The Pleasure of the President

There were presidents past whose pleasures, if more explicitly known, would make some of us cringe. JFK was one, though images of Marilyn Monroe might not be the worst thing about a president. No one would ever want to envision unsavory images of Pat Nixon. Donald Trump will not find a seat at the round table of Camelot, and no sane person cares to consider his pleasures any more than absolutely necessary.

And yet, serving at the pleasure of the president remains a consideration that any observer of politics must consider. But is it reasonable to ask, “what is this crap?”

President Bush said on March 14, 2007, “U.S. attorneys and others serve at the pleasure of the President. Past administrations have removed U.S. attorneys. It is their right to do so.”

Karl Rove said on March 8, 2007, “Look, by law and by Constitution, these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term.”

Despite this acclimation of unfettered power, there must be some reason for a decision. Of course, “at the pleasure” does not require a reason to be justified. If the basis for a change in Department of Justice personnel is simply on a Presidential whim, then that is as scary, if not more so, than partisan politics.

Note the dates.* This didn’t arise with Preet Bharara’s unanticipated emergence as a progressive darling for refusing to resign upon request of the person at whose pleasure he serves.

Rummy said it, Powell said it, Rove said it, Gonzalez said it – the list goes on……
What is going on with these idiots? They act like they are living in the dark ages or the Knights of the Round Table or something. We are in the 21st Century and we don’t serve our masters anymore. We serve ideals, the Constitution, or we just work for others – but we don’t serve them like some kinda fucking slaves. Where do they come up with this shit?

At the time this was written, David Kelly was the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Remember him? He was followed by Michael Garcia, as you no doubt recall. No? Surely Lev Dassin strikes a bell, even though he was only interim United States Attorney until President Obama appointed Preet Bharara in 2009.

Remarkably, Preet’s refusal to resign, and subsequent firing, has become a cause célèbre. What an odd choice of person to become a progressive darling, given the damage his office has done to so many under his watch. Perhaps some tough law and order types thought Preet an icon, but for those who profess to be against Prison Nation, against mandatory minimums, against the abuse of the vast authority given prosecutors to destroy lives, the disconnect is quite shocking. Yet, for at least this brief and shining moment, progressives adore Preet and applaud his boldness in standing up to Trump.

The office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York will go on. Its investigations will continue. Its prosecutions will proceed. Whether the Governor Andy Cuomo and Mayor Bill De Blasio will be indicted is unknown, but then, they weren’t indicted while Preet was running the office thus far either, though it’s well known that they were in his crosshairs, just as the others running Albany were taken down on his watch.

But the fact that a new president gets to appoint the people of his choosing, those who “serve at his pleasure,” and similarly gets to tell those appointed by his predecessor to take a hike, has long been a constant of executive transition.  The same griping that happened with past executives is happening again, and will happen in the future.

In Preet’s case, there is a twist in that he understood that he would be kept on based upon conversation with Trump, according to unnamed sources. Assuming this is true, and it likely is, it does not mean that Trump doesn’t get to change his mind. Preet may well have reason to be miffed, perhaps even embarrassed, by this shift, but that’s politics. Preet’s a big boy. He knows how the game is played, and that a promise one day means nothing the next.

The retort is that it’s not that the president lacks the authority to swap out a former administration’s United States Attorneys, but the “abrupt” way in which it happened. Did the Trump administration demonstrate, yet again, that it doesn’t know how to accomplish basic tasks without knocking over the presidential china cabinet? Certainly its rollout of the Muslim ban was an execution fiasco. And they keep ignoring the norms that have grown around the presidency, the ways of doing things that we’ve grown to expect and have become established as “rules” even though they may be nothing more than traditions.

The other possibility is that the administration has chosen to break all the rules, to disrupt the way things have been done in order to end the norms, the traditions, that have resulted in ridiculously huge and monolithic government, paralyzed by partisanship and ineffective at doing more than taxing and regulating our every move.

But if this is so, is it best accomplished by what appear to be such impetuous actions, taken with utter disregard for the effective execution of new policies? Is this the right way to achieve a paradigm shift in government?

While the enemy of my enemy may be my friend, Preet Bharara is no one to cry for. Save your tears for someone more worthy. By Monday, Preet will land himself a corner office somewhere and be on the road to filthy wealth, if that’s what he chooses to do. He’ll be fine.

Yet, the disconcerting problem is whether this administration can do more than knock over the china cabinet in its quest to drain the swamp, or fill Trump hotel rooms, or whatever its underlying goals may be.  What cannot be ignored is that the election of someone who lacks the institutionalized knowledge of law, Constitution and governance gives rise to a series of what appears to be incredibly incompetent execution of policies, broken presidential china all over the floor.

Regardless of policies and purposes, the inept handling of their institution and execution reminds us that not any blithering idiot can be president, and that solutions to the myriad problems that plague government aren’t simple and easy. Preet will survive. The SDNY United States Attorney’s office will survive. The nation will survive. But we may not have any unbroken dishes left if Trump persists in his incompetent governance.

That may be good with some of you, but never forget that the alternative to bad isn’t necessarily good. It can also be worse.

*It’s not that this 2007 discussion of what would turn out to be Alberto Gonzalez’s politicized firings of United States Attorneys ended up being the same thing, but that the nature of serving at the president’s pleasure was on the front burner at the time.

8 thoughts on “The Pleasure of the President

  1. PDB

    It’s interesting to see the left defend things like free trade and the CIA, since doing so involves opposing Trump. And criticizing Trump for saying “You think we’re so innocent” regarding the US government killing people to achieve its goals. The last few months, if nothing else, has shown us that the partisan left is no more principled than the partisan right.

  2. Ross

    Perhaps if Preet had “pleasured” the President, he could have kept his job.

    Trump is amazing in his ability to make almost anyone froth at the mouth while doing something all of his predecessors did.

    The writer of that 2007 post has to have been a Millennial to be that clueless on the meaning of the words serve and pleasure in that context.

    1. SHG Post author

      There appears to be no way to stop the frothing on the one hand, and good reason to froth even if it’s not even close to the reason for the frothing that just won’t end. These are, as the evil admonition goes, interesting times.

  3. Brainstem

    There is a joke going around about an attractive young lady who offers to pleasure our new commander in chief – to which he replies…..what’s in it for me?

    Preet will be fine and is already well off having invested early in his brother’s Diapers.com venture…cry not for him, but look out for new progressive targets the office may now take aim.

  4. Pingback: The Apolitical Prosecutor Problem | Simple Justice

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