Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution; Presidents in Culture: The Meaning of Presidential Communication; and Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency: Legislating From the Oval Office

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Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution. Edited by Christopher S. Kelley. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. 256p. $75.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Presidents in Culture: The Meaning of Presidential Communication. By David Michael Ryfe. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. 249p. $29.95.

Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency: Legislating From the Oval Office. By Adam L. Warber. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006. 175p. $49.95.

These three books on the presidency appear at first glance to form an odd trio. Two (Adam Warber and Christopher Kelley) deal with the formal legitimacy of presidential action and claims of explicit authority. The third (David Michael Ryfe) is about the rhetoric of presidential communication. The research approaches differ as well: One is mostly quantitative (Warber), one uses a public law approach (Kelley), and one is from a different discipline altogether, communications (Ryfe). Taken together, though, the books offer a lesson in the importance of methodological pluralism and demonstrate a range of approaches. If there is one theme that ties them together, it is the recognition that presidents use the language of formal authority to justify their actions and mobilize public support.