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

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

Introduction

Author

This paper reviews one of the most renowned books on American Politics, Power and Constraints: The Accountable Presidency after 9/11. The writer of this book is a well-known researcher, writer and law professor at the Harvard University. He has also held powerful posts in the American politics. His viewpoints and critiques prove to be one of the most credible sources of political arguments and discussions.

Power and Constraints: The Accountable Presidency after 9/11

Published in the early 2012, this book provides a holistic and integrated discussion of the political scenario of America, in the wake of the 9/11 incident. The book includes discussions of the previous executive strategies of replying to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Centre. Goldsmith highlights and compares the strategies and policies of the Bush and Obama administration. He bases his argument upon the comparison of controls for the executive powers in the Bush and Obama's reign. His book emphasizes that the checks and balances on the executive powers and their analysis, proves to be a key factor in understanding the continuation of Bush's counterterrorism policies by Obama (Goldsmith, 2012a).

Discussion

Bush's Legacy, Continuity by Obama

Professor of law at Harvard University, Jack Goldsmith discusses at length about the legacy of the Bush government and its continuity by the proceeding government of President Obama. His book is a piece of well written points with thorough research about the constraints and checks upon the unleashed presidential powers in the early 21st century (Scheuerman, 2012).

Major theme of his book characterizes that the decisions and assessments of the Bush administration were, remarkably, an illustration of free and uncontrolled powers of the presidential hold. He argues that powers of the president at that time did not restrict to make and pass immensely momentous decisions, which casted a huge impact on the future (Goldsmith, 2012b).

War and the associated circumstances changed the while approach and facet of power shift of the President. The relentless and warrantless killings, trials and detentions, and surveillances, aggressive interrogation, all accounted for the presidential decisions following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. These were all unimaginable before the event. What argument Goldsmith presents further is that, these emergency actions and decisions in the wake of 9/11 activities pose to be a threat if they keep on continuing.

History saw a great shift in the foreign relations of America and a few other European nations, in the aftermath of huge destruction at the World Trade Center. Many policies and strategies opted by the Bush administration leaves a mark on the history as never before. The global economic, political and social scenario experiences tremendous change in the current times, all owing to the strategies, counterterrorism policies and reprimands of the suspected and proved terrorists.

In his book Goldsmith highlights the reasons, according to his viewpoints, for Obama's administration and its continuance of working on the same strategies, and implementing similar policies to ward off ...