I guess we will find out since you are backing a stumbling loser for the GOP Nominee.
Posted on 03/29/2012 11:25:00 AM PDT by cornelis
‘Flexibility’ . . . to Do What? By Jim DeMint March 29, 2012 12:54 P.M.
As you may have heard, earlier this week President Obama was caught on an open mike asking outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and by extension, President-elect Vladimir Putin, for “space” on “on all these issues, but particularly missile defense” because “after my election I have more flexibility.” The scandal isn’t really the embarrassing gaffe itself — or the equally embarrassing subsequent endorsement of his reelection by Pravda — but the true substance behind it.
After all, the character of the president’s words was nothing new. President Obama has been caught before voicing his condescending contempt for his constitutional accountability to an American public he clearly sees as an obstacle to progress. The moment with Medvedev was a bit rushed, but had he more time, no doubt the president might have gone on at length about Americans clinging to our guns and religion, our 72-degree thermostats, how our doctors perform unnecessary surgeries on unsuspecting patients, how our law-enforcement officers often act “stupidly,” and how much easier life would be if he were a dictator like the president of China.
The president says he looks forward to greater flexibility in a second term.
What the president misunderstands — or perhaps, simply dislikes — is that under our Constitution, the president is not supposed to feel especially flexible: That’s the whole point of a limited government. James Madison made clear in the debates of the Constitutional Convention and in the Federalist Papers that federal officials — especially those of an activist bent — are supposed to feel very, very constrained. In a constitutional republic, the government’s freedom is constrained by the people, to protect us from things being other way around.
And even more to the point, what exactly does the president think he needs “flexibility” to do?
In the last three years, Barack Obama has added more money to the national debt than any president in history. He has run three consecutive trillion-dollar deficits, the first three the world has ever seen. His signature domestic policy achievement was an unprecedented, unconstitutional power grab that may soon be struck down by the Supreme Court.
He engineered or oversaw unprecedented federal takeovers of the American auto industry, our financial system, our home mortgage industry, the health-care system, the student-loan industry, and the education system, and attempted a takeover of the energy system. He has run the federal government without a budget for three years. In foreign policy, he appeased anti-American rivals by undermining democratic allies in Israel, Honduras, and Eastern Europe.
This record, breathtaking in its hubris and scope, has been the work of Barack Obama, constrained. What could he possibly have in mind if given the “flexibility” that comes with a second term?
Ending missile defense? Sounds like it. Middle-class tax hikes? They’re already scheduled. Obamacare II? Stimulus III? Cap-and-Trade Redux? Amnesty? What will it mean for Russia’s neighbors? For Israel? For gasoline prices? For gay marriage? For religious liberty? For Iranian nukes? For the budget? For the strength of the dollar?
What even comes after trillion?
President Obama has, in word and deed, spent three years making clear that he brooks no formal limitation on his executive power. His only limiting principle, if you can even call it that, has been public opinion — “my election,” as he put it to Medvedev. Once reelected, finally loosed from even that informal, self-imposed check on his ambition, what would the suddenly “flexible” President Obama suddenly believe himself free to do?
Of course, the president himself moved quickly to clarify his comments to Medvedev, promising that he didn’t mean what he clearly meant. Apparently, he wants us to believe his intent is to mislead the Russians, not the American people.
But then again, this is the same man who once promised a “net cut” in federal spending, said he opposed the individual health-care mandate, promised to close Guantanamo, promised if you liked your health care you could keep it, promised that conscience rights would be protected under Obamacare, and on and on.
The president’s open-mike gaffe does not prove anything we didn’t already know. Mr. Obama does not feel bound either by his own past words or the Constitution — only by the stubborn, retrograde political ideas of the benighted voters he needs to fool in order to win his second, liberated, term.
Barack Obama may not be the first American president to look down on his countrymen, but he seems at least to be the worst at trying to hide it.
The chilling question is: What happens if he wins a second term, and no longer has to try?
— Jim DeMint is a Republican senator from South Carolina.
Well said, Senator!
I guess we will find out since you are backing a stumbling loser for the GOP Nominee.
Ephesians 5:12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.
Ephesians 5:13 But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them,
Well said....but still just lip service....nothings changed...so what’s Demitt “DOING” about it???
Obama either hates everything that has made America great, or he is the most confused, inept person ever to hold a public office. Not done wrecking house, he’ll resort to inciting race riots. To buy some “flexibility” come November. I hope I’m wrong but its hard to ignore where this is going ... and the Russians are laughing their asses off.
Kudos to Senator DeMint, one of the few brave enough to call a spade a spade.
Flexibility to do.......anything he wants. I thought that was his whole point.
More than you.
Well, it appears that Obama hasn’t given a flying flip WHAT “we the people” thought about anything he has done during his first term.
If he’s re-elected (perish the thought), there’s very little reason to hope that he will give a flying flip in the least, doubled down upon at that. So, four more years of this crap plus additional crap.
While I am all for term limits, here is one senator who needs to stay on to help incoming newbies get up to speed on the Constitution. If he does not run for re-election, maybe he’ll run for president...and int he meantime start a think tank for training up and coming conservatives.
Betray the country? Commit Treason? Lots of stuff.
He may have already commited treason just uttering those words in the context he uttered them.
Article III, Section. 3, Constitution for the United States:
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
I don't think the "two witnesses" criteria would be hard to meet in this case. :)
INDEED.
BTW, I can’t get your FREEPMAIL to open.
When my cursor is put over the title, no change occurs and I cannot click it to open it. Please email it to me.
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