who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of v

In a recent interview of Barack Obama, by George Stephanopoulos, Obama asserted that he would make executive decisions, if elected President, based upon his own perception of national and international issues regardless of how much the decision would be opposed by the American electorate. This type of arrogant rhetoric is not what should be coming from a candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Obama’s reply should have been that his executive decisions, and the resulting actions, would clearly reflect the consensus of the majority of the American people. Perhaps he’s currently thinking that he might know more about the state of the nation than the electorate who will place him in a position of federal leadership. Perhaps he and his financial supporters consider the Presidency an opportunity to try out the “Obama doctrine” of autocratic authoritarianism, in disregarding the collective will of the electorate in favor of destructive foreign policy agendas, as was George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. If you recall, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and the collective Democratic Party leadership were the ones responsible for the Vietnam debacle. Is it possible that Obama is merely just another wolf in sheep’s clothing?

The notion of presidential doctrine, such as was historically purported by James Monroe, James Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagon, and, of course, George W. Bush, reflects an almost sacrosanct worship of power, exemplified by abusively intrusive foreign policies unilaterally erected by presidential administrations, mostly through the efforts of unelected federal officers, such as those of Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. Much like what fueled the Vietnam War, which unnecessarily cost the lives of over 58,200 GIs over a period of fourteen years, presidential hubris, since 1975, has been responsible for the sustained pursuit of covert foreign policy objectives which would have been utterly condemned and refuted by the American electorate, had they known about them.

The President is not an individual elected to be an autocratic father to the American people, to slap the hands of the majority of the voting age population and insist that presidential wisdom and prerogative (usually manufactured in the minds of federal officers other than the President) trumps the collective will of the people. This is not the way of a true republic, the type created by the constitutional Framers.

If I heard from Barack Obama his future intention, as President, of immediately abolishing the quasi-legal traditions which have exceeded the constitutional Article 2 limitations of the Executive Branch, such as executive orders, military police actions, signing statements, and ultimate plenary control over the United States Armed Forces, I might regard his words more seriously. Instead of him speaking in euphemisms and sparkling generalities, seeking to glitter in the eyes of voters who ignorantly consider a candidate’s television poise much more important in a presidential election than statements of truth, law, and fact, Obama should be offering a clear-cut alternative to what Presidents have done in office during the past sixty years to illicitly exceed their limited authority stated in the U.S. Constitution. Since no congressional action, nor U.S. Supreme Court decision, can bestow upon the Executive Branch any more power than that specifically listed in the U.S. Constitution, all a newly elected President would have to do to abolish such unlawful traditions, would be to order it done. In direct contravention to what George W. Bush has said about the U.S. Constitution, that “it is just a piece of paper,” a true American will assert his or her loyalty to the document that forged a new nation in 1789 as an experiment in democratic republicanism.

I recall Richard M. Nixon’s arcane statement made to anti-war demonstrators early one morning at the Lincoln Memorial, when, for a few moments, he had to defend his Vietnam policies alone, without the aid of Henry Kissinger, supposedly the world’s smartest man. When asked, by a highly educated young women standing very close to Nixon, why he was stubbornly refusing to end combat operations in Southeast Asia, he replied, “I can’t stop it. I wish I could.” I’m sure that that young woman went away from that impromptu meeting with Nixon thinking much less of the crook than before the face-to-face encounter, fully knowing that if an American President had the authority to order combat operations to begin, another President could, as easily, call an end to them.

Any serious student of American and world history may clearly research and detail the evils committed by American presidents, since the time that James Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to the Mexican border, in late 1845, to create a deathly war with Mexico for the mere sake of manifest destiny. Polk vainly wanted to go down in history as the President who added, at the cost of over 40,000 human lives, three states to the land area of the federal Union. Further, the Abraham Lincoln who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of vo

as historically purported by James Monroe, James Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagon, and, of course, George W. Bush, reflects an almost sacrosanct worship of power, exemplified by abusively intrusive foreign policies unilaterally erected by presidential administrations, mostly through the efforts of unelected federal officers, such as those of Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. Much like what fueled the Vietnam War, which unnecessarily cost the lives of over 58,200 GIs over a period of fourteen years, presidential hubris, since 1975, has been responsible for the sustained pursuit of covert foreign policy objectives which would have been utterly condemned and refuted by the American electorate, had they known about them.

