At Ricochet, John Yoo writes, “President Obama continues to display his misunderstanding of the constitutional order by repeatedly inserting himself into matters reserved to the states and localities, such as the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, the location of a mosque near ground zero in New York City, and much of Arizona’s immigration bill:”
Obama’s intrusion into all of these matters has not just created a track record of political misstep after misstep; it has also wasted the valuable political capital of the presidency on matters that are not its business. Ultimately, this will make Obama weaker when it comes time for him to call upon the powers of his office for something truly important, such as maintaining a surge in Afghanistan, correcting his mistaken views on Guantanamo Bay, or balancing the budget.
AdvertisementObama’s intervention also shows that he misconceived the constitutional priorities of his office. The president’s primary job is to protect the national security and conduct foreign affairs. The chief executive’s role in domestic affairs was primarily intended to be one of moderating Congress. Obama seems to wish that someone else would take the lead on national security, preferably the courts. And he seems to think his job is to push the domestic political system to extremes, not moderation — hence health care and now his assault on Wisconsin.
As we noted in mid-2009, it’s not easy being the inverse of von Clausewitz.
“President Obama continues to display his misunderstanding …
Everything else in that sentence is superfluous.
Obama sees himself as God of All Things.
I see him as Barren (sp) of All Humility.
Perhaps it’s the Bloomberg syndrome at work: Mayor Bloomers eschewed dealing with the mundane duties of his office (like seeing snow was removed in a timely matter) in favor of the more visionary, forward-looking (bulls*itistic?) matters like saving his subjects from transfats. Maybe worrying about national security and keeping the country’s currency from having a value lower than used toilet paper are simply the most pedestrian of concerns for such a towering intellect such as BOs, who prefers to indulge in more uplifting fare like the stupidity of local police departments and how much Wisconsin teachers get paid.
Obama “misunderstand” his role? I think not! He is simply so far above us, he is danger of floating away like so many other hot air balloons. (Let us pray for the sudden appearance of a stiff wind.)
God bless John Yoo, but he’s wrong on this one.
Obama doesn’t misunderstand the constitutional order, he rejects what the constitution says about the role of the president and any other matter he doesn’t agree with.
At this point, he is a selective dictator; a person who abides by the law of the land only whenhe finds it convenient. And like pregnancy, it’s impossible to be a dictator just a little.
Can’t help it, folks, but I’ve got to throw in a bit of a “make-up-your-minds” comment here.
The theme in this post is that the President is supposed to take care of defence and foreign affairs, with his primary domestic duty being to “moderate” Congress. (All of which sounds about right.)
Yet for more than a year, a major criticism of Obama was that he had “delegated” the development of the health care overhaul to the very Congress that is supposed to deal with exactly that sort of thing. No, he wasn’t exactly a “moderating” influence, and the Pelosi-Reid-led gang was a true Clown Car of a Congress, but leaving domestic policy development in the hands of that Clown Car seems to have been quite constitutionally proper.
So which is it? If he is wrong to stick his nose into the Wisconsin issue or the Arizona law and all the others (and I agree that he was and is wrong in all those cases), then leaving the health care cock-up to the Congress must have been the right thing to do.
Or am I missing something?
Changes in the nation’s health care laws are something the president has to be involved in, because you’re talking about federal mandates. Weighing in on Wisconsin teacher benefits is not a national issue, since all 50 states have the right to decide their own public sector state worker compensation plans.
The thing with Obama is doing hard work was never supposed to be part of the job description. On domestic issues like the budget or health care, he was just supposed to go out and make lofty pronouncements, folks like Harry and Nancy would do the grunt work of actually crafting the laws, while the president’s other minions would demonize anyone who disagreed into silence and submission by tarring them as racists, and that would be that. On foreign policy, all supposedly had to do was go out and tell the world “I’m not George W. Bush”, and the planet would be enveloped by peace, love, understanding, rainbows, and unicorns.
That fact that none of that happened means none of that is fun for Obama. It’s above his pay grade. Community organizing and working behind the scenes with unions to create “spontaneous” street protests against Republicans, big business and/or conservative interests? Now that’s fun for Obama, and that’s what he’d really like to do (well, he doesn’t actually want to be out in the street protests; he just wants to tell them behind-the-scenes how to run their protests, but his ego prevents him from saying at least 1-2 things in public that let everyone know about his real intentions).