That's no answer...

Yes, Ryan, you explained the "cool" aspect of North in the eyes of war-time Moms and people who like to read books written by conservative pundits... but the real meat-and-potatoes portion of Jambo's post was why the fawning nostalgia and longing for past Presidents that circumvented the separation of powers aspect of our Constitution?

James was dead-on with that post... one of his best yet, I think. The example set by the list of past Presidents that felt they were above the Congress in the governmental pecking order certainly gave GW no lessons on how to conduct himself in the face of military confrontation, did it? He got the Congressional support he needed... based on extremely biased and (now) questionable intelligence concerning Saddam's capacity to project force and destruction in the region. His administration is now seen as "liars" out to fulfill an agenda outside of the professed goals of the US government. Why is this acceptable in the eyes of conservatives? Even Bush's conservative supporters are divided in how they see the war in Iraq concluding... many are beginning to take the Ron Paul position of "no more nation-building"... true "conservatism" in my eyes (and not necessarily the right course, either).

How far back into the history of "republicanism" do you have to go to see that when the executive powers buck the legislative powers, it is almost always the latter that wins. Go all the way back to the "first" republic in history (Rome), and you see more examples than you can easily count... Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, Caesar himself... all bucked the Senate and paid the price, and none could point to their actions (had they lived to see the results) and say "See, I was RIGHT! It worked!" The Gracchian and Marian "reforms" paved the way for Caesar and Augustus and the end of the Republic.

FDR's strengthening of the Executive branch might have roots back to the 1860's and the Lincoln administrations, but his was the administration that fought the hardest and the most often against a rabidly opposed Supreme Court, and was constantly being handicapped by Congressional oversight and review (at least domestically speaking).

One more small item, then I'm done... I'm not up for a Reagan-bashing right this minute.

While James is correct in that any documents that could have implicated the White House in Iran-Contra were destroyed by Poindexter and his aids, and thus no concrete evidence exists to the fact that Reagan knew we were selling arms to Iran... the fact remains that while Reagan was President, we sold over 2,500 high-tech missiles to Iran, along with tons of spare parts and technology needed to service them (and, unfortunately, reverse engineer them, as well). These included TOW and Hellfire missile systems... cutting edge technology for the mid to late 80's. How does that NOT constitute US government cooperation with an established terrorist state (as Iran had already been labeled, by Congress and two Presidents)? As James stated... this practice did not end until Feb of 1989... one month into the administration of GHW Bush. How am I supposed to see this as anything less than some form of "bargaining" with a terrorist state that has already waged a campaign of terror against Americans?