Glenn Greenwald (a/k/a “Rick Ellensburg,†“Thomas Ellers,†“Ellison,†“Wilson†and “Ryanâ€Â) and Radley Balko are both atwitter over John McCain hiring the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb to be his deputy communications director, because of something Goldfarb once wrote. Both quote him, but do not include a link included in Goldfarb’s original April 2007 blog post, about a conference call in which former Senator George Mitchell advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq:
Pam Hess, the UPI reporter who gave us this extremely moving and persuasive glimpse of the liberal case for the war in Iraq, asked if timetables for withdrawal “somehow infringe on the president’s powers as commander in chief?” Mitchell’s less than persuasive answer: “Congress is a coequal branch of government…the framers did not want to have one branch in charge of the government.” True enough, but they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war. So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security.
Both Ellensburg and Balko are upset about the “near dictatorial power.” Balko writes that the assertion is false, “by any reasonable reading of the Constitution, Federalist Papers, or diaries of the Constitutional Convention.”
The link for “near dictatorial power” both omit takes the reader to Federalist No. 70. Written by Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70 in fact begins with a reference to the role of a “Dictator” in Roman history. Hamilton likely knew that a “Dictator” of Rome was generally appointed for a term of six months or less to deal with a military emergency. “Near dictatorial” would of course refer to someone less powerful. Moreover, Hamilton’s discussion is primarily an argument for the unitary executive — which is likely the real source of Greenwald’s and Balko’s discontent.
Ellensburg and Balko also ignore the overall context of Goldfarb’s blog post, which was Democratic opposition to the Democratic support for installing Gen. Petraeus and their lack of support for his counterinsurgency strategy. A better Hamilton reference would have been his conception of Executive power presented to the federal convention of 1787, under which the executive was “to have the direction of war when authorized or begun.” That conception is consistent with that expressed by Justice Robert H. Jackson in his famed concurring opinion in the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer:
We should not use this occasion to circumscribe, much less to contract, the lawful role of the President as Commander in Chief. I should indulge the widest latitude of interpretation to sustain his exclusive function to command the instruments of national force, at least when turned against the outside world for the security of our society.
Goldfarb does not appear to have suggested much more than the rather uncontroversial notion that it is part of the presidential power to develop and execute military strategy during wartime, and that in times of military emergency, authority and responsibility are better vested in a single official than a council. Those propositions might be debatable to a lesser or greater degree. Indeed, in Febrauary 2007, Salon published an essay by Garrett Epps complaining that presidents had engaged in power grabs throughout US history because Hamilton had more to do with designing the office than did Madison or any other framer. Instead, Ellensburg and Balko skip straight to the hyperbole and histrionics — despite the fact that Goldfarb is taking a communications job, not a policy position. Apparently, their nuance is selective.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: I am sure Greenwald’s high dudgeon has nothing to do with Goldfarb’s various posts about Greenwald.
Greenwald this, Greenwald that. I am kind of getting to the who cares point where this guy is concerned.
I don’t really care what Alec Baldwin thinks, either. Still entertaining.
– All of the sock puppets have just too much time on their toes.
– Would someone please take all the Glenn(s) aside some time and explain what the term “Commander in Chief” means. I thought to blog you had to have at least a 6th grade education.
I want to see whether I can summon The Caric by making the typo “fudgeon.”
Interestingly enough that the views of GG and libertarian Balko coincide in regards to that piece of stinking shit Goldfarb.
I remember the embarrassment D.Larison put that WS asshole through, when they discussed the events and the reasons for the war in Chechnya.
Goldfarb proved himself again to be “know nothing blowhard”.
It is really a shame McCain will be using his services.
What king of ignorance should be the limit in our political circles to render oneself unemployable. Is there one?
Looking at Goldfarb’ boss from the magazine one assumes there is none…
P.S. Karl, I assume you can call it NDS-neocon derangement syndrome.
The easiest and simplest explanation.
Karl:
To each his own. I am not a big fan of the Three Stooges either, but my feller always tells me they are entertaining.
