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Introduction : presidential fiascoes -- Reputation : Eisenhower and the U-2 flights -- Power stakes : Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs -- Compellence : Johnson and the Vietnam escalation -- Command : Ford and the Mayaguez -- Rhetoric : Carter and the energy crisis -- Prerogative : Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair -- Gamesmanship : Bush and the budget -- Program innovation : Clinton and health care -- Parallel governance : Bush and Iraqi WMD -- Presidents unbound : crises of authority and legitimacy -- Risk and resilience : toward a White House learning curve

In the aftermath of the imperial presidency, some historians and political scientists developed a revisionist critique of Franklin D. Roosevelt's destroyer deal, criticizing his claim and exercise of prerogative power to unilaterally exchange destroyers for leasing rights to British bases in the Western Hemisphere. They argued that the deal was a violation of international law, that it went beyond the Constitution, that it violated neutrality laws passed by Congress, that it took advantage of the British in a time of maximum peril. The purpose of this article is to examine two of these claims—that the president went beyond the Constitution and the laws. The destroyer deal was an exercise of prerogative power anticipated by the founders of the Constitution, and Roosevelt's policy was successful because it "normalized" prerogative, basing it on what presidency scholar Richard Neustadt referred to as "power stakes."

This article describes and attempts to assign causes for both the continuities and changes in the assertion of prerogatives in the "war on terrorism," focusing on leadership style and rhetoric, electoral coalitions and regime consolidation, clientelism in the Department of Justice, and "prerogative time."

Executive power in the Constitution was left ambiguous and underdefined. Commentators have questioned presidential claims of inherent executive and war powers. Have the president and his subordinates obeyed the Constitution and adhered to the letter and spirit of the law? Have legal commentators and courts properly construed constitutional clauses, especially those dealing with war powers? I start with the idea that the Constitution is a power base for government officials and that construing the Constitution is a political act. As political scientists, we can observe presidents and their counsel substitute novel interpretations of presidential prerogatives when they claim the president has inherent war powers and related diplomatic and national security powers that override statute law or bypass the constitutional prerogatives of Congress, and we can analyze the conditions under which their substitution of executive prerogative power will succeed or fail.