The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power

[RamboLiberal]

Heard this author interviewed by Thom Hartmann on Monday, July 14, 2008

From Amazon.com

Newsweek 5/27/2008
Rhetorical--and related--excesses are inherent in the modern presidency. This is so for reasons brilliantly explored in the year's most pertinent and sobering public affairs book, The Cult of the Presidency.

Product Description
The Bush years have justifiably given rise to fears of a new Imperial Presidency. Yet despite the controversy surrounding the administration's expansive claims of executive power, both Left and Right agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility. The Imperial Presidency is the price we seem to be willingly and dangerously agreeable to pay the office the focus of our national hopes and dreams. Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency argues that the Presidency needs to be reined in, its powers checked and supervised, and its wartime authority put back under the oversight of the Congress and the courts. Only then will we begin to return the Presidency to its proper constitutionally limited role.

From the Back Cover
"This splendid book provides the best account yet of how the Imperial Presidency, abetted by Democrats and Republicans alike, came to pose a clear and present danger to our republic."
--ANDREW J. BACEVICH

Author, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War
"Gene Healy's well-researched, lucidly written historical overview of the American presidency could not be timelier with Americans about to elect a new president. This study provides a reality check for where we should not want future presidents to go."
--JOHN W. DEAN
Former Nixon White House Counsel
Author, Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches

[Kutjara]

1. Thanks for posting this.

I'm definitely adding this book to my reading list. It seems to address directly the longstanding suspicion I've harbored that America has spent a large part of the past 130 years feverishly searching for the king it misplaced in 1776.

[jonnyblitz]

2. I just saw this book today on the shelf at my local library. I had

heard of it before. It might be worth reading. I will have to add it to my way too long list.