We know that the abuse of power may cause an erosion of authority, but I would suggest that the current “crisis” over Iran and the Contras confirms a notably different lesson: It is the erosion of authority, or the denial to the president of his rightful, constitutional powers, which has produced a stream of factitious crises. The “scandals” are generated by the prospect of an uncontained president, who is seeking to evade the restraints of the law, in order to deploy the instruments of violence in foreign policy. But the president appears to be bent on a course of lawlessness, he seems persistently to be threatening a “constitutional crisis,” only if one accepts the premise that these statutory restraints on the president are eminently reasonable and constitutional. If they are not, then there is no pattern of lawlessness on the part of the president, no scandal, no crisis.

One commentator has recently remarked that the War Powers Act and the Boland amendment have been parts of a design to “criminalize” differences in policy between Congress and the president. A president who took seriously his responsibilities under the Constitution, or a president who sought to exercise the powers that his predecessors have routinely exercised, would be compelled to steer around these restrictions. When he does, he will be charged with putting himself “above the law.” The opposition party, and its allies in the media, will express their outrage and declare the presence of another “scandal.” There will be calls for a special prosecutor, for a select congressional committee to hold extended hearings—in short, the whole script and the stage directions for Watergate, called into play once again. We now have a part of the political class, in government and the media, who have made “deploring” into a vocation: Their main competence has been cultivated in the art of investigating and holding long, debilitating hearings, with the object of bringing down the Administration or rendering the government of the day ineffectual.