The power of the presidency for good or bad

By Carol Gee

How much power does our current president (OCP) have to calm the credit market crisis? If we look at the current POTUS and the potential POTII (Obama and McCain), many would say that the three men have not had the most influence over the problem solving process. In this case it is probably to the good. The plan for solving economic crisis on Wall Street has been worked out between Congressional leaders and the combined efforts of Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke. President Bush will certainly have to sign the legislation, but because he is in full lame duck mode, he did not exercise much power in the deal making.

Nor did either Senator running for president preside over the deal that has emerged. We do not yet know the full story of how much power to influence either candidate exercised. Senator Obama preferred to generally observe a line between the Political campaign and the negotiations. Senator McCain tried to interject himself into the process to gain political points, not because of any economic expertise he could bring to the table. McCain claims expertise in foreign policy, but it will always seen through a neocon/terrorism/fight the enemy lens identical to OCP. It is easy to see when the two issues get conflated as in this example from my daily newsletter, Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security -- Behind the Lines (9/23/08). Except for the Tom Head piece in the next paragraph, all the following quotes are from the CQ newsletter by David C. Morrison (dates in parentheses). To quote:

“The financial terrorism thing to me has to be put on the table just because the regular short sellers are not doing this. They’re not doing this,” The Columbia Journalism Review’s Ryan Chittum quotes CNBC’s Jim Cramer on last week’s market madness — and see TheStreet’s Dan Freed, as well, on “the specter of financial terrorism.”

"The Power of the Presidency" was written by Tom Head under the Issues and Views section in Civil Liberties/About.com. He says that the exercise of presidential power is the most dangerous, packing the most potential to be bad for the country. Head explores the problem:

The federal government is made up of the executive branch (led by the president), the legislative branch (Congress), and the judicial branch (led by the Supreme Court). While all branches have at times abused their roles, the executive branch is by far the most dangerous of the three.

• The 8 Worst Presidents in U.S. History on Civil Liberties Issues


• Watch the Executive Branch


• Does the White House Need a Civil Liberties Advisor?


• Understanding the Unitary Executive Theory


• Does John McCain Endorse the Unitary Executive Theory?


• Bill Clinton's Legacy and the Unitary Executive Theory


• Torture and Executive Power
  

OCP, our current president, has been misguided in his use of power from the beginning of his tenure. He misused his power by raising our fears of terrorism. His kind of attitude led to the 2001 power grabs. The power wielding style of OCP illustrates what a bad example the U.S. has been. See this similar style in our close ally, Australia. We see it alive and well in "Talking Terror" (9/23/08). To quote:

“Contrary to opinion in some quarters, bleeding-heart naivete and soft-headed stupidity are not virtues, especially in terror prevention,” an Australian editorial asserts in the wake of a massive terror trial.

"Over there" is from 9/24/08. Exercising power through bullying words and patronizing ignorance is destructive to our place of moral leadership in the eyes of the world. To quote:

In his valedictory U.N. General Assembly address, President Bush accused Syria and Iran of sponsoring terrorism, which he said “has no place in the modern world,” Agence France-Presse reports. “Yemeni people by nature are kind and friendly. Most foreigners who have visited Yemen would agree to this. If so, then how come the same nation is said to be a haven for terrorism?” The Yemen Times muses.

This kind of rhetoric is not helpful. Because presidential words have such power, these attitudes are evidently communicable. They morph into religious intolerance, muddy foreign relations waters, and surely alienate moderate Muslims. These links from 9/25/08 are examples. To quote:

Holy Wars: “I am beyond ashamed of all the ‘Christian’ groups who have hosted [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York] and are placating and talking peace with this living piece of trash and evil!” a Canadian Free Press contributor condemns.

Unfettered presidential power is at its worst when it is clearly unconstitutional -- The Constitution was careful to say that the military must not act as domestic law enforcement agents, except in case of a temporary emergency, such as a natural disaster. The newsletter has a current "bad for the country" example, from 9/25/08. To quote:

Having spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, a 3rd Infantry Division brigade will spend the next year at home as an on-call federal response force for emergencies, including terrorist attacks, The Army Times’ Gina Cavallaro recounts. This deployment inside the United States“ for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the longstanding prohibitions in Posse Comitatus,” Salon’s Glenn Greenwald growls.

There are little signs that the Constitution continues to have some small influence over the Executive. It happens when an official resigns out of conscience, when a judge expresses reluctance to rule for OCP, or when the FBI pays more attention to their constitutional responsibilities. The newsletter on 9/25/08 illustrates:

Courts and rights: A military prosecutor at Guantanamo is stepping down after a disagreement with his superiors described as a dispute over the ethical handling of a war crimes case, The New York Times tells. . . . A U.S. judge has “reluctantly” agreed to a request from Washington to delay appeals brought by some 250 Guantanamo detainees challenging the legality of their detention, Agence France-Presse recounts. In a nod to concerns that Americans could be investigated in terrorism cases without evidence of wrongdoing, Justice says it will tweak still-tentative rules governing FBI national security cases before they are issued, AP says.

EU does it right -- (9/24/08) The European Parliament yesterday underlined freedom of speech and the protection of privacy in E.U. legislation on the fight against terrorism, Xinhua says.

