PJ Tatler disagrees:
The sound bite coming out of that exchange is that the president said he isn’t asking for any arguments. That simply is not true, or given our representative republic, should not be true.
The president announced a major policy change that impacts not just the 800,000 illegal aliens who benefit, it impacts the entire country. By circumventing Congress, it impacts our rule of law. By announcing it in a way that suggests its political origins, it impacts the presidential race.
If the president expected no arguments, then he is deluded. If he will brook no arguments, then he is unfit for the office. He is not a king, and we are not his subjects. We have a duty to push back if we believe that his actions are wrong or illegal, both of which may apply to today’s seismic policy shift.
But the fact is, President Obama damn well knew that he was provoking an argument, and he expects that argument to get heated in ways that will help him keep his job.
Obama is very professorial - he likes lecturing to a captive audience that can't argue with him.
Update:
And here is the thing for those of us old enough to remember - Sam Donaldson got famous for heckling Reagan. As the DC Caller notes:
Tucker Carlson, Editor-in-Chief: “I don’t remember Diane Sawyer scolding her colleague Sam Donaldson for heckling President Reagan. And she shouldn’t have. A reporter’s job is to ask questions and get answers. Our job is to find out what the federal government is up to. Politicians often don’t want to tell us. A good reporter gets the story. We’re proud of Neil Munro.”
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4 comments:
I would've kept pushing him in hopes that he'd simultaneously combust.
Doesn't Congress have any recourse? Isn't that very stunt the reason we have a Congress?
PSB, that was a sincere question:
Doesn't Congress have any recourse? Isn't Obama's stunt the reason we have a Congress?
Sorry. My home internet is down.
There are no self-enforcing mechanisms in the Constitution. All limitations on presidential action ultimately require that one of the other two branches do something.
Stopping presidents from doing something is a lot easier than making them do something.
The Supreme Court can restrain presidential action by declaring such actions unconstitutional. The Congress can defend the program.
Making presidents do something involves a more serious remedy such as impeachment or making the president pay a political price. What Congress can do is raise a big stink, and if they feel that they have enough votes, and the issue is important enough, impeach the president.
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