Posted on 10/14/2014 12:15:09 PM PDT by jazusamo
Why is he always telling them what he’s not going to do?
This has become a constant refrain among President Obama’s Republican and conservative critics. And it is an excellent question. Why does the president tell jihadists from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda that the American campaign against them will be strictly limited to aerial bombing (sporadic, at that) and absolutely, positively will not involve the introduction of U.S. ground forces?
The theory behind the question is bulletproof: the only way you can hope to keep bad actors in check, to discourage them from acting roguishly in pursuit of their ambitions, is to indicate that you might respond with your superior powers. Even if you are reluctant to unleash those powers, the seed of doubt planted by signaling the possibility of decisive counteraction forces rogues to tread lightly. On the other hand, take your decisive weapons off the table and you’re sure to find ISIS mocking your impotence, sacking city after city, and poised to take Baghdad.
My question for my colleagues: why don’t we practice what we preach?
Back in June, my book Faithless Execution was published. Contrary to some of the commentary it provoked, I did not call for President Obama’s immediate impeachment. Indeed, I argued that the lesson of the Clinton impeachment episode was that it is a mistake to commence impeachment proceedings in the absence of strong public support for the president’s removal.
The point of the book was to address how presidential lawlessness — a threat to our governing structure over which the Framers agonized — is dealt with in the American constitutional system. Other than the ballot box, the Constitution provides only two ways for Congress to rein in presidential maladministration: the power of the purse and impeachment. That is, Congress can starve the administration of the funds needed to carry out its rogue practices, or it can remove from power executive officials — up to and including the president — who are lawless, derelict, profoundly dishonest, or incompetent in the carrying out their duties.
Like committing military “boots on the ground” in the Middle East, the use of these powers could be dispositive. Moreover, if Republicans signaled that reluctant resort to these powers was a distinct possibility — a signal that would rivet public attention to presidential lawlessness, and could thus alter the political climate — President Obama would be forced to factor that into his calculations.
Yet — adopting the president’s self-defeating strategy for conducting war — congressional Republicans cannot quickly enough or often enough tell the world what they are not going to do about Obama’s lawlessness.
Cross our hearts, they proclaim, they will take no action that could cause a government shutdown. (Translation: the power-of-the-purse is off the table, since — lacking a veto-proof majority — Republicans would need to force a budget showdown in order to deprive Obama of the funds that underwrite his lawlessness.) And under no circumstances — no matter how shocking the lawlessness, no matter how derelict or incompetent the performance, no matter what lies are told to the country, no matter how determinedly the administration obstructs investigations of its misconduct — will Congress even consider an impeachment investigation, much less the filing of impeachment articles.
So Republicans keep telling the president what they are not going to do.
And the president? To take just a few of the most recent notorious items, he is now poised to:
And so on. The Obama presidency has become a study in the raw power of the presidency in the hands of a willful ideologue checked only by his calculations about damage to his political standing — under circumstances where, with no more elections to worry about, Obama is increasingly less concerned about the unpopularity of his policies. Obama’s opponents have made clear that while they will complain about his maladministration, they will take no meaningful steps to stop it.
As I argue in Faithless Execution, Obama’s opposition can certainly disavow the powers the Framers provided to preserve a nation of laws by combating presidential lawlessness. That is a rational political choice if one is convinced that the public would revolt against either: (a) a government shutdown, however limited, and however well-framed as a necessary effort to halt Obama’s unpopular lawlessness; or (b) the start of an inquiry — not the filing of impeachment articles, but the mere commencement of hearings — into whether executive officials who carry out Obama’s lawless or derelict policies, including the president himself, should be removed from power.
But if you tell a rogue actor that you are not going to use the only powers available to you to stop him, you cannot be surprised when his behavior becomes ever more outrageous.
You KNOW the worst is yet to come.
Allah is his co-pilot.
Without control of the Senate Republicans can’t cut the illegal crap from the budget and get it on O’bastards desk to sign or veto.
If the House does it now Hairy Reed puts it back in and tosses it back to the House. The house either has to pass that or be blamed for the shutdown.
Get rid of Reid as Senate leader and you can get to O’bastard’s desk, then HE would get blamed for a shutdown!
From whence was Islam born..? Of Heaven?
We live in interesting times.
Ping
Lol,, Insert church lady laugh.
Well said and true.
There is another way to combat Obama's lawlessness and his lawlessness is about to unleash a horror on all of us after the midterm elections. He will by EO create amnesty for millions upon millions of law-breaking persons known as illegal aliens
But the aim of these EOs is not humanitarian, it is political. These law breakers will be granted amnesty in some form and there will be those who argue it is not amnesty but they will be legalized in some sense. And because they are not opposed to breaking laws, they will have no second thoughts about breaking more laws such as registering to vote while fraudulently claiming they are eligible. And throughout the process they will be guided and coached by leftist community organizers.
One way to stop this travesty of EOs that will surely be upon us within 1 to 2 months, is to find at least one governor who will seek a federal injunction against Obama's lawless EOs and who asks the court that enforcement of the federal order be transferred to State LEOs who will arrest and detain any federal official or officer or anyone acting in their capacity should they attempt to violate the federal injunction.
“... the worst is yet to come”
Absolutely!, and all his cronies have probably planned this a long time ago.
I still maintain that most people miss the obvious .. All his family and his college professors were either: Communists, Socialists, Marxists, or Islamists.
Somebody please tell me why America would ever want such a person for President ..???????????????????????
And .. I’m beginning to wonder if this Ebola thing as part of the plan. Who has the serum to keep all the radical leftists alive ..????????????????????
I pray you’re right and that happens, I would think there are at least several who might do it.
You think the MSM would ever allow Obama to be blamed for a shutdown? lol
bttt
I agree with this, but I think it has more to do with limiting freedom. Remember how little resistance there was to the loss of a some freedom after 911? How much freedom would America be willing to sacrifice if there was a deadly plague sweeping across the country? My guess is, quite a bit.
Didn’t Texas do something like this a while back?
They would have a hard time blaming it on anyone else at that point if he vetoed it.
What the hell is the MSM going to say? Congress didn’t give him what he wanted...Waaa?
It would take 10 min to expose them as morons for not understanding the balance of power and who controls the purse.
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