Even when journalists ask good questions and receive truly remarkable answers, the media organizations have an uncanny ability to seize upon the wrong scoop. Take Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin’s (both of Politico) recent interview with John McCain.
The big story out of that interview was that John McCain does not know how many houses he owns. While this is a problem that few of us have, it does not (in and of itself) disqualify him from the presidency nor tell us something that we did not already know. He is very rich (or at least married to someone who is very rich), and he does have a tendency to forget some basic facts during interviews. These things are well-established.
However, little attention has been paid to McCain’s reiterations, and expansions, upon his claim that he will provide unprecedented access to both Congress and the media to ask questions of him when/if he is President. Over at least the last thirty years, we have been watching a trend towards less and less unfettered public or congressional access to the President, and McCain would be following one of the most secretive administrations in history. In terms of the fraying relationships between the two leading branches of our government, these claims – and he is getting more insistent about them all the time – really deserve to be considered carefully. In fact, the most sweeping change that he insisted upon in his Politico interview could be nothing less than a constitutional revolution. I am referring to his promise to have “Question Time” (a la the House of Commons grilling the Prime Minister on Wednesdays) “once every couple of weeks.”
This is not to say that such a practice would be inconsistent with our constitutional design, but it would mark a very different interpretation of it than the one that has prevailed for much of our history.
Consider Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: [The President] “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
The language of the Constitution does not, in any strict sense, dictate our common practice of limiting the president’s appearances before Congress to an “Annual Message” (what Franklin Roosevelt coined as “The State of the Union”) nor does it preclude the type of event that McCain now proposes. How the “information” is to be delivered is entirely open-ended, and “from time to time” could mean once a year but it could also mean “every couple of weeks.” We have long held that the President “recommends measures for consideration” by having congressional surrogates introduce bills for congressional consideration, but the constitution does not say that he can’t deliver them in person.
The practice of presenting the President’s “information” as a formal speech to Congress near the opening of each new session is never specified in our constitution, and even though it seems a time-honored ritual, this practice itself has undergone many changes during our history. Washington and Adams delivered such addresses in person. Jefferson thought such speeches too monarchical – suggesting an unseemly subordination of the people’s representatives to an executive command – and inaugurated the practice of limiting formal communications with Congress to written messages delivered by the clerk of the House.
After over 100 years in abeyance, Woodrow Wilson reinstituted the practice of the President delivering a message to Congress in person and also began the now common practice of using the statement as an opportunity to present an “administration agenda” to the legislature. While Jefferson had feared that the President speaking of constitutional verities to Congress looked too much like a monarch establishing the terms of patriotic citizenship to subjects in the trappings of a “Speech from the Throne,” Wilson had in mind a presentation of the President as a “head of government” rather than as a “head of state.” His intention, pre-figured by his seminal essays on “Cabinet Government,” was to move the President more in the direction of being a Prime Minister.
Ironically, John McCain (a proud devotee of Wilson’s bitter rival Teddy Roosevelt) appears interested in taking us farther in this direction. Although the precise contours of a “Presidential Question Time” would have to be worked out, it is inconceivable that it would preserve the high state formalities that characterize our annual State of the Union addresses today. The ritual pounding of the door, announcement of the Sergeant at Arms, hand-pumping strolls, and periodic standing ovations would not be repeated (or covered by all major networks) every two weeks. It seems inevitable that a regular Question Time would become a much more workaday affair.
Would the President carry a giant briefing book and flip through it before answering? Would he suffer the jeers and boos of the opposition (and sometimes his own) backbenchers when he answered poorly or made reference to a member of his cabinet who is out of favor with the legislators? Would he dare to reply to questioners who appeared to be infringing on purely executive matters that “it is none of your damned business”? And how would that play when the American people saw the President reacting that way to members of the House on CNN?
These last two questions, in particular, should be carefully considered before we buy McCain’s “open presidency.” Gordon Brown is the first minister of Parliament and his business is Parliament’s business. They can remove him if they don’t like his answers, but the American President is not hired by Congress and is answerable to them only in cases of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What does that leave Congress to do with a President who provides poor answers or refuses to answer important questions at all? In time, would failure to answer congressional queries come to be treated as an impeachable dereliction of a constitutional duty to “give to Congress information on the State of the Union”? Would this subordinate the executive’s power to the “confidence” of Congress?
McCain’s “Question Time” promise raises far more questions than I can enumerate here, but if he wants to make the claim, he should have to explain how this will work and how it will transform – for good or ill – the relationship between the branches of our government.
Let’s hope that during the presidential debates, McCain is not asked how many houses he owns but rather about how he proposes to conduct himself if he, as President, goes to visit the houses of Congress.
