Liberty Maven

An article by Gene Healy at the Cato Institute details how, if history is any guide, the next President of the United States is not very likely to yield back the executive power seized by the Bush Administration:

Joe Biden hardly brings the glamour and excitement to his ticket that
Sarah Palin does to hers, but he surely warmed civil libertarian
hearts at the vice-presidential debate when he forcefully denounced
‘dangerous’ theories designed to ‘aggrandize the power of a unitary
executive.’ After seven years of an administration that has recognized
few, if any, limits on executive power, it’s only natural that many
people look to the Obama-Biden ticket to put the presidency back in
its proper constitutional place. But there are good reasons to doubt
that an Obama administration would meaningfully de-imperialize the
presidency. From Truman and Johnson’s undeclared wars to the
warrantless wiretapping carried out by FDR, JFK, LBJ and Nixon, the
Imperial Presidency has long been a bipartisan phenomenon.

Read the article here.