[jayess]

I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive. Teddy Roosevelt executive orders were simple and limited.[1] Modern executive orders have very wide ranging consequences (such as allowing departments to share electronic surveillance without a warrant).

[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Theodore_Roosevelt/Exe...

Examples include, "Authorizing Appointment of Translator in Bureau of Insular Affairs Without Examination," "Authorizing Reinstatement of Charles B. Terry as Clerk in Post Office Department Without Examination," "Amending Civil Service Rules to Except Commissioners of National Military Parks from Examination," etc.

[throwaway729]

> I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive

Indeed, but instructive in an opposite direction IMO.

The sum of Obama's executive orders pale in comparison to the other Roosevelt's singular Executive Order 9066, for example. And that was hardly the only controversial FDR order.

Vietnam was really the first time that a war-time president didn't suspend the civil liberties of a crap-load of Americans.

[jayess]

Sure, but we've also been in a perpetual "state of emergency" since 1979: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/22/presi...