Sidney Blumenthal Quotes
Every decision that they take has enormous consequences, and ripple out from the White House.
Blumenthal, Sidney. "BuzzFlash Interviews Sidney Blumenthal." BuzzFlash, 2003.
Alberto Gonzalez, White House Counsel and later Attorney General who was forced to resign and David S. Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, had come up with a novel view of the powers of the presidency. They argued that since the President is the Commander in Chief, in a war situation or intelligence gathering thereto, has the Constitutional responsibility for that function, he need not obey any laws of Congress as in the conduct of the war Congress would be impinging on the Constitutional separation of powers which itself was prohibited by the Constitution. The argument did not find any significant legal support but for a while the George W. Bush White House behaved as if this were the law, despite the fact that even in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 Congress passed laws regulating the conduct of the armed forces as is provided for in other parts of the Constitution. Yet even Goldsmith would allow the President some powers that many think are unconstitutional and/or belong to Congress. See {32436}.
Explaining why the President didn't have more press conferences:
Alluding to the practice of advisors and handlers scripting and packaging presidential candidates for conventions and debates:
Much obviously is but every President and his White House deals with issues and problems where there is no time or opportunity to take the effect on electoral politics into consideration. Many actions are taken without any such consideration, sometimes to the regret of the President’s political staff. Even then, the press tends to believe that it was a blunder, that the White House misjudged public opinion or the like when in reality, the President and staff never even considered it.
Sidney Stone Blumenthal is an American journalist and political operative.
