The cult of the presidency; America's dangerous devotion to executive power

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2008

The cult of the presidency; America's dangerous devotion to executive power.

Healy, Gene.

Cato Institute

2008

367 pages

$22.95

Hardcover

JK585

The tenure of George W. Bush has many complaining about the imperial presidency, but according to Healy (a senior editor at the Cato Institute) it is hardly a new phenomenon in the United States. He argues that after 100 years or so of a limited presidency (in spite of the efforts of several self-aggrandizing chief executives), the Progressives worked successfully to centralize power in the executive, thus fashioning the "Heroic Presidency," which was to hold sway until Vietnam and Watergate prompted Americans to reclaim their heritage of skepticism towards power. It was to return however, this time thanks to the efforts of a conservative movement that abandoned its previous fear of a powerful executive, prompted in part by the "emerging Republican majority" in the Electoral College as of the mid-1970s. Finally, he describes how the September 11th attacks led to the triumphant return of the "Heroic Presidency" and the accumulation of enormous unchecked power in the hands of the president.

([c]20082005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)