I have had my gripes with George Will before. When he tore into CEO compensation, when he blamed our problems on "people living beyond their means", and (wrongly it turns out) when he wrote off McCain too early in the race. However, this time, he is so wrong that I feel the need to break my planned vacation just to respond to his specific idiocies.

I don't know if Mr. Will has just been inside the beltway way too long, or if he is trying to curry favor with the incoming administration, or maybe just his moderate tendencies are starting to bleed through, but his fear of the dread "unitary executive" is reading like a DNC talking points memo from 2006. Oh, I'll grant that by extension the Obama administration is being criticized, but his grasp of history is simply negligible in this.

I'll grant, in this specific instance, Bush has probably exceeded his authority, though even there it is arguable as all three automakers do contain finance branches, making the extension of aid an arguably legitimate use of the bailout funds. But even if we agree that this extension of the bailout is illegitimate, it does not follow that the executive has been garnering immense power. In fact, I would argue that the executive has been waning, while the legislative has gained in power.

What is Will's evidence? Signing statements and "history". Well, signing statements, as I argued before, are actually a reduction in executive power, not an expansion. As Andrew Jackson and every president after has known, the executive has incredible leeway in enforcement. They have exercised this silently. What Bush has done is only to give warning how he will exercise that power. That doe snot mean no other president has exercised discretion, just that they have done it without telling us how they will. In issuing signing statements, Bush has actually let us know how he will exercise discretion. In short, despite all the anger signing statements have created, they actually represent a net reduction of discretion, not an increase.

And history? Has he never heard of the Spartan ephors? Of the Venetian councils? It is "inevitable" in big governments that power will accrue to the executive? I think not. If history shows anything, it is that an excessively large government will result in the various branches fighting for power. Sometimes the executive will win, sometimes the legislative, sometimes other groups. Yes, Hitler's Germany may have concentrated power in the executive, but that was a historical fluke because of the conscious decision to gut the legislative. Ont he other hand, the soviet union concentrated all power in the legislative, or the non-governmental party, with the official executive having little real power. So there is no historical pattern to the end result of a massive state. The only certainty is that the groups will fight to control that huge power.

The truth is, our government may have seen a recent power grab by the executive, but that comes only after a string of unprecedented expansions of the other two branches. For example, the gang of 14 compromise was a loss for the executive, resulting in the need not just of consent, but super majority consent for presidential appointments. Similarly, the legislature's ability, exercised since at the elast the 1970's, to pass legislation to decide regulatory matters, means that regulatory agency control has effectively passed form the executive to the legislative.

However, the true locus of power today is the judiciary. With Boumedine, the judiciary declared that the legislative can place no matters off limit from review. As the court has regularly placed matters of specifically executive concern under scrutiny, this means that the court itself is subject to no review, and has effectively been removed from the system of checks and balances. Compared to that signing statements, and even this latest arrogation of power, is nothing.

Then again, recently Will has seem inclined to blame Bush for everything. I can't really explain it, as Will is not otherwise given to DailyKos style excesses, but in this case, he seems positively bent on running down Bush. Now I am no big fan of Bush, as I wrote before, his record is mixed, but I do believe in giving the man a fair deal. Then again, perhaps Will is not led by ideology in this, maybe it is simply that Bush's rather coarse folksy manner grates on Will's pseudo-patrician "Buckley-lite" pretensions.

Whatever the reasons, in this case, Will is way off base. We are not facing an impending executive dictatorship. All we see is yet another act int he constant "struggle of all against all" that is life within an omnipotent state.

POSTSCRIPT

If the government were properly constrained, with the executive doing nothing more than defending the nation's borders, settling disputes between the states, and handling interstate civil suits, the question of "signing statements" would be of little consequence, as who cares how the president interprets laws when they effect maybe 1 in 100,000 citizens? Were we to return tot he founders' vision of a confederation of independent, sovereign states, all these questions of federal omnipotence would be moot.

POSTSCRIPT II

And now I am going back on my vacation. At least until something else annoys me enough to write again. Or Monday. Whichever comes first.