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Friday, September 14, 2012

Defending the Indefensible

The American Conservative

Defending the Indefensible

Eric Posner gives intellectual cover to the unitary executive

My college alumni magazine is featuring an article entitled “Octopotus” on the kind of reasoning in some jurisprudential circles that has supported the “unitary executive.” The article is about the University of Chicago Law School’s Professor Eric Posner, whose most recent book is The Executive Unbound:  After the Madisonian Republic, co-authored with Harvard’s Adrian Vermeule. Posner and Vermeule would appear to agree that when George W. Bush declared the US Constitution to be just a piece of paper he was being candid and also acting in the best interests of the American people. Posner unambiguously sees the non-constitutional accumulation of presidential power as a good thing, enabling rapid response to crises, and describes the Madisonian separation of powers in government as a “historical relic.”

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