mechanics of these failures. That lack of transparency consti-
tutes a serious problem in itself. Without knowing how things
failed (in some cases, without knowing what things failed), the
incoming administration will be seriously handicapped in its
effort to change government for the better.
As president, Bush was an example of a particularly danger-
ous kind of leader—one with limited ability, great certainty,
and enormous power. Indeed, no aspect of Bush’s leadership
was more striking than his assumption of unprecedented
powers to the detriment of the legislative branch of govern-
ment. A single example illustrates the imperial bent of the
Bush presidency. While in office, Bush used so-called signing
statements to change more than 1,100 sections of newly
passed laws. In these signing statements Bush asserted that
sections of the law should be ignored because they unconsti-
tutionally constrained presidential power. How common is it
for an American president to countermand the law of the land
in this way? Rare indeed. According to the New York Times, all
the previous presidents in U.S. history collectively made only
600 such changes.
Much of the credit or blame for the administration’s extraor-
dinary extension of presidential power goes to Bush’s vice pres-
ident, Dick Cheney. Francis Bacon wrote that “truth is the
daughter of time.” We will have to wait to know the actual role
Cheney played in the Bush administration, but it appears that
he quietly and assiduously transformed his office from one of
legendary insignificance to a virtual shadow presidency. Ac-
cording to the U.S. Constitution, the vice president has only
two responsibilities—to preside over the Senate and vote there
in case of a tie, and to succeed the president should he or she
die, become incapacitated, or be impeached and found guilty.
Epilogue to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition