Book Review--Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11

      This is an important, rare book of substance.  So if this book is correct, I have to change a lot of my cynical views about the presidency. 

     Basically the idea of this book is that the presidency itself is more constrained/balanced by a much more active opposition, in several areas. 

1. Congress farms out opposition through special prosecutors and human rights groups by default.  
2. The judiciary reviews the president's actions as never before and corrects what it sees as abuses, i.e. Guantanamo.  
3. Bloggers and the interconnected digital world are breaking critical abuses as the new muckrakers of the media, i.e. Abu Ghraib.  

     This is why little changes from president to president.  Essentially, Madison ideas about balance of power are still active through creating new powers to balance the growth of presidential powers.  Seems to good to be true.  Hmmm....

Establishment Jack Goldsmith, Harvard & the Powers that be

  Out of my own curiosity, I created this outline to contextualize the possibilities of this book being another brilliant paradigm of the status quo;

         “Harvard” in this outline represents mainly people from Harvard, and other leading disseminators of the most influential ideas in society.

1. Harvard presents arguments better reasoned and more articulate than other universities, groups or individuals.
1. They essentially have a monopoly of the best coherence, believability and concision
1. They typically support status quo views by advancing their discipline (They are the status quo which everyone else follows)
1. Supportive universities, groups and individuals
1. Follow unquestioned; always playing catch-up, (They never look to discover alternative explanations which may be very different)
2. Follow, but with a belief of Harvard’s benign dominance (Take seriously the most important duty, i.e. Will Durant,  passing on the heritage that makes us the advanced homo sapiens we are today: our education/culture 
1.  Unsupportive universities, groups and individuals
1. Oppose Harvard and their status quo view because of envy-“sour grapes”
1. Oppose because in good faith believe Harvard malignantly protects essentially their power over society—essentially their society
1. Thoughtful conspiracy theorist who are correct
2. Thoughtful conspiracy theorist who are incorrect 

I am mixed, 80% I follow Harvard's benign dominance theory, 20% conspiracy...but there is no way to tell if I am correct or incorrect?  I'm not smart enough.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi