The Right Seeks to Rein In Presidential Power

This is extraordinary. A group of Conservatives are demanding that the Democrat controlled Congress reign in the power that Bush has been demanding belongs to him, and they are insisting that the Democrats must "restore checks and balances".

They say their voice is constantly undermined by the "Anne Coulter wing" of the Republican Party and the "ignorance of members of Congress about the principles of a constitutional democracy."

In an exclusive interview with TruthOut, Bruce Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and is a founder of a conservative movement known as the Liberty Coalition, set out the ten point plan known as the American Freedom Agenda.

The plan calls for the following:

• End the use of military commissions to prosecute crimes.
  
• Prohibit the use of secret evidence or evidence obtained by torture.
  
• Prohibit the detention of American citizens as enemy combatants without proof.
  
• Restore habeas corpus for alleged alien combatants.
  
• End National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping.
  
• Challenge presidential signing statements.
  
• Bar executive use of the state-secret privilege to deny justice.
  
• Prohibit the president from collaborating with foreign governments to kidnap, detain or torture persons abroad.
  
• Amend the Espionage Act to permit journalists to report on classified national security matters without threat of persecution.
  
• Prohibit of the labeling of groups or individuals in the US as global terrorists based on secret evidence.

It's an astonishing interview and suggests that there are still some Conservatives out there, but getting their voice heard is almost impossible because of, "imbeciles like Anne Coulter" as Fein puts it.

He expressed disappointment with the lack of any real pushback against presidential power by Congressional Democrats. "The Democrats in Congress have done absolutely nothing to tell the president he is not a king and we do not live in a monarchy. They are allowing him to trash the Constitution because most of them know nothing about the Constitution and are concerned only with making headlines about minor issues and getting themselves reelected."

Fein acknowledged that things were probably worse when Congress was under Republican control, "but only marginally."

"Neither party has shown the courage to assert the power of Congress as a coequal branch of government. Congress should be telling the president it's not OK to detain people without trials, to grab people off the streets and 'render' them to other countries to be tortured, to listen in to our telephone conversations, and to issue signing statements that nullify laws he doesn't like."

He added, "We elect members of Congress to lead, not to follow. If they are going to lead, they need to understand the Constitution and the vision of its framers, and then have the backbone to insist that the executive branch stop usurping the responsibilities assigned to the legislative and judicial branches of our government."

It's a breath of fresh air to hear someone say this. To realise that there are still some parts of the Conservative movement that recognise that the power Bush is claiming for himself are actually the powers of a King. That the only precedent for a President claiming that he is above the law is Nixon and we all know how that ended.

Nor is he representing some fringe group.

The Liberty Coalition includes such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, American Families United, Americans for Tax Reform, Amnesty International, the Arab American Institute, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Common Cause, Concerned Foreign Service Officers, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Government Accountability Project, MoveOn.org, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, People for the American Way, the Veterans Affairs Whistleblowers Coalition and many others.

Of course, his group is being attacked by Republicans as well as some Democrats. He names Hillary Clinton as a Democrat who would be unlikely to sign as, "Like her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Senator Clinton believes in a strong executive branch of government," Fein said.

However, it is for Republicans that he reserved some of his best lines:

"Too many people who call themselves conservatives have lost their way. Those who support George W. Bush's interpretation of executive power are not Democrats, they are monarchists."

At last someone has said it. George Bush's bizarre style of Conservatism isn't actually Conservatism at all. It's something altogether darker and more pernicious.

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Tags: The Liberty Coalition, Bruce Fein, executive power