Meet the New Boss

On Wednesday morning, Avedon Carol posted a link over at Atrios's place to a post that touches on something that I've been thinking about for a while. Although we've been paying some attention to the symptoms of the rightward lurch the Prez has inflicted on our country, nobody's much talking about the shift in philosophy and attitude that's come with it. The executive branch has asserted a variety of new powers, and the legislative branch has done little or nothing in response. Who's to guarantee that the next president, whether Democrat or Republican, will have any interest in rolling these expansive new abilities back, in bringing the checks once more into balance?

The problem has recently been exemplified in the transition in the U.K. from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown. The new prime minister had been hyped as an alternative to Blair and was expected to put some distance between himself and Bush. But then he visited Washington. Although he was not as effusive as Blair had been, he did very little to suggest that he intended to introduce any sort of shift in policy. Dan Froomkin asked if Brown was "Bush's new poodle" and highlighted this exchange from the Bush/Brown press conference:

New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg tried to explore any differences between the two leaders, noting in his question to Bush that "the prime minister has referred to terrorism as, quote, 'a crime,' and he's referred to it in part as a law enforcement issue. So for you, I'm wondering, does that underscore any sort of philosophical difference when your 2004 campaign took issue with somewhat similar descriptions from John Kerry?"

Bush brushed the question away. "Look, people who kill innocent men, women and children to achieve political objectives are evil, that's what I think," Bush said. "And what's interesting about this struggle -- and this is what I was paying very careful attention to when Gordon was speaking -- is, does he understand it's an ideological struggle? And he does."

Rutenberg asked Brown: "Do you have the same philosophy as the President, in terms of terrorism?"

Brown: "Absolutely."

Bush: "What do you expect the answer to be, Rutenberg? Come on, man."

Brown: "Absolutely."

Will Brown ultimately come into line with what the British public seem to want? Maybe or maybe not, but the situation offers a note of caution. A new election and a new president isn't a guarantee that the creeping authoritarianism of the last few years will be rolled back. In one of the posts I linked to above, Lambert at Corrente suggested a question to be asked of the various Democratic candidates at YearlyKos: "What is the Democrats' plan to restore Constitutional Government?" That's a question desperately in need of an answer.