E-L-J

Charles Pierce, as always, brings out a very interesting and important point surrounding the 2008 election.

To me, the single biggest problem with the 2008 presidential election may well be an intractable one . There is no issue more critical to the country than crushing into the dust the theories of Executive power under which the current Avignon Presidency has operated. Everything else -- domestic wiretapping, the war -- flows from an a constitutionally absurd and utterly authoritarian concept of the presidency, one that was fueled by the atrocities of 9-11, and enabled by a dormant Legislature, a fitfully conscious Judiciary, and a national press the thoroughgoing corruption of which is being played out daily in the Prettyman courthouse down in DC. (Dear Tim: Congratulations. Now you're a hack under oath.) Of course, the problem is that no candidate wants to campaign for president based on the platform of appearing to make the presidency weaker. More to the point, no candidate could get elected on the platform of appearing to make the presidency weaker. The only remedies are second-hand ones: elect congressional candidates pledged to uphold the responsibilities of their co-equal branch of government and/or elect a president dedicated to appointing judges who didn't clerk in the House Of Wax. 'Ees a puzzlement. I don't even know how you'd frame a campaign around the issue, but there simply isn't anything more important at stake. Which, among other things, is why neither Rudy Giuliani nor John McCain should be elected. I certainly want the guy who outed Patrick Dorismond's juvie record in order to protect a couple of trigger-happy NYPD cops with his clammy mitts on the entire federal law-enforcement apparatus. I would also like to find a lemon zester with which to shave.

The way in which the power among the branches of government ebbs and flows is a very instructive prism through which our American history can be read. For every surge in power that the executive branch has manage, there has been a swing in the pendulum that brought the system back into equilibrium. Hamilton had Jefferson, Jackson had Calhoun, Lincoln had the Radical Reconstructionists, FDR faced the Court, and Nixon was was forced to resign. Now, as the imperial presidency of the Boy King slides further into the abyss, watching how the executive, judicial and legislative branches emerge from the rubble will be intriguing.

Pierce raises an interesting question, though: Could a candidate get elected on the platform of restoring the balance of legislative and executive power?