This thread seems to be concluding that Obama = Bush. Interesting. I agree.
no. YOU seem to think this thread is concluding that. i'll go further, the article begins by equating the two...
but anyways
Conservatives can be a grudging lot. That's especially true when it comes to President Obama. Even where he's been in the rightwhether it be killing Osama bin Laden or promoting charter schoolswe can be stingy with praise.
So let us now, in full public view, credit his greatest public service as president: He is sending Americans back to the Constitution.
Yes, in the Bush years the air was also thick with accusations that the Constitution was being "shredded." We now know that the professed concern for the Constitution was fake. We know it was fake because the same Bush claims of executive authority in war that provoked such apoplexy in our pundits, professors and politicos have for the most part been embraced by Mr. Obamaall to the distinct sound of silence.
Here's his conclusion: We now know that the professed concern for the constitution was fake.
Premise: Yes in the bush years the air was thick with accusations that the constitution was being shredded.
Assumption: Pundits, professors and politicos have for the most part remained silent on Obama's foreign policy.
This is incorrect because as can be seen by doing a simple web search, multiple pundits, politicos and professors have stepped up to call Obama's Lybia's campaign unconstitutional. Even Pakistan considered the attack on Osama bin Laden's compound an act of war which could've been met with military response. His conclusion is incorrect because concern for the constitution has always been a large issue in politics, including during Obama's tumultuous first term.
Today we have a wholly different order of constitutional complaint. Where the accusations against Mr. Bush were led by prestigious law faculties and law firms, those against Mr. Obama reflect a more popular hue. Where the indictments of Mr. Bush were largely limited to war policy, those against Mr. Obama's extend broadly to all areas of policy: foreign, economic and social. And where critics of Mr. Bush were obsessed with outcome, the discontent with Mr. Obama has been magnified by the uneasy sense that he is changing the fundamental rules of the game.
Conclusion: Today we have a wholly different order of constitutional complaint
Premise: Accusations against Mr obama extend to all areas of policy. the discontent with Obama has been magnified by the sense that he is changing the rules of the game.
Assumption: Where Mr Bush's constitutional complaints were limited to war policy, Obama's extend to all areas of policy. Where critics of Bush are obsessed with outcome, the Problem with Obama is that he's changing the rules of the game
His conclusion is incorrect because there is only one type of constitutional complaint, a LEGAL one handled by the courts. His assumptions that Bush faced one type of constitutional complaint while Obama handled 3 is an attempt to cast obama in a bad light. There is only one type of constitutional complaint, a LEGAL one, this type of hairsplitting is derisive in nature.
This awakening started with the tumultuous legislative path to Mr. Obama's health-care victory. Along the way, Americans watching were given an education in words like "cloture" and "filibuster," and saw the leaders of the Democratic House and Senate consider a maneuver whereby the House would "deem" the Senate version of the health-care bill to have passed without having to vote on it. That left a bad taste.
It proved only the beginning. Since then, Mr. Obama's aggressive disregard for any constitutional limit on what he wants to do has come to define his approach across the board.
Conclusion: Obama has a disregard for any constitutional limit on what he wants to do.
Assumption: the legislative process to pass health care law Left a bad taste.
Premise: the tumultuous legislative path, which used legislative hoop jumping ...
In this instance we can both attack the conclusion and the assumption.
In terms of the assumption, it can be argued that the bad taste was left by how the acidic nature of political punditry in search of ratings tainted the political discourse in the country. Unproven 'quasi-facts' like death panels and mass executions took this debate into a realm of hyperbole and just plain nastiness not seen since the civil rights movement. This is can be further looked upon since reconciliation was used multiple times by the bush administration and it was never taken to the level of insanity this debate was.
In terms of the conclusion, even as much as conservatives pundits want to cast Obama as a Tyrant, courts have yet to slap obama with the unconstitutional badge. There have been split judgements about the health care individual mandate (not the legislative measure taken to pass the health care law, which is what the author references above) is going to be looked at by the Nation's highest court. As of right now the matter is Constitutional.
On foreign policy, his State Department hires a Yale Law dean who roared like a lion when the issue was President Bush's war powers but now offers the lamb-like justification for intervention in Libya on the grounds that the shooting there somehow did not constitute a war.
I do not understand why a 'Yale' law dean is referenced here. The Obama administration has the right to defend its actions. I could start pointing out all the Ivy Leaguers who offered 'lamb like' justifications for Bush's wars, but are now roaring like lions... but what good does that achieve??
