George Will says so, in an attempt to get Republicans to focus more on Congress than the presidential election this fall:
Will argues that a Republican-controlled Congress would be able to strongly oppose the president’s agenda.
“If Republicans do, their committee majorities will serve as fine-mesh filters, removing President Obama’s initiatives from the stream of legislation … [A] re-elected Obama — a lame duck at noon next Jan. 20 — would have a substantially reduced capacity to do harm,” he says.
I don’t agree. In fact, perversely, this particular president might find it much to his advantage to lose Congress and then act unilaterally. He would dare a Republican Congress to oppose his acts, and then slam them with whatever weapon — race, class, gender, etc — he found at hand. And he would act in the full knowledge that it will take years of court action to undo whatever he does because there is little real will even among elected Republicans to do the hard work of reversing his actions. That most of his most effective actions come not in legislation, but in bureaucratic interpretations of pre-existing law, make the job of repealing Obama that much more difficult.
We’re already seeing this unilateral behavior, in fact, and have since the 2010 midterm when Democrats lost the House and nearly lost the Senate. Obama has unilaterally changed immigration policy, essentially gutting immigration law enforcement. And he has dared anyone to oppose what he has done. His immigration change was both a sop to the Hispanic left, but more importantly I think, a provocation to the right to raise a loud objection that he can use to paint his opponents as racists. The right has by and large not played along. We’ve learned a thing or two since the last round of “comprehensive immigration reform.”
We’re seeing this behavior even more blatantly in the abortifacient mandate. That mandate puts government in the drivers seat of insurance companies, dictating to them by fiat that they must pay for a particular product out of their own pockets or face fines or jail (or shut down altogether). It violates the First Amendment, the lynchpin of all of our freedoms. When Catholics and others objected, Obama has almost comically lied about the policy. He and his allies have cast the fight as being about access to contraceptives, which isn’t even close to the truth. It’s about government mandating business decisions and running roughshod over freedoms we have all taken for granted up to now.
The big insurance companies, by the way, aren’t fighting the mandate despite how it alters their relationship with the government. They may see it as yet another way to use regulation to keep smaller competitors at a disadvantage.
We’ve seen Obama’s unilateral behavior on energy, the EPA and the XL Pipeline. The regime’s lie, that the Republicans actually scuttled the pipeline, is so dishonest that even Jay Carney can’t really believe it. Yet it’s their official line and they’re sticking to it. And while Obama claims that we’re producing more oil than ever now, the fact is his administration has kept vast amounts of federal land off limits for exploration and increased the amount of land that’s off limits. We’re still about 3 million barrels a day off the nation’s production peak. We also need new refining capacity but we’re not building it. The boost in production is occurring on private land, and is due to new drilling technology. Obama has had nothing to do with either, and is probably looking for a way to stop both. His EPA isn’t slowing down its war on coal fired power plants — a war he promised to declare before he was even president.
Notice, by the way, that Obama isn’t really using the Democrats in Congress for any of this. He doesn’t really need them. The Democrats still control the Senate, but all they’re doing with that control is fly a holding pattern. They’re not advancing anything. Oh, they’re running interference for Obama in the press and fundraising and other menial tasks, but they can do that in a majority or a minority. It just takes one Democrat loudmouth to go on MSNBC, and there are more than enough of them for that. There will still be more than enough of them even if the GOP takes both houses in November.
What George Will, and probably most Democrats by the way, miss is that Barack Obama is a fundamentally different kind of president from any of his predecessors. For one thing, he doesn’t care about his party at all once it has served his purposes. ObamaCare cost Democrats the House and legislatures around the country, but that hasn’t slowed him down. Recall, his disdain for the Constitution stems from his misinterpretation of its purpose. The founders lived under an unlimited monarchy, and wrote the Constitution to limit the power of the new government in relation to a free citizenry. Obama views it as a “charter of negative rights” that doesn’t grant government enough power over people he believes government should provide for. That limit on government power is the Constitution’s chief feature, not a bug, but Obama sees it as a bug. And he wants to fix that bug.
Four years, no worries about re-election, no moderates in the party to have to pretend to care about, and a conveniently powerful but divided enemy in control of both houses of the Congress he despises as a brake on his power. He still wants to fundamentally transform the country to conform to his definition of “fairness.” That arrangement of Republicans in control of Congress but Obama in control of the executive branch isn’t likely to work peacefully or to the nation’s benefit.
Until Congress gets serious about impeachment proceedings, Obama can indulge in unconstitutional and doubtfully constitutional actions — as well as illegal and doubtfully legal actions — to his heart’s content. It’s the easiest, most solitary way to be president, and Obama is nothing if not solitary and lazy. I bet if he gets re-elected he will set a new record for fewest press conferences ever by a sitting president.
