Essay - American Politics Historically, the Significance of the Executive Branch Has...

American Politics

Historically, the significance of ***** executive branch has increased during periods of war, crisis and economic turmoil, while the legislative branch ***** assumed greater responsibility during peaceful reprieves and ostensibly stable times. The relation between these two branches is complicated, but the increase ***** power and prestige of the president during ***** ***** must be approached in two ways: the president as a more efficient ***** administrator of policy, ***** ***** president as symbolic leader.

***** constitution provides the president with the certain powers that enhance his ability to perform in crisis situations, and, given the increased significance ***** ***** media in American politics of the last half-century, ***** ********** role as a ***** figure is more important than ever.

There is a generally perceived div*****ion between the executive and legislative *****: Congress is steeped ***** bureaucratic and intensely inefficient processes, while ***** president maintains the ***** to act quickly. During wartime, this h***** proved true, but not solely as a result of t*****at simple dichotomy. The president's ability to act is always bound ***** congressional approval. As stipulated in the Constitution, the president does serve as the Comm*****er-*****-Chief of both the army and navy ***** the United S*****es, but the president may ***** declare war without ***** support. While the president may go ahead with military action regardless of a formal declaration of war, funding for the operations necessarily depend on C*****gress. (President's have, ***** course, long since learned how to skirt constitutional limits ***** their power: in Lincoln's first address to Congress, he announced that he had mobilized troops ***** engaged the South, ***** carefully avoided use of ***** word 'war.') The ***** has the power to make foreign treaties, but again, only provided that 2/3 ***** all senators agree. It would seem then that presupposition concerning the president's ability to act ***** unfettered resolve ***** more problematic than initi*****y formulated. An inquisition into the public opinion and the 'rallying effect' will illuminate this topic.

Consider the overwhelming approval and support President Bush now receives. His entrance into the White House was mired in controversy and both his policy and authority were being challenged at *****y level. ***** attacks of September have consolidated a populist body so entirely in his f*****vor that resisting ***** policies ***** certainly result in a sentence ***** de*****th in the court of ***** opinion. Recall the American Council of Trustees ***** Alumni's recent McCarthy-esque interrogation ***** college professors and students demonstrating unpatriotic sentiment. Members of *****, too, owe the continuation of their positions to the public, ***** when ***** electorate as a whole answers to one figure, it's political poison ***** resist ***** executive tide. The president ***** executes his ***** not in spite of congressional checks and balances, but with absolute congressional consent. The president's executive power derives from his symbolic authority. The burden now is to exam*****e where and if the symbolic and ***** terrain can be differentiated.

In ***** seminal work The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey Tul***** dates *****