I am happy to see this discussion going on regarding the balance of power and the executive branch. Unfortunately, we forget that the executive branch encompasses what is known as the federal bureaucracy, including all of those alphabet soup agencies that have plagued us for nearly 100 years.

So far, the discussion has centered around the powers of the president or, more specifically, how the president interprets the laws passed by Congress. However, the situation is much more broad than that. Each day, thousands of executive decisions are made by people in the bureaucracy that affect the lives of regular citizens.

Although the president’s latest domestic spying scandal is an outrage, it will not have the same real effect upon the lives of ordinary people the way that a decision by the EPA or the IRS will have. Yet, many of the same people who are angered by what George W. Bush has done have no problem with an EPA agent taking it upon himself to interpret a law in a way that costs taxpayers billions of dollars. Nor do they have any problem with federal prosecutors creating “crimes” out of legal acts.

Yes, Alito defers too much to presidential power. But keep in mind that many of the judges who claim not to defer to the president are all too happy to defer to an IRS agent or a bureaucrat from the EPA or OSHA. And, yes, they also are part of the executive branch.

My point is this: if we are going to speak out against abuses of executive power, we need to include the entire executive branch, not just 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Most LRC readers, thank goodness, fall into the category of people who want to curb ALL executive power. But all too often, the people who are making the most noise — people like Ted Kennedy — are quite happy to see ordinary citizens abused by the executive branch, as long as the abusers work for the IRS or EPA.