'Unitary Executive' Or Autocracy?

Paul Waldman
March 08, 2006

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America. His next book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success, will be released in the spring by John Wiley & Sons.

After the 2000 election, one in which Republicans successfully hijacked the electoral process in Florida to obtain their preferred outcome and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court issued what may have been its most disgraceful decision since Dred Scott, supposedly neutral observers in the media were unanimous in their praise for the smooth operation of the government at all levels. The system worked, they said. There were no tanks in the streets, and the person who had actually won the election did the right thing and gave in. “Maybe the best thing of all,” intoned CNN’s Candy Crowley, “is that the messy feelings at the Florida ballot box have really only proven the strength of democracy.”

One cannot help but be reminded of that reaction as the Bush administration proceeds in its relentless assault on the foundations of our democratic system. We all (and no one more so than the Washington media) have an investment in the idea that “the system” is virtually immune from harm. The rule of law prevails, the institutions of the republic are immovable, and no matter who holds power at a particular moment, no official or administration can really harm the fundamental underpinnings of the world’s oldest democracy.