Maybe the descriptive ‘proconsular power’ as were Fabius,Marius,Sulla
& Caesar would be more apt in this case, it doesn’t have the same flare, but then again it’s lets likely to set off Godwin’s Law violation alarm. It’s downright convenient that Greenwald’s previous constitutional martyr before, Matt Hale, has a striking degree of similarity with the Baathist and even
the Islamists paranoia toward a liberal executive authority in the West
The powers of Congress are enumerated in Article I of the US Constitution. The y are the power to authorize hostilities (war – no matter how restricted the war is) to raise (pay for) armies and navies, to set regulations for the armed forces (see the UCMJ), and at the end the Senate ratifies treaties. That is it.
Conduct of the war falls under Article II where the President is made commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, including the militia of the states (National Guard), when called into Federal Service.
Anything else* falls into the realm of politics, and the Article III branch avoids those questions like most menavoid radium-lined underpants.
*Congress has investigated how monies they have appropriated are spent, and rightly so. See the Truman Commission for an example of this; also see Sen. Proxmire.
– Yeh….Proxmire. I remember him. A real charmer. His face could stop a space shuttle launch,
Faugh. Personal appearances are irrelevant.
Proxmire was the spiritual father of the “consensus on Gerbil Werming” line of thought and the Kerryian “plan”. This was a man who couldn’t pick the “hot” tap over the “cold” one three times out of five without an aide to direct him, but put himself forward as Arbiter of the Value of Scientific Research. His idea, so far as anyone was able to discern it through the bluster, was that if you needed to do the research because you didn’t already know the answers it was “waste”. McCarthy with safer targets. If he were alive today, nishi would have a Golden Fleece with diamond cluster.
Regards,
Ric
sashal,
Note he’s being hired to do communications (probably online stuff), not actual policy. That’s part of why I think GG and Balko were over the top about it.
So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security.
Well, yes, obviously. As Thomas Jefferson said:
“In times of peace the people look most to their representatives; but in war, to the Executive solely.”
“If we are forced into war, we must give up political differences of opinion and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows. In fine, if war takes place, republicanism has everything to fear.”
-Thomas Jefferson
The executive department is in charge of the military and national security, that’s sort of obvious to even a casual reader of the US Constitution, which one would expect someone as allegedly respectable and educated as Greenwald to be. Leftist commenters here I can’t expect that of.
Greenwald is everything that is wrong with political discourse rolled up into one paltry, pale, prolix, expat log of manufactured and cynical cheese food — the kind crusted with almond slivers and flavored with liquid smoke.
And I mean that in a good way.
As Thomas Jefferson said:
“If we are forced into war, we must give up political differences of opinion and unite as one man to defend our country.”
Was that before or after he didn’t say “Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism”?
All of the gleeeeeens, and Mona, are mendoucheous gerbil cave explorers.
The problem with Greenwald isn’t that he’s so wrong and goofy in a “my team or death” partisan way. It’s that he’s taken so very seriously and sagely by too many people. The more you laugh at him, the worse he looks, and I love Jeff’s approach. It baffles and mystifies while making them look ridiculous. Either that or he’s really ripped on Peyote and typing at random like a section out of The Long Goodbye.
I am not really a hockey fan, but this is an incredible game.
Perhaps Balko’s failure to include the link was merely an error of omission and not comission. Else it is sad to seen him stooped to the Gleens’ level of discourse.
“….the kind crusted with almond slivers and flavored with liquid smoke.”
– Probably wouldn’t be a half bad way to spend a Saturday evening if the staples were applied by a nubile lass with tits like a pair of 1936 Rolls Royce touring coach headlights on high beam, and a tankard of iced Bacardi’s purple lable….
Only if the nubile lass had sugartits.
Greenwald this, Greenwald that. I am kind of getting to the who cares point where this guy is concerned.
I agree, which is why I’m more interested in reading about what Rick Ellensburg, Thomas Ellers, Ellison, Wilson and Ryan are saying. One must, after all, keep up with what the girly-man brigade is saying.
Doesn’t anybody make Splenda®tits for us diabetics?
[…] Protein Wisdom – Greenwald & Balko attack Goldfarb and…? [Karl] […]
[…] Jeff Goldstein says I misinterpreted Michael Goldfarb’s blog post where he (falsely) argues that the founders intended the president to have “near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war.” […]
Balko responds thoroughly here:
http://www.theagitator.com/2008/06/04/goldfarb-and-goldstein/
Balko pretty much destroyed you.
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