It’s true that older concepts of the Unitary Executive were more about objecting to inter-branch agencies and attempts to usurp the executive’s ability to enforce the law.

But if you read the memos from John Yoo, David Addington & co. over the last seven years, they’re arguing for a concept of the Unitary Executive that’s much more broad and immune to checks and balances. This goes way beyond, for example, objections to the Independent Counsel law. Yoo and Addington argue not only that the executive is in charge of executing the laws, they argue that in matters of foreign policy and national defense, the president isn’t obligated to follow any laws that Congress passes that limit his powers in those areas.

Such is why Bush signed the torture bill and PATRIOT Act reauthorization into law, but then issued a signing statement that essentially said he had no plans to abide by either law. Even guys like Dick Thornburgh–who supported Unitary Executive Theory as attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration–have expressed concern about this new push (supported, incidentally, by both Roberts and Alito).

I really recommend Savage’s book. He’s not your typical liberal media elite. The book was endorsed by people like George Will, Richard Epstein, and Mickey Edwards (former head of the American Conservative Union).

I certainly agree with your concerns about Roberts and Alito. However, I think your description of the “unitary executive” is incorrect, and the mistake you make is a common one. As I understand it, the idea is NOT that the president’s powers over military and security issues are unlimited and uncheckable. Instead, it’s that only the executive branch can and should have the responsibility for the execution of the laws, hence Congress cannot create agencies to execute laws that the President, as head of the executive branch, has no ability to control. The point is that the “executive” function should be unified/unitary under the President, NOT that the executive branch trumps all others.

Wikipedia’s summary:

“In American political and legal discourse, the unitary executive theory is a theory or doctrine of Constitutional interpretation that holds it is unconstitutional for Congress to create “independent” agencies, authorities, or other entities that exercise executive, and sometimes quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial, powers, governed by officials the President may be authorized to nominate, perhaps with the advice and consent of Congress, but he is not authorized to remove or discipline. It stems from an interpretation of the separation of powers and of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, that only the President is vested with the power to execute the laws in the executive branch.”

The idea may be a bad one, but your description, like that of many other critics, isn’t quite accurate.