Mike Allen Quotes
The President wants to avoid being a lame duck. He’s trying not to limp and quack at the same time.
The reference was to President George W. Bush.
Mike Allen, Journalist & Commentator, Meet the Press, December 11, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Referring to President Bush's winning a roll-call vote in the House on lowering the capital gains tax:
Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Clinton
There have been many examples of Presidents in time of war who have asked Congress & received additional powers whose constitutionality was sometimes tested. The Alien & Sedition acts of the John Adams administration, Lincoln in the Civil War controlling the Southern governments, Wilson jailing people verbally opposing the draft, FDR incarcerating Japanese Americans in WWII. However, in those cases, the President asked for and got the powers from Congress. Nichols claimed that by Bush, just assuming powers, he was acting like a king & not a president, and that per se was an impeachable offence. As unpopular as Bush was, his Vice President was much moreso, & Bush was in his last term; neither party wanted to go through another impeachment after the Republican attempt to oust William Clinton ended in acquittal. Other constitutional scholars do not believe the “acting like a king” rises to the level of an impeachable offense; only specific “high crimes & misdemeanors” would qualify.
President George W. Bush had ignored a federal law and tapped the phones of Americans without probable cause and a warrant issued by a court. The President’s defenders argued that the President, as Commander in Chief, has the Constitutional responsibility to lead the military and protect the nation. Intelligence gathering is part of military activity. Therefore the intelligence gathering is a Constitutional duty and the Congress, under the separation of powers doctrine, may not interfere with the President’s Constitutional Duty to conduct intelligence. Under this doctrine, the President need not obey laws that he believes impinge on his management of the war effort and the defense of the nation. Most legal scholars believe that this argument is nonsense, but the George W. Bush administration has stated the doctrine and it was the subject of much litigation.
Michael Allen is an American political journalist. He is the co-founder and executive editor of Axios and former chief political reporter for Politico. While at Politico, he wrote the daily Playbook; in April 2010, in reference to his frequent correspondence with White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, The New York Times called him "The Man The White House Wakes Up To." Prior to joining Politico for its 2007 launch, he worked at numerous other publications, including The New York Times and Time.
