Trust vs. Checks & Balances: Sens. Levin, Webster and Vinick weigh in
Glenn Greenwald paraphrases Sen. Levin:
If the President broke the law, then the duty of the Senate is to “modify the law in order to make it legal” because, after all, the President broke the law for the “right reasons.”As Daniel Webster warned: “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.”
Arnold Vinick understands that simple concept as well:
VINICK: Well, I trust my brother, my four children, my nine grandchildren and my dog. I suspect that’s more than you trust. Now isn’t it?JOSH: Yeah
VINICK: The founding fathers didn’t set up a government based on trust. They could’ve designed a government based on trust and our ability to govern fairly but they knew that power corrupts. So they invented checks and balances. That was genius. The founding fathers did not want me to trust you and they did not want you to trust me. Every White House forgets about checks and balances, you guys are no different.
The path to hell is not paved with good intentions. The path to hell is paved with selfish (angry, greedy or prideful) intentions pretending to be good intentions.
And no White House “forgets” about checks and balances. Otherwise, they wouldn’t enlist miscreants such as John Yoo or Pat Roberts to try to make them go away.