Abstract
"Taken by and large,"" Edward Corwin wrote, ""the history of the presidency is a history of aggrandizement, but the story is a highly discontinuous one.""[1] After reading Gene Healy's work, there is good reason to wonder whether presidential aggrandizement will henceforth be marked by discontinuity. What Healy does show beyond question, however, is the emergence of the modern ""heroic"" presidency, highly dangerous to liberty in its own right, but now even more so after 9/11 and the policies pursued by George W. Bush and his minions. On this showing, today's presidential powers are perhaps beyond what Corwin could have anticipated and certainly beyond what students of the presidency could have foreseen in the aftermath of Watergate.
