Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
The Obama Administration has been unscrupulous about discrediting ordinary political pushback.
Their acolytes depicted the surge of the Tea Party in 2009 as unprecedented fanaticism, rather than the grassroots mobilization that democracies encourage. The partisanship of congressional Republicans, not much different from the partisanship of Democrats during George W. Bush’s second term, has been recast as sore-loser bitterness (tinged with racism).
On a range of issues -- from entitlement reform to guns to immigration to social policy -- conventional conservatism has been branded as feverish, know-nothing extremism. Aided by a media that shares all of Obama’s sensibilities, the trick has been a cynical wonder that keeps enabling the most ideological administration in memory to claim the middle ground.
So, it is no surprise that the DC Circuit’s demonstration of a spine last week has triggered another bout of Obama’s strategy of de-legitimating opposition. The appeals court rejected three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, and signaled that hundreds of regulatory rulings by the Board’s current, constitutionally flawed membership could be invalid unless the ruling ends up being set aside by the Supreme Court.
The basis for the court’s reasoning was a reasonable enough interpretation that the constitutional context of recess appointments was a limited, exigent circumstance—the possibility that Congress might be adjourned and unable to fill an executive branch vacancy –and that the same framers who carefully installed an advise and consent function for the Senate had no intention of undermining it by permitting appointments over a holiday weekend or during routine Senate breaks.
Not exactly a stunning view of checks and balances, and a ruling that will eventually inconvenience a Republican president. But the NLRB has cavalierly announced it will proceed with its rule-making despite the cloud over its validity and that the President’s compromised appointments will have full voting privileges. The Obama Administration, remarkably, has shown no eagerness to ask for an expedited Supreme Court review that might lift the uncertainty.
Of course, it is the ruling and not the defiance that has come under siege from Obama’s allies. The NLRB’s disdain for a federal appellate decision and its willingness to keep promulgating regulations that might not survive the next Supreme Court session looks like, frankly, the kind of intemperate, dead-end resistance Obama often attributes to his own adversaries.
It is also a symptom of two other things: first, an administration and a bureaucracy that can’t comprehend the economic risk of regulations that may or may not last. Second, the imperial presidency that liberals used to lament is now their fantasy of how a reelected Obama ought to govern.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
The NLRB flouting the decision strikes at the very concept of the rule of law. It also exposes the weakness of what America has turned into: if the government itself refuses to abide by the law, and the populace is unwilling to revolt and force them to obey it, we are no longer living under a constitutional republic even if we maintain the facade of one for political purposes.
Mar '12
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Obama's response to the NLRB decision is awful, yet it's consistent with his imperial approach to other issues (e.g., treatment of GM bondholders during the auto bankruptcy/bailout, imposing an immigration policy in conflict with federal law, changing definitions of obamacare as tax or penalty). The constitution gets buried so deep, no one knows where to find it anymore and the law becomes whatever the administration says it is. And,casting reasonable opposition as fanatical and rage-filled aids that strategy, of course.
Oct '11
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
A sublimely accurate analysis of the ignoble ways of this administration. Is the President more able to get away with this because the media has never been more compliant? Or has the populace simply taken the emotional thinking of their college years into adulthood? ... I know conservatives must do a better job of making moral and emotional appeals, but I am at a loss about what else can be done.
Oct '11
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Mr. Davis -- not to ask you to play armchair psychologist, but you've met President Obama. Do you think he believes conservatives are as evil and extreme as he depicts them to be -- or does he just avail himself of the most effective (and politically permissible) political tools at his disposal?
Sep '12
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
I think that Obama is convinced that the redistributionist and "fairness" ends that he envisions justify any means that he uses to get there. His respect for the constitution is similar to Professor Siedman's. It's very useful when one wants to beat Republican lawmakers over the head with it, but can be ignored freely by the Party of Goodness and Fairness.
