The Candidates on Some Harder Issues

As we swirl down the vortex toward the 2008 Presidential elections, it gets a little hard to tell what the candidates actually believe about the issues. Charlie Savage at the Boston Globe has done a really cool thing here. He asked all the candidates the same set of questions, and reported their answers in a nice readable format. It seems to me there is a question behind most of these questions, which is -- is the President obligated to obey the law?

The questions are:

• Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?
  
• In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)
  
• Does the Constitution empower the president to disregard a congressional statute limiting the deployment of troops -- either by capping the number of troops that may be deployed to a particular country or by setting minimum home-stays between deployments? In other words, is that level of deployment management beyond the constitutional power of Congress to regulate?
  
• Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?
  
• Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?
  
• Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated to the president himself?
  
• If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?
  
• Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard international human rights treaties that the US Senate has ratified?
  < li>Do you agree or disagree with the statement made by former Attorney General Gonzales in January 2007 that nothing in the Constitution confers an affirmative right to habeas corpus, separate from any statutory habeas rights Congress might grant or take away?
  
• Is there any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that you think is unconstitutional? Anything you think is simply a bad idea?
  
• Who are your campaign's advisers for legal issues?
  
• Do you think it is important for all would-be presidents to answer questions like these before voters decide which one to entrust with the powers of the presidency? What would you say about any rival candidate who refuses to answer such questions?

[Update: Someone in the comments points out that I forgot to include a link to the survey. You can read it HERE]

Candidates who answered the questions are:

• Joseph Biden
  
• Hillary Clinton
  
• Christopher Dodd
  
• John Edwards
  
• Rudy Giuliani
  
• Mike Huckabee
  
• John McCain
  
• Barack Obama
  
• Ron Paul
  
• Bill Richardson
  
• Mitt Romney
  
• Fred Thompson

If all you care about is what church the candidate attends, or how they look on TV with the sound turned down, or whether they are a bitch or somebody said they were educated in a madrassa, then you won't be interested in their answers to these questions. Some of our readers though might be glad to find this resource, to study the differences between the candidates. While a lot of it is predictable, some of their statements are very revealing.