Unprecedented Presidency
Unprecedented. How many times has that word come up on conjunction with the Bush administration’s tactics? I lost count. Dick Cheney and his vision of CEO-type control of our government has gone far to reinvent presidential power. The problem I see is, if our government is to be run like a company, well… isn’t a company supposed to make money? I digress…
The latest unprecedented gambit is to try to take control of our National Guard service from the hands of state Governors. From Washington Post:
The nation’s governors, protesting what they call an unprecedented shift in authority from the states to the federal government, will urge Congress today to block legislation that would allow the president to take control of National Guard forces in the event of a natural disaster or a threat to homeland security.
Ahh… That old phantom adversary trick. Shopworn as it is, it’s still useful. Crying "Terrorist" is still the hat-trick of the power-elite. Now, though, people are starting to question:
In a sharply worded letter that will be transmitted to Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress this morning, the governors ask that a House-Senate conference committee remove a provision included in the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act giving the president such authority.
"This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors as commanders and chief of the Guard to the federal government," the governors state in the letter.
Almost all governors are protesting the move. 51 in all, including some from US territories. This begs the question; who agrees with this move? The article didn’t say.