As Kramer said about George Will on Seinfeld, “I don’t find him all that bright.”
Four more years of this administration would just extend our long national nightmare. The economy will trudge along, with anemic growth, just as we’ve had for the past 3 years. We would have 4 more years of Carteresque malaise.
On the bright side, I think four more years of THE ONE would destroy the Democratic party – since Biden and Hillary would both be too old, who would they run in 2016, Anthony Weiner?
Gotta say, I stopped paying attention to George Will’s opinion years ago.
Not much difference between his views and RINO’s…….
WTF kind of beltway bong is Will huffing? Obama can do exactly what he has been doing since the 2010 election, only on steroids: use the bureaucracy to go around the congress. He can also stack the supreme court. Budget? We don’t need no steenking budget.
This is nuts.
I see a different problem with Will’s argument. It relates to the fact the the Senate has not passed a budget for years (which, by the way should be a reason for the defeat of every Democrat Senator running for reelection). Unless the Republicans can win a 60 seat majority in the Senate and retain the House, then Obama will have absolute control of the budget and federal spending. The Democrats can prevent spending cuts and Republican spending priorities merely by refusing to pass a budget. If Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit then the Executive, Obama, will have the ability to dole out incoming funds as he chooses.
Theoretically, the House controls the purse strings but if the Senate refuses to pass a budget, then there is no budget and the Executive runs the whole show. Besides, the performance of the Republican House since the great 2010 victories has been uninspiring.
Also there is the obvious problem that Obamacare could not be repealed.
Actually, since budgets can’t be filibustered, it only takes 50 senators to pass a budget. So if the Republicans pick up enough to get to 51 (so Biden can’t cast the deciding vote), then a budget would thump down on Obama’s desk.
Of course, THE ONE could just ignore the budget and spend as he chooses.
Thanks for the clarification. That makes taking the Seante by conservative Republicans very important. It still leaves the problem of Obamacare.
No, he really can’t. That would be grounds for removal from office by nearly any means, not merely impeachment.
Excellent column, Mr. Preston!
I would add that in foreign policy Obama will be especially dangerous. Even normally vain presidents get carried away with the notion of “leaving a legacy,” and Obama’s vanity far exceeds the norm. He will want to “solve” the Palestinian problem, contrive a “peace” settlement, and deal with the “constant sore” (Obama’s own phrase)that is Israel. The more he is booed at home by Americans, the more he will seek applause from anti-Americans abroad.
Yes, in a lame duck period — re foreign policy — the O will be able to do whatever he damn well pleases — with nothing to stop him.
Any one see a parallel between Obama’s behavior and the behavior of any historical dictator of the past? One who started with a mandate from the people who then moved to absolute dictator who ruled by fear and intimidation (like threatening donors of the opposition with government investigation/etc.)? Who’s supporters used threats of violence as well as violence to eliminate any opposition (and who looked really snappy in brown shirts)?
Then again, if the Big Zero goes down in defeat the new administration – if it has any testicular fortitude at all – will immediately open up the records of the Executive branch so everyone can see what crony was cozy with which political hack, and hopefully a revamped and reinvigorated justice department will begin wholesale investigations into all of tbhis back scratching and sweetheart dealing that we all know has been going on for the last few years.
“a revamped and reinvigorated justice department will begin wholesale investigations”
Scott, I guess you didn’t read the series on the Justice Dept. All those appointees Obambi has installed aren’t just going to get up and go away. It’s going to take years to weed them all out. And, as to the records, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they all did just disappear or at least be buried so deep they would be next to impossible to find.
Oh, and about testicular fortitude, look at the choices they are giving us to run against “the one”.
If they are political appointees, then they serve at the pleasure of the incoming administration.
The first act the new administration should conduct is to ask for the resignations of everyone on the department, then go through them with a fine tooth comb to get rid of the parasites.
We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight, but we damn sure can make the environment as inhospitable for their ilk as possible!
Obamacare was passed during a lame duck period …
using totally bent out of shape Congressional rules …
with all polls showing the majority of voters were against it …
What else is there to say to convince it’s clear exactly what the O will do next time.
The Boy King does exactly as he pleases now, and the GOP whines a little, and then rolls over and plays dead. What makes George Will think the GOP will grow a pair next year? They voted to pass NDAA, and would have happily passed SOPA if there hadn’t been an uproar on the web. We have to get obama OUT of office come next January. If we don’t, this country is finished.