The President is not an individual elected to be an autocratic father to the American people, to slap the hands of the majority of the voting age population and insist that presidential wisdom and prerogative (usually manufactured in the minds of federal officers other than the President) trumps the collective will of the people. This is not the way of a true republic, the type created by the constitutional Framers.

If I heard from Barack Obama his future intention, as President, of immediately abolishing the quasi-legal traditions which have exceeded the constitutional Article 2 limitations of the Executive Branch, such as executive orders, military police actions, signing statements, and ultimate plenary control over the United States Armed Forces, I might regard his words more seriously. Instead of him speaking in euphemisms and sparkling generalities, seeking to glitter in the eyes of voters who ignorantly consider a candidate’s television poise much more important in a presidential election than statements of truth, law, and fact, Obama should be offering a clear-cut alternative to what Presidents have done in office during the past sixty years to illicitly exceed their limited authority stated in the U.S. Constitution. Since no congressional action, nor U.S. Supreme Court decision, can bestow upon the Executive Branch any more power than that specifically listed in the U.S. Constitution, all a newly elected President would have to do to abolish such unlawful traditions, would be to order it done. In direct contravention to what George W. Bush has said about the U.S. Constitution, that “it is just a piece of paper,” a true American will assert his or her loyalty to the document that forged a new nation in 1789 as an experiment in democratic republicanism.

I recall Richard M. Nixon’s arcane statement made to anti-war demonstrators early one morning at the Lincoln Memorial, when, for a few moments, he had to defend his Vietnam policies alone, without the aid of Henry Kissinger, supposedly the world’s smartest man. When asked, by a highly educated young women standing very close to Nixon, why he was stubbornly refusing to end combat operations in Southeast Asia, he replied, “I can’t stop it. I wish I could.” I’m sure that that young woman went away from that impromptu meeting with Nixon thinking much less of the crook than before the face-to-face encounter, fully knowing that if an American President had the authority to order combat operations to begin, another President could, as easily, call an end to them.

Any serious student of American and world history may clearly research and detail the evils committed by American presidents, since the time that James Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to the Mexican border, in late 1845, to create a deathly war with Mexico for the mere sake of manifest destiny. Polk vainly wanted to go down in history as the President who added, at the cost of over 40,000 human lives, three states to the land area of the federal Union. Further, the Abraham Lincoln who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of v

n, as President, of immediately abolishing the quasi-legal traditions which have exceeded the constitutional Article 2 limitations of the Executive Branch, such as executive orders, military police actions, signing statements, and ultimate plenary control over the United States Armed Forces, I might regard his words more seriously. Instead of him speaking in euphemisms and sparkling generalities, seeking to glitter in the eyes of voters who ignorantly consider a candidate’s television poise much more important in a presidential election than statements of truth, law, and fact, Obama should be offering a clear-cut alternative to what Presidents have done in office during the past sixty years to illicitly exceed their limited authority stated in the U.S. Constitution. Since no congressional action, nor U.S. Supreme Court decision, can bestow upon the Executive Branch any more power than that specifically listed in the U.S. Constitution, all a newly elected President would have to do to abolish such unlawful traditions, would be to order it done. In direct contravention to what George W. Bush has said about the U.S. Constitution, that “it is just a piece of paper,” a true American will assert his or her loyalty to the document that forged a new nation in 1789 as an experiment in democratic republicanism.

I recall Richard M. Nixon’s arcane statement made to anti-war demonstrators early one morning at the Lincoln Memorial, when, for a few moments, he had to defend his Vietnam policies alone, without the aid of Henry Kissinger, supposedly the world’s smartest man. When asked, by a highly educated young women standing very close to Nixon, why he was stubbornly refusing to end combat operations in Southeast Asia, he replied, “I can’t stop it. I wish I could.” I’m sure that that young woman went away from that impromptu meeting with Nixon thinking much less of the crook than before the face-to-face encounter, fully knowing that if an American President had the authority to order combat operations to begin, another President could, as easily, call an end to them.

Any serious student of American and world history may clearly research and detail the evils committed by American presidents, since the time that James Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to the Mexican border, in late 1845, to create a deathly war with Mexico for the mere sake of manifest destiny. Polk vainly wanted to go down in history as the President who added, at the cost of over 40,000 human lives, three states to the land area of the federal Union. Further, the Abraham Lincoln who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of v

in democratic republicanism.

