I understand you meant this for Travelin Dave, but allow me to answer, so that you can fully get my position.
Yes, I believe that there should be structures outside the executive branch that impose limits upon what the executive branch does with the resources that the executive branch controls. I always assumed this was part of the checks and balances our forefathers intended. But I'm sure you know the old adage about assuming.
Well, there is an open question about the separation of powers and the powers of the chief executive, which the SCOTUS is likely to settle this term as it reconsiders Humphrey's Executor v United States. But the monuments in Washington DC are under the auspices of the National Park Service, which is an executive branch agency, and the White House itself is also under the auspices of the Committee to Preserve the White House (which was created by an executive order of LBJ) and the Capitol Planning Commission, which was enabled by an act of Congress, but is also an executive branch agency populated by presidential appointees.
Followup question: Does it disturb you to learn that in 2009 Barack Obama, with private funding, installed basketball hoops and markings on Dwight Eisenhower's tennis court, and didn't submit the plans to the National Capitol Planning Commission? Or is that too minor a change to bother with?
You know it is.
Actually, I really don't, and that's the point of this discussion. I'm trying to understand where people draw lines between what is sacred and profane when it comes to the White House property. People were very upset that Trump replaced the grass in the Rose Garden with a limestone patio. But nobody was upset that Obama stuck basketball hoops on the tennis court and had basketball markings painted on it. So are the grounds sacred or not?
I expect nobody here would disagree that the gutting of the interior of the White House and installation of a steel infrastructure under Truman was necessary, especially after a piano nearly fell through the second floor. But how does that gutting square with what Kathleen Willey has called "the overwhelming history" that has been lost by knocking down the East Wing? Is the history
in the walls, or is it just
hanging on the walls? Because if it's
in the walls, then every single presidential administration since John Adams has destroyed history by building and tearing out offices inside. But if the history is hanging
on the walls, or sitting on the floors, then why are we upset that a president has knocked down the walls to rebuild them?
Also, when do the walls become historic? The last time the East Wing was knocked down and rebuilt was 1942. So is it after 50 years that a structure becomes historic? 80 years? Is a building
immediately historic if it is erected on the White House grounds?
I'm not being flippant, I promise. I really don't get where people put their boundaries, and clearly people have placed them in different places in their minds than I have. So I'm trying to understand.
