Robert J. Spitzer

Kitrosser, Heidi. Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive

public about the nature of unilateral power. In fact, the media often confuse various types of unilateral power, such as when they refer to presidential memoranda as executive orders. Clearly, the media need instruction on the nature of presidential unilateral power before they will be able to do a better job of explaining to the American people these techniques and the resulting policies that they create. In this regard, The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media represents an important contribution to our understanding of these topics. Despite its faults, the book is a useful addition to the literature on an important development related to expanding presidential power.

A Review of “The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney”

egy. The book tends to characterize these things categorically, e.g., that a context was either clarifying or not, that a campaign was about the economy or not. Whether a candidate is benefited by the economy is important to know, but so is the degree to which he or she is benefited. The same holds for campaigns. It is important to know whether a campaign focused more on the economy than anything else, but also the degree to which this is true. After all, campaigns are not about just one set of issues or another, but about the mix. These are not major concerns. Besides, it seemingly is a good thing to leave readers wanting more (as opposed to less). I like this book. If I were a student or scholar of elections or political behavior, I’d be sure to read it.

Court–President Clashes: The Cases of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton

Over the course of U.S. history, there have been a number of significant clashes between presidents and Courts. Three of the most important were the challenges posed by the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and William Jefferson Clinton. Although each poses a different set of circumstances and issues, each is an exemplar of how interactions between the president and the judiciary have shaped these presidencies. Most of the cases mentioned in this chapter are reprinted in the chapters to come. We offer these three accounts to provide an instructive narrative underscoring the interplay of law, politics, and interbranch jockeying.

The War Power and the Commander in Chief

No power of government is more momentous than that concerning war and peace. In the twentieth century, many presidents cited the commander-in-chief power as a basis for instituting military action, as if the power over military decisions rested with the president alone. Yet this is not what the Constitution says, nor was it the intention of the framers. As the wording of Article II of the Constitution says, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” The Congress does the calling.