I recall Richard M. Nixon’s arcane statement made to anti-war demonstrators early one morning at the Lincoln Memorial, when, for a few moments, he had to defend his Vietnam policies alone, without the aid of Henry Kissinger, supposedly the world’s smartest man. When asked, by a highly educated young women standing very close to Nixon, why he was stubbornly refusing to end combat operations in Southeast Asia, he replied, “I can’t stop it. I wish I could.” I’m sure that that young woman went away from that impromptu meeting with Nixon thinking much less of the crook than before the face-to-face encounter, fully knowing that if an American President had the authority to order combat operations to begin, another President could, as easily, call an end to them.

Any serious student of American and world history may clearly research and detail the evils committed by American presidents, since the time that James Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to the Mexican border, in late 1845, to create a deathly war with Mexico for the mere sake of manifest destiny. Polk vainly wanted to go down in history as the President who added, at the cost of over 40,000 human lives, three states to the land area of the federal Union. Further, the Abraham Lincoln who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of v

who, as U.S. Representative from Illinois, refused to shake the hand of President James Polk while at a White House reception, saying, “I dare not shake the hand that has so much blood on it,” was totally different from the Abraham Lincoln who, as President, created a civil war that killed more people than any other war in American history. Though supposedly advocating limited presidential authority as a member of Congress, Lincoln hardly practiced what he preached when he was elected President. After his inauguration, he arrogantly prodded the South, causing them to rebel militarily. Then he autocratically suspended habeas corpus, declared martial law, and issued dictatorial executive orders, daring what was left of Congress or the Supreme Court to stand against him. This was at a time when most of the voting age population, North and South, merely wanted domestic peace instead of sectional conflict. The small minority of wealthy vocal abolitionists and social reformers, who advocated and publicized an immediate end to slavery at the expense of states autonomy and the creation of an all-powerful federal government, were the ones that Lincoln favored.

Much like the constitutional amendment that created Prohibition, where the concerted effort of a small minority of vocal proponents led to the enforcement of a federal ban on the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages, the American Civil War and hundreds-of-thousands of deaths might have been averted if the will of the majority had been presciently observed. Hindsight, in the case of Prohibition, was twenty/twenty when the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. “It should never have been passed in the first place,” was the typical commentary by the typical American after its repeal. As can be garnered from a serious study of history, the grasp of perceptibly awesome political and military powers, instead of concerted efforts to seek the greatest good for the greatest number of American citizens through proper implementation of the goals set forth in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, has been the ultimate goal of the men who have sought the U.S. Presidency since George Washington finished his tenure as chief executive. Like the little old lady from Pasadena, who is perceived by all who see her as a feeble and harmless geriatric before she gets behind the wheel of a car and becomes a fanged devil driver, Obama, and anyone like him, presents a potential threat if elected to the Office of President.

Samuel P. Huntington, the Ivy-League academician who, an as unelected pundit, had a substantial, behind-the-scenes, effect on the implementation of the unchallenged unconstitutional practices of the Executive Branch, from 1945 onward, suggested in his book, “The Soldier and the State. . .,” that if an American President does not use the military as a means of establishing foreign policy, he is neglecting the plenary power that can be inferred from the role of Commander in Chief. Huntington’s advocacy for king-like presidential authority and powers would have served the all-powerful Roman Emperor very well, since Roman influence in the ancient world was coercively implemented against weaker nations and cultures through military superiority. The foreign policy objectives of the Roman Empire, before, during, and after its Pax Romana, were to divide, conquer, and enslave weaker nations and civilizations. Similarly, when the United States unjustly invades and bombs a nation-state, such as Iraq, into a stone-age condition, decimating its infrastructure and the ability to provide for itself, it has essentially divided, conquered, and enslaved the people. Such conduct, common to the powers asserted by the post-modern American Presidency, comprises a criminality that is tantamount to crimes against humanity. Without much doubt, Obama, if elected, won’t stray much from the unconstitutional traditions which have vulgarly accentuated the expansions of executive power ever since Congress relinquished its Article 1 authority to check a runaway presidency. In fact, the only possible Democratic candidate who might, if elected, seek to restore a constitutional balance of power in the federal government is Al Gore. But he was robbed once of the Presidency and is reluctant to relive a horrible travesty.