Rudy Endorses Dictatorship
Posted on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 10:44:11 AM EST
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Update [2007-4-3 12:44:16 by Big Tent Democrat]: See also Glenn Greenwald on Dictator Rudy, who also believes the President has the power to imprison American citizens without due process. A dangerous lunatic is Giuliani.
Via Matt Yglesias, Rich Lowry describes Rudy Giuliani endorsing dictatorship:
Rudy . . . began to muse about, after a veto, "would the president have the constitutional authority to support them [the troops], anyway?" . . . He seemed to suggest that Bush could fund the Iraq war without Congress providing funding. . . [He] said, since the war had been authorized by Congress, the president has "the inherent authority to support the troops." But he added, "You have to ask a constitutional lawyer." . . . I asked Rudy whether he was saying Bush could veto the supplemental and, in the absence of a deal with Congress, fund the troops in Iraq under his own authority. "If he vetoes it, he's going to have to find a way to support the troops," Rudy said. "They have given him the authorization to fight the war," and "Bush has the power to redirect the money and time to work something out" with Congress. . . .
This is blatantly unconstitutional. It advocates for dictatorship in wartime. It is a great example of what Rudy Giuliani is.
As I have written before, Alexander Hamilton makes it perfectly clear that what Rudy advocates for is one of the main reasons the American Revolution took place:
that standing armies [need not] be kept up in time of peace; [n]or [is] it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops, without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to the control of the legislature. . . . [T]he whole power of raising armies was lodged in the LEGISLATURE, not in the EXECUTIVE; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people periodically elected; . . . there [is], in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period than two years a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident necessity.
Rudy does not care. Even Rich Lowry realizes this is crazy talk from Rudy:
my understanding is that Rudy is wrong: the president can't simply re-direct money Congress has appropriated for specific purposes. If Bush wanted to go down a very confrontational route, he could sign the supplemental and defy the timetable as unconstitutional, but he can't simply pull money out of nowhere or take it from elsewhere for his own preferred purposes.
And Yglesias sees what Rudy is:
Frankly, people with an outsized view of presidential powers shouldn't be tarred by association with Giuliani, a power-hungry egomaniac who just happens to be running for president at the moment. When he was Mayor, he thought he had the power to abrogate the City Charter and illegally extend his term in office. If he winds up as Borough President of Brooklyn he'll take an outsized view of the powers of that office. The difference is that there are pretty strong institutional checks on the power of local government officials -- even mayors of giant cities -- in the United States so it didn't matter all that much that Giuliani was a power-hungry egomaniac.
If Rudy has a real chance of becoming President, I would be terrified.
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