The Root of Obama’s Imperious Presidency

White House Dossier ^ | January 17, 2014 | Keith Koffler

[2ndDivisionVet]

Let’s continue on our theme of pop psychology today, even though I promised to stop, and discuss one of the main reasons Obama wants to rule, to the greatest extent possible, from the Oval Office.

Sure, contempt for Congress and the Constitutional process – as well as the absolute certainty that his motives and agenda are unquestionably right and just – all plays into it. But there’s another critical piece to this: Obama is, for a politician, a relative loner who doesn’t want to be bugged by members of Congress. Of either Party.

He has no famous chums in Congress. He has few relationships of any sort with lawmakers. Really what he wants to do is make his decisions in the Oval Office, have a few meetings, give some speeches on college campuses and at high schools, and play golf. And then send Jay Carney out to talk about how Republicans are intransigent, politically motivated hacks who don’t even wear deodorant.

Well, yes, the Congress was in fact designed to include people committed to principles and also worried about getting reelected. The trick is to use various carrots and sticks to get them to do you bidding.

The grunt work of legislating is not for him. That’s why he passed through the Illinois legislature and the United States Senate leaving not a trace of evidence he was ever there.

As I’ve mentioned before, I covered both the Clinton and Bush White Houses. Routinely, with each of them, there was line of cars on the West Wing driveway belonging to members of some committee or faction of Congress that had dropped by to meet the president. If they wanted the gathering to remain below the radar, they “snuck in” the side door, and then the camera guys who were always in a position where they could see the entrance there told us about it.

With Obama, almost never. Nothing. No meetings. If you ask around on Capitol Hill, no phone calls either. Obama, expostulating about the uncooperativeness of Republicans, does nothing to get them to cooperate. It’s not in his character. And then he attacks them for his own paucity of results. He’s like a high school football player who never comes to practice and then whines that he’s warming the bench.

Unfortunately, Obama’s temperament will now have serious consequences for the nation. We’ll be in a constant state of Constitutional subversion for the next three years as Obama issues edicts and bullies the private sector into doing his bidding. At any point, with some particularly outlandish act, he can kick things up to a major Constitutional crisis. It’s a sad thing to see.

I have no love for politicians. But the Founders designed this system for politicians, who must schmooze and battle their way toward getting something done – or preventing something from being done – all while watching their political asses back home.

It’s not pretty. But it’s a lot better than having the nation run by a cabal of philosopher-kings who think they know what’s best for us.

[minnesota_bound]

obama is a dic...tator

[nathanbedford]

All his life Barack Obama has operated outside the system.

Born a mulatto in the 1960s, he was born outside the norm.

Raised in Indonesia, educated for a time in Indonesia, probably educated and raised for a time as a Muslim, he was outside the norm.

Educated at an elite private school in Hawaii-outside the norm.

Advanced to Columbia University and Harvard Law school, to the Harvard Law School Law Review, to the University of Chicago law school, to the Senate of Illinois and the United States Senate, all as an affirmative action candidate, he operated outside the norm.

Every advantage Obama obtained he got outside the norm. In other words he did not earn his accomplishments rather he was awarded them because of his race and to some degree because of his ability to make a speech. There is nothing in Obama's history which suggests that hard work and attention to detail is the way to get ahead or to achieve anything. To the contrary, everything in Obamas history tells him that shortcuts and theatrics and especially race are the ways to get ahead or to get what he wants.

Obama's ideology is certainly outside the norm. That ideology teaches him to disdain the system, it teaches him that the system is corrupt and that he is noble. The practitioners of the system are corrupt and beneath contempt. His conclusion, quite reasonably reached: Go around the corrupt politicians and use race and demagoguery to advance the ideology.

He is after all the product of the ideology.

[CharlesOConnell]

GET tried to pack the Court.

This should have the effect of weakening the Presidency.

[laplata]

Well put.

Bottom line with Obama: He’s pure Evil and nothing good from him should be expected.

[TigersEye]

I believe he feels a guilt and a perverse resentment for being advanced at every level upon no merit of his own. He has taken possession of the highest possible office yet he remains outside the norm and is in truth an outsider to us all. He grabbed the biggest brass ring of all and has won nothing whatsoever. For that the logic of his experience leads him to have contempt for us all.

[Jacquerie]

But the Founders designed this system for politicians, who must schmooze and battle their way toward getting something done – or preventing something from being done

The Framers were under no illusions as to man's fallen nature. They knew that while most men were not thieves, they easily became thieves when they became part of a group with power to steal property from some in order to give it to others.

Their system nudged less than virtuous men toward serving the public good. It is past time to recognize that our system rewards good men to do wrong. We must return to the better system of our framers, which prodded less than virtuous men to do the right thing.

[spankalib]

“I believe he feels a guilt...”
Narcissists are incapable of this feeling.

This is the same narcissism that infects the entire left-wing/democrat establishment that allows them to look upon the ruins their policies produce:
inner-cities’ despair and destruction everywhere they rule,
and double-down with the same failed and corrosive policies of the tired past.

“...and a perverse resentment...”
True that, and for the reason you cite.
Even more fundamentally, deep down inside,
their resentment and envy is nursed in the toxic bowels of their hollowed hearts, because they know everyone else is normal...relatively happy, and they are not. Nor will they ever be - unless they can control more and cause more suffering.

Control of others is their entire desire, since they cannot control themselves (yes, it’s perverse). They are completely indifferent to the suffering they cause.

[JoeProBono]