译文:
房子、“质询时间”以及其他麦凯恩主义
即使有新闻记者问一些适宜的问题并且得到真正满意的答案，这些媒体还仍然有了不起的能力去抓取一些不道德的事情进行独家报道。以迈克阿伦和乔纳森马丁（两个都是政客）对约翰麦凯恩最近的采访为例。
从这个采访中得到最大的消息就是约翰麦凯恩不知道他拥有多少套房子。虽然我们很少人会有这样的问题，但是这并不是（本身）说他没有能力做总统，也不是告诉我们一些我们曾经不知道的事情。他非常富有（或者至少是跟一个非常富有的人结婚），在采访中他确实有忘记一些基本事实的倾向。这些东西都是众所周知的。
然而，很少有人注意到麦凯恩在他声称如果/或者当他是总统的时，他将会史无前例的向国会和媒体提供提问的权利时的重复和详述。在过去的至少30年里，我们看到越来越少的公众媒体和国会有权接近总统，麦凯恩也将成为其中之一。就我们政府两个主要部门的紧张关系而言，这些声明—他一直以来变得更加坚持（这些声明）—真得值得仔细考虑。实际上，最为彻底的改变是他坚持他的政治采访不亚于一场宪法改革。我指的是他“每隔几周”就有“质询时间”的承诺（周三以下议院拷问总理的方式）。
这并不是说这样的做法不符合我们宪法的设计，但是它宁愿有一个非常不同的解释，也不要在我们历史的大部分时间里的盛行。
考虑到宪法第三章第二节：[总统]“应该不时地向国会提交联邦政府的情况，而且也推荐他们对措施之类的想法以致于他可以判断是否必要或适宜。”
任何严格意义上说，宪法不能决定我们限制总统在国会上“年度咨文”(罗斯福创造的”国情咨文)中形象的惯例，也不能阻止像麦凯恩现在提议的这种类型的事情. 如何传达“信息”完全是公开的，“不时”可以理解为一年一次，也可以理解为“每隔几周一次”。我们一直认为总统“推荐审议的措施”是通过国会代理人提出国会审议的相关法案，但是，并不是说宪法不能亲自提出它们。
临近每一届新议会召开之际，向国会提交总统的“信息”作为正式的演说内容的做法从来没有在宪法中说明，即使似乎是一个历史悠久的仪式，在我们的历史上这种做法本身也经历了许多改变。华盛顿和亚当斯也曾亲自发表过类似的演说。杰弗逊认为这种演说太专制了---暗示人民代表不适合从属于行政命令—与国会正式通讯的惯例限制在由议院议员用书面通知的形式进行。
经过100多年的待定，伍德罗威尔逊重新制订总统亲自向国会发表信息的做法，也开始通过用声明作为向立法机关提交“政府议程”的契机的现行惯例。虽然杰弗逊担心总统向国会说的宪法事实看起来太多，就像一个国王为围绕“国王的演讲”为主题而订立的爱国主义条款，但是现在他的想法是总统作为“政府首脑”，而不是“国家元首”。在他开创性文章《内阁政府》中的打算和预想。更多的是将总统朝总理方向发展。
具有讽刺意味的是，约翰麦凯恩（威尔逊骄傲的追随者，威尔逊险胜泰迪·罗斯福）对我们在这一方面的进一步发展产生了兴趣。尽管“总统质询时间”的具体方案必须制定出来，但是不可思议的是它要维护高度的国家礼节，这些礼节表现出如今年度国情咨文的特点。每两周不准重复碰撞门的仪式、警卫官的活动通告、散步以及周期性的欢呼（或通过所有的网络报道），这似乎是不可避免的，定期的质询时间将变成更加平常的事情。
请问总统会带一本大部头的介绍书，并且在回答之前匆匆查看吗？请问当他蹩脚地回答或提及到他内阁中一位已经在立法委员会失宠的成员，他会受到反对党（有时候是自己的党派）后座议员的嘲笑和嘘声吗？请问他敢回答那些违反诸如“这关你什么事”等之类的行政案件的提问者吗？请问当美国民众看到总统在CNN中对众议院议员的态度，那么CNN应该怎么播放呢？
特别是这最后两个问题，在我们接受麦凯恩“尚未决定的总统位置“应该仔细考虑一下。戈登·布朗是议会的第一大臣，他的事情就是议会的事情。如果他们对他不满意可以开除他，但是美国总统不是国会聘请的，他只有在由于“高犯罪和轻罪”而受到弹劾的情况下才对他们负责。当总统只做出敷衍性的回答或根本就拒绝对一些重要问题回答的时候，那么国会还能做什么呢？不及时回答国会的问题，将被看作对“国情咨文信息”宪法上的玩忽职守而受弹劾吗？请问这个行政权利从属于国会的“信心”吗？
麦凯恩“质询时间“的承诺产生的问题远比我在这里列举要多，但是如果他想要声明，他必须得解释如何运作，如何改变—变好或变坏---我们政府部门之间的关系。
希望在总统辩论期间，麦凯恩不会被问到他拥有多少套房子，而是问到如果他成为总统，他将建议如何实施去会见国会两院。