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10871. The Future of the U.S. Postal Service

Author:
Robert Carbaugh
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Structural, legal, and financial constraints have brought the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to the brink of breakdown in the past decade. Faced by declining business brought about by the e-mail revolution and competition from private express companies, the Postal Service has repeatedly requested assistance from the federal government. This culminated in December 2006 with the passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which introduces modest re-visions in the pricing and service policies of the Postal Service so as to make it a self-sustaining government corporation. But will it?
Political Geography:
United States

10872. Book Review: The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

Author:
William Niskanen
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Alan Greenspan, for an $8 million advance, has written two books in one. The first 11 chapters are a personal memoir from his earliest child-hood memories through the end of 2006. The final 14 chapters are a series of lectures about the major recent changes in the United States and the world economy. The book is written in clear English, not Greenspan's occasional “Fedspeak,” and is a pleasure to read—the result of a productive collaboration with Peter Petre, who taught him to write in the first person as a participant rather than only as an observer of the many important events in the past several decades. This is important because Greenspan has a lot to say about the people and policies of six administrations from that of Richard Nixon to that of George W. Bush. And it is important for both economists and others to understand the major lessons from this period.

10873. Book Review: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief History of the World

Author:
Jason Kuznicki
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The thesis of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms is that, for most of human history and prehistory, there prevailed an essentially Malthusian social dynamic, one in which improvements in technology or wealth were turned almost immediately into increased population rather than in- creased individual wealth or technological innovation. Only calamities, such as the Black Death of the 14th century, could raise the average wealth of a society, and they did so by reducing the population.

10874. Book Review: Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security

Author:
Justin Logan
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
After the shocking intelligence failure of September 11 and the faulty estimate of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, many observers are asking why such egregious mistakes happened, and what can be done to prevent repeat performances. Washington has never been short on proposed intelligence reforms. Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed shuttering the CIA altogether while Gary Schmitt advocated giving Congress more raw intelligence. These and other proposals have varied a great deal in quality and feasibility.
Political Geography:
Iraq

10875. A "WEAPON IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE": THE RHETORICAL PRESIDENCY IN HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT

Author:
Jeffrey Friedman
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
The Tulis thesis becomes even more powerful when the constitutional revolution he describes is put in its Progressive-Era context. The public had long demanded social reforms designed to curb or replace laissez-faire capitalism, which was seen as antithetical to the interests of ordinary working people. But popular demands for social reform went largely unmet until the 1910 s. Democratizing political reforms, such as the rhetorical presidency, were designed to facilitate “change” by finally giving the public the power to enact social reforms. The resulting political order has created systemic pressure for policy demagoguery in place of rational deliberation. Mass political mobilization seems to be better achieved by contests of grand principle that pit the well-meaning supporters of obviously needed reforms against “villains and conspirators,” than by technical discussions of the possibly counterproductive effects of those reforms.

10876. The Practical Origins Of The Rhetorical Presidency

Author:
Terri Bimes
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
As readers of The Rhetorical Presidency might expect, the Framers\' remarks at the Constitutional Convention revealed a deep concern about popular political ignorance—and a desire to shield the new government from it. However, when it came to designing the presidency, the Founders seem to have been less intent on insulating sitting presidents from the mass public than on guarding the presidents\' selection itself against elite factions that might take advantage of the public\'s ignorance. The resulting constitutional structure left the actual relationship between the president and the public open-ended. In short order, even the most restrained, patrician presidents took advantage of the opportunity to invoke, and to shape, public opinion—setting the stage for Andrew Jackson\'s, and his Democratic successors\', more aggressive presidential populism.
Topic:
Government

10877. Demagoguery, Statesmanship, And The American Presidency

Author:
James W. Ceaser
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
Worries about “the rhetorical presidency” ultimately concern the danger of presidential demagoguery. As such, they echo an important theme of the Founders, who erected several barriers to the emergence of the president as demagogue in chief. In the ancient sources on which the Founders partly drew, the worry was the popular or pseudo-popular leader who seizes on widespread envies, fears, or hopes in the service of his political career—in contrast to the statesman, who pursues the public good and is, therefore, less interested in how to gain office than in how to use it. Later iterations emphasized the “superstitious,” “prejudiced,” or ideological nature of demagogic appeals. When Woodrow Wilson proposed that the president should seize the public-policy initiative in the name of the people, he sought to insulate the presidency from charges of demagoguery by arguing that no leader who spoke falsely on behalf of the people could expect to win the office. True adepts of the “progress” of public opinion, hence of the public good, are non-demagogic by definition. Although one is hard pressed to find an American president who can unambiguously be called demagogic, one does find demagoguery among presidential candidates, especially during their campaigns for party nomination.
Political Geography:
America

10878. The Layered Rhetorical Presidency

Author:
David A. Crockett
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
The Rhetorical Presidency, with its critique of Richard Neustadt's Presidential Power, exemplifies the sectarian strife that sometimes marks presidency studies. Yet Tulis's own layered-text metaphor, in which the rhetorical presidency is superimposed upon the earlier constitutional office, also suggests how different approaches to the presidency can build upon each other. To the most foundational approach—the constitutional level of analysis—can be added historical, institutional, organizational, and operational layers. This pyramidal model places Neustadt's operational analysis in an appropriate position: subordinate, but still valuable.

10879. The Hyper-Rhetorical Presidency

Author:
John J. DiIulio, Jr.
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
During the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the Executive Office of the President became dominated by West Wing advisers who specialized in campaign politics, media management, and nonstop public communications. With record numbers of presidential appointees requiring no congressional approval, the Bush White House pursued partisan control of cabinet agencies. Even obscure federal bureaus were required to remain “on message.” The constitutional derangement about which The Rhetorical Presidency had warned has occurred. No matter who occupies the Oval Office in the future, the hyper-rhetorical presidency is here to stay.

10880. The Idea of An Unrhetoricla Presidency

Author:
Bryan Garsten
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Critical Review
Institution:
Critical Review Foundation
Abstract:
Jeffrey Tulis's The Rhetorical Presidency should not be read as a tale of decline. It is not a call for an “un-rhetorical” presidency so much as an exploration of the fundamentally uneasy place that popular rhetoric occupies in constitutional governments. Popular rhetoric is one way that executives exercise their prerogative power, and the dilemmas about rhetoric that Tulis exposes arise from a fundamental fact about prerogative power that all presidents must confront: Strong constitutional governments seem almost necessarily to grant their chief executives more discretionary authority than is consistent with the idea of constitutional government. Whatever rhetorical style or strategy a president adopts, he must respond in one way or another to this fact.
Topic:
Government