I read something really interesting in an article in The New Republic entitled "Liberal Despair and the Cult of the Presidency."
The author was talking about the speech Maddow wished Obama had given on Tuesday:
"In reality, you can't pass any of the climate bill by reconciliation. Democrats didn't write reconciliation instructions permitting them to do so, and very little of its could be passed through reconciliation, which only allows budgetary decisions. Maddow's response is to pass the rest by executive order. But you can't change those laws through executive order, either. That's not how our system of government works, nor is it how our system should work.
"I would love to eliminate the filibuster and create more accountable parties. But even if that happens, there will be a legislative branch that has a strong say in what passes or doesn't pass. And that's good! We wouldn't want to live in a world where a president can remake vast swaths of policy merely be decreeing it."
-Jonathan Chait, Liberal Despair and the Cult of the Presidency, The New Republic, June 18, 2010
No kidding. We wouldn't want to live in a world where a president can remake vast swaths of policy merely by decreeing it, because then he would be a dictator, not a president. It amazes me sometimes how those on the left just do not make this connection. They seem to think that raw power is ok so long as it's used for good, not for evil.
(Which reminds me of that scene from "The Lord of the Rings" where Gandoff bellows "Don't tempt me!" to Frodo when Frodo is trying to hand the ring to him.)
A few days ago I was watching Jon Stewart as he talked about how Obama was abusing his "authoritah." It was awesome. He pointed out the many things President elect Obama was going to reform or not do (that Bush was doing) that Obama now, as President, has decided to continue or worsen.
But the very next day the show was about how Obama is not doing enough to punish BP. It was in response to Obama's lame duck speech on Tuesday (which everyone seems to agree was horrible, though they agree this for different reasons).
One or the other, you can't have both. Either the President is going to be above the law or he is not. Following the rule of law is not situation specific, otherwise there is in effect no rule of law.
It's not that I don't empathize. I do. I would love to see the BP pay. They are a horrible company, they cut corners in despicable ways. And they should pay, in court, through rule of law.
But guess who was in bed with them? The federal government, naturally. The federal government who told them to drill in five thousand feet of water, instead of the five hundred that the company and Louisiana originally planned.
This is what happens when the government has power to regulate. They regulate poorly, they sleep with the companies instead of restricting them and then they blame the company for the resulting failures and cry out to be given even more power to regulate. But if the first regulations didn't work, why do we continue to believe that even more the same will finally make the difference?
Returning the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to the limited and balanced system our Constitution meant it to be, and certainly not further eroding it, should be in the best interests of any American citizen, no matter where they stand on the issues. The rule of law is what prevents us from forcing our ideological beliefs upon the country at large.
That's why I think that the health care law and climate change will be overturned. Americans still believe that sovereign authority belongs to them, not to the politicians which are supposed to represent them and uphold the Constitution. They recognize that those laws do not actually fix the original problem, but fix us instead within an ideological system of governance that is at odds with what is left of the American republic.
Certainly we need energy independence and absolutely we need to prevent futher environmental disasters, but we can do so without ideolocally driven laws that transform our country and increase the power, scope and cost of the federal government.