I'm afraid that people are now so inured to the shenanigans of politicians that they pay little attention to Obama's lawlessness, or say that such behavior is equal on both sides. It isn't, but with the media refusing to do its job, increasingly imperial lawlessness prevails. I don't think he would ignore the Supremes on this, but when will it get there?
Sep '10
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
I think his behavior is too sophomoric to be called imperial. To me, the president acts like a colonial prince without a father figure to keep his ego in check.
Nov '10
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Just so, and thank you, Mr. Davis. Yours are some of the posts I most enjoy reading.
I think you've hit on a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives (at least the laity... so-called conseravtive politicians seem to have departed from this contention). The contention is that conservatives are more concerned with process; that it be fair and just with respect for institutions and divisions, then let the results be what they will be as each individual tests his fitness for leadership, building wealth, etc. Liberals, on the other hand, will use, misuse, coerce, or outright steamroll institutions in pursuit of ends. If the process must be subverted to get to their desired end, then so be it... the process was probably racist, sexist, or homophobic to begin with and so too, then, are its adherents. So goes the path to tyranny.
Jan '11
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Madison's system doesn't work unless competing branches of government stand up for themselves. But so long as the competition is between parties (instead of government branches), Madison's design is honored more in breach.
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
"Second, the imperial presidency that liberals used to lament is now their fantasy of how a reelected Obama ought to govern."
Such a good point. I attended a panel in which supposedly "moderate'"scholars decried the "imperial" Bush presidency. I notice that those same scholars now, in so many words, see the separation of powers, and checks and balances and even a properly functioning two-party system as unfair interference with the Obama administration's agenda.
Jan '11
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Deeply troubling.
Dec '12
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
One big reason for all this is that the people have gotten used to thinking of the "government" as an entity totally separate from themselves. Government rules, dispenses benefits, forces others to support you, determines what automobile makers must produce, ad infinitum. Most people have no concept of "consent of the governed" any more, so they are content to be ruled over. Very sad for America.
Oct '12
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Mr. Davis, would you consider running for the Senate here in Virginia against Mark Warner in 2014. We need a good GOP candidate for the seat, someone who can cut through Warner's oily charm. We need a candidate who can make inroads into the cores of Dem support in this state, the NoVa suburbs and the black communities. I'm certain you would receive support from the tea parties and grassroots conservatives throughout the Commonwealth. Please consider it.
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Ironically, while conservatives are lamenting Obama's efforts to play fast and loose with an appellate court ruling over the NLRB, the left is taking him to task for a more stunning development: the administration's view that it can order the killing of American citizens abroad who are linked to Al Qaeda, without the judicial review that exists even for wiretapping Americans overseas. Unfortunately, liberals and conservatives engage this White House's imperial tendencies only selectively and the absence of a united front has weakened the case, and left a presidency that masks its excesses by painting its critics as alternately fringe dwellers or partisan bullies.
There will be more of this unless the left and right recover their instincts that the legislative branch is not just an inconvenience to be maneuvered around. The lesson of the first four years is that Obama keeps pushing the legal edge. The disdain for congressional process during the Fast and Furious inquiry foreshadowed the cavalier use of recess appointments to stack a regulatory body; a hyper-aggressive drone campaign without congressional sanction foreshadowed the assertion of a right to kill Americans without process. This isn't about to stop.
Nov '11
Re: Obama's Increasingly Imperial Presidency
Artur Davis:
There will be more of this unless the left and right recover their instincts that the legislative branch is not just an inconvenience to be maneuvered around. The lesson of the first four years is that Obama keeps pushing the legal edge. The disdain for congressional process during the Fast and Furious inquiry foreshadowed the cavalier use of recess appointments to stack a regulatory body; a hyper-aggressive drone campaign without congressional sanction foreshadowed the assertion of a right to kill Americans without process. This isn't about to stop. · 11 hours ago
Wow, how did I miss Artur Davis joining Ricochet? I actually recall hoping that you might consider running against the execrable Gerry Connolly after a particularly disgusting performance during the Fast and Furious hearings. The GOP is sorely lacking in coherence, let alone eloquence at the moment.