News Release

December 13, 2000

On foreign policy, Clinton rivals Nixon in abuse of Constitution
President has asserted unilateral authority to wage war, commit to treaties, study says

WASHINGTON—In his classic 1973 book "The Imperial Presidency," historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned that the Cold War had dangerously concentrated power in the presidency. Twenty-seven years later, a Cato Institute study examines U.S. foreign policy and finds that the "imperial presidency" is stronger and more menacing than at any time since the Vietnam War.

In "Arrogance of Power Reborn: The Imperial Presidency and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Years," Washington, DC attorney Gene Healy argues that President Clinton "has adopted a view of his executive power that is positively Nixonian in its breadth and audacity." The Clinton administration's view of the president's foreign policy role, he says, is that "the executive alone determines America's international commitments and diplomatic posture with respect to other nations." As a result, Clinton has routinely abused the treaty power and usurped the congressional war power, Healy argues.

Despite the Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, for example, the administration has asserted that the treaty still has the force of law. But "under the Constitution, the United States has no obligation to abide by a treaty that the Senate has rejected," Healy says. "International law cannot penetrate the sphere of U.S. sovereignty except through the processes delineated in the Constitution." The president has made similar attempts to bypass the Senate on the ABM Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol and other issues, Healy notes.

Healy argues that the administration has repeatedly avoided congressional authorization for war by reserving the right to define when a war is a war. As he puts it, "The Clinton Administration's view is that actions mean what the administration decides they mean; cruise missiles, cluster bombs, and civilian casualties don't constitute war until someone in power lets the magic word slip." In Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere, Healy concludes, the president "has repeatedly and brazenly violated the original understanding of the war power, asserting an unchecked, unilateral presidential authority to wage war."

Congress has failed to stop the usurpation of its power and balks at reclaiming it, Healy notes. "Congressional courage of the kind needed to reclaim the war power will not be forthcoming unless Americans demand it. Unless Americans rediscover their reverence for constitutional limits, and vote accordingly, the slide toward empire will continue," he says.

"Arrogance of Power Reborn: The Imperial Presidency and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Years"