On economic policy, he fills his White House with "czars" to manage important aspects of national policy without the burden of congressional approval. Similarly, he invokes a ridiculous notion of Senate recess to prevent Congress from asking any questions about the vast powers of the dubious new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or its even newer leader. And the constitutionality of his signature achievementthe health-care lawis now before the Supreme Court.
Presidents have used czars for a long time. Let's be clear, these czars really have no 'Power' per say. These guys don't order anybody around, they coordinate between agencies and report to the president and when there's something wrong the President is the one who starts ordering around. Legally, technically, and realistically, the positions in charge of the executive branch departments are named "Secretary" of ......
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was formed via legislative action which passed congress. It was not some 'recess' magic conjuration. It has not been able to function because partisanship has taken over the legislative branch, with the Republican party pledging to block the appointment, regardless of credentials. In the face of an uncooperative government a brave and responsible leader appointed somebody. Recess appointments are legal, and PERFECTLY CONSTITUTIONAL.
Meanwhile on social policy, the same Supreme Court, ruling 9-0, rejects as unconstitutional and labels "extreme" his administration's argument that the First Amendment does not protect a religious organization's right to choose its own leaders.
It is the Justice Department's responsibility to bring these issues before the courts so they decide. Since the writer insists on only quoting a single word, the Supreme Court ruling only says the word "extreme" once in 39 pages.
If these issues were confined to the law blogs and law journals, they would make for lively debate. Yet Mr. Obama's overreach has provoked something unique. This is the rise of a populist movement with the historically unpopulist priorities of making the federal government smaller and insisting on its constitutional limits.
I want to point out that lively debates are rarely left to law blogs and academia. These are the ones that make it out into the mainstream.
I think what has provoked something resembling an uprising is historically horrible economic conditions for a majority of americans while a small minority are enjoying record profits, ultra high wages, and historically low tax rates. The idelogical punditry points fingers at the politicians, realists point fingers at our wallets.
Then again, we all have our opinions.
The press has mostly missed this aspect of the tea party. Perhaps some find it impossible to take seriously the idea that ordinary men and women might have a valid take on the Constitution. Certainly the champions of a living Constitution have done their darndest to load up judicial decisions with whatever gets them to their destination, whether it be evolving standards of decency, foreign law, or the ever multiplying emanations and penumbras of constitutional protections. In this way Justices substitute their own opinion for the law, as William O. Douglas did in Griswold v. Connecticut, where he discovered a hitherto unknown constitutional right to privacy.
These all make constitutional disputes more complex. That complexity in turn contributes mightily to the conclusion that only the courts have the competence to decide them.
It is the very nature of the law system of the US that the law evolves over time, based on the OPINION of the court. Nobody is concluding that only the courts have the competence to decide constitutional disputes. As a matter of law, however, the Supreme Court is legally charged with interpreting the constitution, and is the only deciding body with LEGALLY BINDING and PRECEDENT SETTING power in the US.
We are learning, however, that ordinary Americans who never before heard of the Commerce Clause are perfectly capable of grasping the argument that if the federal government can require a citizen to buy a product in the market, there's nothing he can't be forced to do. As Republicans head into their South Carolina primary, the preferred press narrative appears to be of a party riven by differences that are intractable. What this misses is the larger constitutional point on which Republicans are mostly united and by which so many are driven: that what's at stake in the 2012 election is the process our founders gave us for resolving these debates.
Ordinary americans are smart enough to grasp arguments, and they are smart enough to realize when arguments are just plain stupid. This can most be exemplified by the Health care Mandate hoobla started by conservatives. It was a conservative idea originally... since they can't take credit for the resounding success it will have on lowering costs when fully implemented, they must cast it in a negative light at all costs!
Government mandated health care is so good messing with Medicare cost conservatives politically on a national and state level.
When it comes to the founding document of the U.S. government, many of its teachers must go through life struggling to find ways to make its dusty clauses exiting and relevant. You can say Mr. Obama probably will not like where a greater public familiarity with the Constitution is likely to take us politically. But you can't say the former University of Chicago professor hasn't made it exciting.
I'm struggling to understand how this qualifies as conclusion... On one end he argues that more people are becoming more familiar with the constitution but posts little in the way of facts... He attacks perfectly constitutional and legal legislative maneuvering, while only mentioning the one thing that might fail constitutional muster, the individual mandate... while not mentioning how great it works for several other health programs.... Lets not forget that when that article was written, courts were divided as to the constitutionality of the mandate, and the supreme court has yet to rule on this matter.....
Truly bizzare article indeed...
