Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush [Hardcover]

John Yoo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1607145553 | ISBN-13: 978-1607145554 | Publication Date: January 5, 2010 0

An American President faces war and finds himself hamstrung by a Congress that will not act. To protect national security, he invokes his powers as Commander-in-Chief and orders actions that seem to violate laws enacted by Congress. He is excoriated for usurping dictatorial powers, placing himself above the law, and threatening to "breakdown constitutional safeguards."

One could be forgiven for thinking that the above describes former President George W. Bush. Yet these particular attacks on presidential power were leveled against Franklin D. Roosevelt. They could just as well describe similar attacks leveled against George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and a number of other presidents challenged with leading the nation through times of national crisis.

However bitter, complex, and urgent today's controversies over executive power may be, John Yoo reminds us they are nothing new. In Crisis and Command, he explores a factor too little consulted in current debates: the past. Through shrewd and lucid analysis, he shows how the bold decisions made by Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR changed more than just history; they also transformed the role of the American president. The link between the vigorous exercise of executive power and presidential greatness, Yoo argues, is both significant and misunderstood. He makes the case that the founding fathers deliberately left the Constitution vague on the limits of presidential authority, drawing on history to demonstrate the benefi ts to the nation of a strong executive office.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this contentious study, Berkeley law prof and former Justice Department official Yoo reprises the brief for expansive presidential power that made him one of the Bush administration's most controversial aides. He focuses on a handful of presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR—who, he argues, extended executive authority in novel ways to surmount crises without letting an inherently slow, disorganized, corrupt, and pusillanimous Congress get in the way. In his account, these great presidents started wars without congressional authorization, suspended habeas corpus, detained security risks, secretly wiretapped, remade the economy, and unilaterally interpreted the Constitution. All of this, he insists, comports with the Constitution's grant of broad, ambiguous powers to a unitary executive and, usually, with congressional consensus and public well-being. His analysis culminates in a defense of Bush administration policies on warrantless wiretapping, coercive interrogation, enemy combatants, and Iraq, and a denunciation of Obama's deviations from them. Yoo's chronicle cogently fits in Bush's initiatives with previous presidential arrogations of power. But his tacit premise that the open-ended, ill-defined war on terror compares to previous crises like the Civil War and requires similarly drastic responses will be strongly disputed by civil libertarians. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

Using a popular technique for ranking American presidents, Yoo refracts their historical status through the lens of Article II of the Constitution. George Washington rates number one in Yoo’s book for setting precedents: all his successors have the power to remove officials, to wage war, and to invoke executive privilege (keep secrets from Congress)—none of which is explicit in Article II—because of Washington. Yoo rates Lincoln and FDR second and third, respectively, for reasons familiar to history readers. Readers will learn about Supreme Court decisions that have pertained to the president’s powers, along with Yoo’s expansive interpretation thereof. Addressing criticism that the power pendulum has historically swung too far from Congress, Yoo rebuts with arguments that the legislature could, but rarely does, reclaim powers it has delegated to the executive. This will appeal to the core audience for constitutional law but will also draw interest based on the author’s frequent TV appearances and his notoriety—many critics regarded his legal advice to the Bush administration as anathema. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1607145553
• ISBN-13: 978-1607145554
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > Law > Constitutional Law

More About the Author

John Yoo received his B.A., summa cum laude, in American history from Harvard University. Between college and law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. He then clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit.

Yoo clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995-96. From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.

Yoo has published articles about foreign affairs, international law and constitutional law in a number of the nation's leading law journals. He is the author of The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005), and War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror (Grove/Atlantic 2006).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

167 of 214 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slippery Slope to Executive Abuse, January 11, 2010

By 

Dr B Leland Baker (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (Hardcover)

The author acknowledges that "many scholars believe that the exercise of executive power today runs counter to the original constitutional design," but he then suggests that the Founders were not necessarily against Executive Power despite their opposition to King George. He continues with different historical views of the "executive" power.

Mr. Yoo quotes a survey of 130 leading political scientists, economists and lawyers who rated the "best" Presidents in American history: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Reagan, Truman, Eisenhower, Polk and Jackson.

He addresses five of the top ten in their own chapters, while Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan are addressed in "The Cold War Presidents" chapter. [The Book consists of nine chapters: (1) Beginnings, (2) Creation, (3) George Washington, (4) Thomas Jefferson, (5) Andrew Jackson, (6) Abraham Lincoln, (7) Franklin D. Roosevelt, (8) The Cold War Presidents (from Eisenhower to Reagan), and (9) The Once and Future Presidency.]

Mr. Yoo explains that despite their Republican or Democrat party alignments, the greater Presidents "pushed the envelope" in using broad executive powers that often challenged both the Legislative and Judicial branches.

As a strict Constitutionalist, who is concerned about the risks of despotism, I do not share political views that accept ever-expansive powers of the President. However, Yoo's analysis and observations on the history of Presidential powers are worth reading for constitutional-conservatives and left-leaning progressives alike, because he provides insight on how, over the past 220 years, we arrived at where we are today.

325 of 459 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Constitution as an Obstacle, January 20, 2010

By 

Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (Hardcover)

John Yoo is a serious man. He understands that the Constitution is so precious that sometimes you have to destroy it in order the save it. To him, the Bill of Rights is a bunker on Omaha Beach, a threatening obstacle that has to be taken and burned in order to make our nation more pleasing to Our Dark Lord and Savior, Dick Cheney. Yoo wrote this book to justify such destruction.

He served this nation during very dark times. Our Great and Glorious Crusade Against The Unbelievers was underway, but Leader Bush was still stumbling, searching for a justification for His grand adventure. He needed political cover, and he needed it immediately. He summoned the Dark Lord from his undisclosed location and pleaded with him to provide it.

Cheney knew what had to be done. Saddam had to be tied to Al Qaeda. As a serious man, he understood that if evidence of such a tie was unavailable, it had to be created. Detainees would need to be coerced into making false confessions. It would require torture, an act that was considered unconstitutional at the time. Cheney turned to another serious man, Yoo--a man who would later tell Congress that the President can legally order a suspect to be burned alive or that his children be tortured--to write a justification for ignoring the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.

Yoo served the Dark Lord well by not only justifying torture but by destroying the Fourth Amendment to allow domestic spying as well.

I'm giving this book five stars--not because it is well argued or well written (it isn't) but because, like Yoo, I want to help shape our nation according to Lord Cheney's righteously Stalinesque vision.

It would be a much better book if Yoo added a few things. Serious men (and all serious people are men or at least have adam's apples) would support the use of suicide bombers in the defence of freedom. Surely, the College Republicans would eagerly volunteer to send the brown, black and poor on such missions. Suicide bombing needs a champion to advocate it as policy. Yoo would be perfect in that role yet he remains silent. Why is that?

The book would also be much more interesting if Yoo described what turned him into what he's become. Was it a frequent application of an Oxo Good Grips Brushed Stainless Steel Turner to the soft sweet flesh of his behind? Was it drinking non-fluoridated water? Does he deny his essence to women?

Perhaps he can add a chapter for the next printing.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Explores the history of presidential power, March 18, 2010

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (Hardcover)

CRISIS AND COMMAND: A HISTORY OF EXECUTIVE POWER FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON TO GEORGE W. BUSH explores the history of presidential power from the Founding of the Republic to modern debates on the war on terror. His approach considers political science, history and law to examine how the Presidency was created and run over the decades, and chooses five great Presidents who served during times of war to consider changing presidency routines and issues. Yoo presents a case for a link between executive power and how it expands with each crisis and emergency.