect during the next year's campaign) that she is willing to disarm the nation - indeed herself - in the war on terrorism. The oddity of Clinton's remarks is that, for reasons Harvey Mansfield has explained, if Clinton were president, she would likely find herself more inclined to hold on to executive authority than to give it up.
Clinton's comments suggest the possibility that the 2008 presidential election will include a debate over presidential power in wartime. Actually, that could prove an important, clarifying debate, provided the Republican nominee is up to it. Among the issues: Is the Bush-Cheney "power grab" really that, and has it exceeded that by any other president (Nixon, even)? What does "the executive power" encompass? And why do we have presidents anyway? Why - the question some interviewer should ask during next fall's televised debates - does the president's oath of office obligate him (or her) to execute a particular office, while everyone else in the federal establishment is bound by their oath only "to support this Constitution"?
Incidentally, the presidential oath in full is this: "I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
