The Fiction of the Unitary Executive

This is just one of several indications that Bush is going to, at most, draw highly selectively from the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group - my guess is that he will make gestures toward implementing the most vague and indeterminate prescriptions, and then send Tony Snow to explain that Bush has taken the ISG's counsel to heart.

Bush's general untrustworthiness and incompetence is, ironically, an invitation to the media and to the Congress to revisit the ascendancy of the Executive in modern US foreign policymaking. The degree to which this President dominates foreign policy to the exclusion of all other actors is simply not part of our Constitutional system as most would assume. With due regard for the Executive's freedom to direct foreign policy in a coherent and expedient manner, Congress as the body of our elected representatives does have a role to play in determining foreign policy and it is high time that Democrats demand their say.