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Charlie Savage lays out how recent presidents of both parties have worked to concentrate more unchecked power in the White House at the expense of Congress and the courts. He places these changes in the broader context of the Founders’ insight two centuries ago that because human beings are flawed, no one should wield too much government power; how the United States began to stray from that vision amid the national security fears of the early Cold War; and how the original ‘imperial presidency’ came crashing down amid Watergate and Vietnam. Drawing on the investigative reporting that won him a Pulitzer Prize and his research for his critically-acclaimed book Takeover, Savage explores how the Bush administration set out to roll back the reforms of the 1970s by restoring presidential power to the levels it had briefly reached before Nixon fell, a project that began before 9/11 and that was dramatically accelerated by the war on terrorism. Looking forward to the 2008 election and beyond, Savage discusses how future presidents – including Democrats – are likely to respond to the expanded powers they will inherit as he examines future of American-style democracy.
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Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
Charlie Savage lays out how recent presidents of both parties have worked to concentrate more unchecked power in the White House at the expense of Congress and the courts. He places these changes in the broader context of the Founders’ insight two centuries ago that because human beings are flawed, no one should wield too much government power; how the United States began to stray from that vision amid the national security fears of the early Cold War; and how the original ‘imperial presidency’ came crashing down amid Watergate and Vietnam. |
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