It seems that there is this little law on the books, the Logan Act, which makes a felony of what our speaker of the House has done - usurping the constitutional authority of the executive branch by participating in rogue foreign policy negotiations with our enemies. Is the administration sufficiently tired of the Dems trying to wrest power from the executive branch to fire this shot across the bow? The 3 recess appointments the President just made would argue for that answer to be "yes." But I doubt it. Though it makes for interesting conversation, especially when I'm wearin' my W cap...
Friday, April 6, 2007
A Felon?
It seems that there is this little law on the books, the Logan Act, which makes a felony of what our speaker of the House has done - usurping the constitutional authority of the executive branch by participating in rogue foreign policy negotiations with our enemies. Is the administration sufficiently tired of the Dems trying to wrest power from the executive branch to fire this shot across the bow? The 3 recess appointments the President just made would argue for that answer to be "yes." But I doubt it. Though it makes for interesting conversation, especially when I'm wearin' my W cap...
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2 comments:
Nice poster, dad! :-P
I was talking to josh today about this. The one thing she's got going for her is that congress has the power to enact treaties. And as the speaker of the house, she's in a semi-position of power over that constitutional right. She could probably spin it someway of "researching treaties" or something.
BUT. She got pummeled in pretty much every venue, even by an op-ed in the Washington Post...
Surely she has the right, even the responsibility, to make visits to foreign lands, meet with politicos, even conduct the country's business. But certainly we can all stipulate that that was not what she was doing here. First of all, Syria is a terrorist state who we are trying to isolate, not with whom we are trying to negotiate. Secondly, the White House was against it. Did any red flags go off in the Pelosi camp? Thirdly, one of those who accompanied her, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos declared, "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States."
The Logan Act is supposed to protect the executive branch against this very thing: others pursuing their own foreign policy, no matter how much they happen to hate the President and what he is doing.
It takes no imagination whatsoever to see what they were up to. And, I think the Pres needs to push back here a little bit. Otherwise, these next 2 years are going to be very rough sledding for our foreign policy as every hack and kook, gets out there to promote an alternative foreign policy.
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