Presidential power should be exercised for the good of the nation and world peace. My newsletter of 9/25/08 notes, "The next president should call for better relations with the Muslim world in his inaugural address and pursue an Israeli-Palestinian accord within three months of taking office, AP has 34 ex-U.S. officials saying in a report released yesterday." Unfortunately OCP seems to know nothing other than military intervention. And terrorism has not been eradicated as a result of this bias towards kinetic power. CQ (9/23/08) has this: “Military operations do not provide safety from terrorism. On the contrary, the rule is that bombing attacks multiply in reaction to military offensives,” Deutsche Welle's Thomas Baerthlein propounds." And here is the really good CQ news about the power of nonviolence. “Global terrorism is now drawing more and more youngsters to study the Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy,” The Times of India’s Bharat Yagnik surveys.

The presidential powers granted under the U.S. Constitution can be wielded for the good or for bad of the nation. Thirty-six days from now the last of the 2008 election votes will be cast. Then we will have a new president. I hope it will be Barack Obama, by far our best chance for a fresh start. OCP has 112 days left in office. Please join me as the countdown continues.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Gravity sucks

By Carl

As anybody who's ever ridden a bicycle or even stood up knows, what goes up must come down.

This is as true for the stock market as it is for anything else. Granted, it's a whole lot harder for the market to fall back to sea level, something about retained earnings and asset values underpinning stock prices, but trust me on this: it is not impossible.

Enter Paul Krugman:

The bailout plan released yesterday is a lot better than the proposal Henry Paulson first put out — sufficiently so to be worth passing. But it's not what you’d actually call a good plan, and it won't end the crisis. The odds are that the next president will have to deal with some major financial emergencies.

Absolutely.

I'm not arguing that this is the mother of all financial crises. I am arguing, however, that the MOAFC stands a better chance of happening now, when the market is weakened and the solutions ineffectual, just like an opportunistic flu is more likely to incubate when the body's defenses are weakened.

The trouble with this bailout package is, it's like giving a bandage to a patient who's suffered a heart attack because he got a papercut filling in his admittance forms.

The real trouble is, well, ask a hundred pundits the cause of this problem, and you'll get a hundred different answers, all of them wrong.

Ask a hundred different economic pundits and you'll get a hundred different answers, of which 95% are incomplete.

Make no mistake about this: this crisis is pervasive and infiltrates the coziest sectors of our economy, and the world's economy. There was no single simple cause and there will not be a single answer, although the ultimate solution may end up being enormously simple. I think. I'll post more on my solution later this week.

We were worried about avian flu? This is an economic avian flu.

Curiously and coincidentally, this flu, like the avian one, has its roots in Asia. America exports debt. Period. We're good at it. We export roughly $700 billion annually (there's a reason that the bailout was pegged at that figure, and that's the reason right there).

Asian nations, flush with cash as their economies have overheated, have invested heavily in American debt, first in Treasuries bill and notes, and then when the purchase of those became unprofitable (for the same reason mortgages became attractive) in mortgage backed securities.

The gamble everyone made was that housing prices could only keep going up. Remember the title of this column?
As housing prices peaked and slid down a little, banks stopped lending money, forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to step in to keep the supply of mortgages consistent with the (overmarketed) demand.

How many Ditech.com and Countrywide commercials were there each hour just a few years ago? Five? Ten? Twenty? It's no surprise that these companies were the canary in the flu mine. They had the riskiest loans with the least capitalization, and needed to borrow the money they were lending.

And banks were only too happy to lend to them. Why? Because banks knew that the Fed and Treasury would step in when things got hairy. After all, the Fed helped arrange the bailout Long Term Capital Management. They'd have to step in where people's homes were at risk!

This is not the only cause of the current crisis and books will be written about them all, until eventually a comprehensive picture is put together, but I think this is a reasonable timeline of this crisis and how it unfolded. Call it the tree on which to hang the ornaments.

But like a Christmas tree, what goes up eventually must come down...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

I get mail -- worthy causes

By Libby Spencer

Even though I'm just a B-list blogger I get asked all the time to review books and pitch worthy causes. I often don't get around to even reading them before it's too late but this one is a really worthy effort and you still have one day to participate.

The International Medical Corps has been named as a finalist in a contest sponsored by American Express. International Medical Corps has been matched to one of the Top 25 in American Express’ Members Projects, ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.’

Chosen out of 1,190 projects, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children” is now eligible to receive up to $1.5 million in funding. The project with the most votes receives $1.5 million, 2nd receives $500,000, 3rd $300,000, and 4th and 5th $100,000. The funding – made possible by your votes – would bring a vital lifeline to hungry and malnourished children around the world.

We need your help between now and September 29th. Voting is easy and doesn’t cost a thing! In just a click, you can save the lives of thousands of malnourished children. Click here to vote:

For severely malnourished children, we offer a step-by-step treatment program that gives them what they need to recover, including nutrient-dense food supplements like the peanut-based product, Plumpy'Nut. Our comprehensive monitoring system saves more than 90 percent of children being treated in our feeding centers. Being one of the Top 5 would mean our nutrition could reach more children around the world who need our help.

It's a little complicated to vote, you have to join the group first, but I checked out the greater project and it's legit. You won't be charged any money and of the 25 projects, I liked this one the best. So if you have a few minutes, it's good way to spend it to end world hunger.

Another project I've been asked to promote is Ban Cluster Bombs. They don't seem to be involved in any time sensitive project but with the world at perpetual war and seeing our country is also an offender, it's worth a few minutes to check out their site. It's an eye-opener.

Finally, I don't generally pitch books I haven't read, but this request was so polite, you might want to check out Oxford University Press who are promoting a book on the Bush Doctrine that looks interesting based on the review they posted.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)