Will Obama "Deimperialize" the Presidency? Nout Bluidy Loik'ly!

Perhaps BOTH of my regular readers (hello, St. Amant!) will possibly recall that I have predicted on countless occasions that as president, Mr. O. probably wouldn't actually cede back to the Congress many--if ANY--of the 'emergency powers' arrogated unto the Presidency by the Busheviks.

Via TruthOut, Gail Russell Chaddock, of The Christian Science Monitor confirms my suspicions:

"As a US senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama routinely criticized the accretion of presidential power during the Bush years. But in the run-up to assuming the presidency himself, the President-elect has gone silent on whether he would roll back powers claimed during the Bush years - or support congressional efforts to do so."

In such matters, silence is worrisome, and the color of 'worrisome' is NOT golden. Chaddock's report continues:

"As president, I will not assert a constitutional authority to deploy troops in a manner contrary to an express limit imposed by Congress and adopted into law," he said in a Dec. 20, 2007 interview with The Boston Globe, circulated by the transition team.

As a US senator, he introduced a resolution (S.J. Res. 23) that stated that "any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress."

But some civil libertarians say that the precedents of the Bush years are so threatening to a constitutional balance of powers that Obama should act swiftly in the new administration to restore that balance.

"The countless abusive policies of the past eight years and the extreme legal theories on which they were based have left our nation weaker and our constitutional framework in a precarious position," said Sen. Russ Feingold (D) of Wisconsin in a Dec. 10 letter to the president-elect.

"In light of this recent history, I believe that one of the most important things that you can do as president is to take concrete steps to restore the rule of law in this country," he added. "I am sure that as a constitutional scholar you can appreciate that we must ensure that the Bush administration's views of executive supremacy do not become so ingrained in our system of government that they become the 'new normal'."

"Conventional Wisdom" (along with over 200 years of history) argues persuasively that no branch of Govt EVER voluntarily relinquishes ANY power it has won from any of the other two branches. Not since George Washington has a president restored emergency powers to the Congress. There is no reason to think Mr. O. will buck precedent here, either. Obama has not renounced or even much rephrased the rhetoric ot "GWOT/Imminent Danger," which rhetoric has propped up the Bushevik seizure of many legislative and judicial powers and perqs.

Do NOT look for him to do so once he assumes those powers...And probably the maon reason to do so is the fact that, if he relinquished them and then later discovered he NEEDED them, he wouldn't EVER get them back from an oppositional Congress. Dims he might get, but the Pukes would steadfastly resist the act, even though they staunchly supported it when there was a reliable fascist in power. Dims even helped Bush arrogate those powers. Pukes would NEVER agree to give them back to a DIM, even in extremis.

So, no, imho, Mr. O will likely NOT turn away from the tools necessary to maintain the Imperial presidency.