On the other side of the web today

Cheney thinks that Obama will appreciate the instauration of executive power by the Bush administration. Jack Balkin and Eric Posner speculated last month that the new administration isn't going to be very skeptical of executive power (what incoming administration in its right mind would be? Cf. this post from March), and that's appropriate. It would be healthy for Obama to dial back executive power one or two notches, as Balkin put it - but only one or two. The Bush administration has greatly strengthened the unitary executive, properly understood - i.e. the intrabranch power of the President vis-à-vis other (subordinate) executive branch actors, and that is to the good. Obama should leave that dial where it is. On the other hand, this administration has also amped up the claimed independent and interbranch power of the executive branch, often also referred to by liberals by the label of the unitary executive - inaccurately (it might more accurately be called the "robust executive," as I branded it here). That's where I think they've pushed too far, and that's where I hope Obama dials things back a little. There's enduring value, though, as I argued at the link just given, in a Democratic administration coming in and normalizing the reinvogoration of executive authority.

How we got into this problem, of course, was the hysterical post-traumatic overreaction to the Nixon administration's abuses of power (I've warned in a variety of contexts that we should be cautious about stamping out a given behavior (or power) that can be either beneficial or harmful just because it can become pathological, or can be abused). And speaking of Nixon, there's a movie about his interviews with David Frost coming out soon; the Huffpo (of all places) is concerned that it distorts the record. We'll call that an admission against interest.