GWB things that a president can fire the supreme court without “crossing any lines.” Yes, in this case the president is named Musharraf rather than Bush, but what’s the difference? If a constitution is just a scrap of paper, then the Constitution is just a scrap of paper. No?
George W. Bush doesn’t believe that when a president fires the supreme court to prevent it from deciding a case about whether the President can be re-elected in violation of the constitution, and then throws thousands of people in jail when they protest, the president has “crossed any lines.”
No, really.
“When you have no effective state, no rule of law, it’s only people with guns who can remove a leader.”
Footnote Notice that the arguments for “sticking with Musharraf” are virtually identical to the arguments for “sticking with the Shah.” Are we having fun yet? The problem with “realism” in foreign policy is that it makes such unrealistic assumptions about the predictability of outcomes.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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