Unlike My Fair Lady, excesses of presidential power are not “rather like a habit one can always break.” Professor Fred Greenstein (A Moment with, Nov. 18) says President Obama has “overloaded his agenda.” As if he had a choice!
This president is “overloaded” because of prior presidential bad habits and usurpations, such as the triggering of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the cockamamy theory of the “unitary executive,” plus many worldwide changes that U.S. presidents helped to spur that have bred unintended, even disastrous, consequences that the United States does not and cannot control.
Like Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehog, President Obama seems well aware of One Big Thing: adherence to the Constitution is essential if the United States is to regain and maintain “decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” thereby helping to assure our survival as a nation.