As if things weren't crazy enough in Washington, Barack Obama has just officially run the Constitution through his Executive Shredder, ushering in an exciting new "anything goes" period in his imperial presidency.
Specifically, he avoided Constitutionally-mandated senate approval of a number of appointees by using his "Recess Appointment" powers...even though the Senate wasn't in recess.
Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, applauded the president's bold power grab and ignored the fact that the Senate was in "pro-forma session," in which a minimum number of Senators keep the floor open specifically to prevent ill-considered Recess Appointments. And why shouldn't Reid applaud this end-run? After all, the "pro-forma" mumbo jumbo is obviously just a big, transparent, political gimmick - right?
Well, no - or at least it wasn't when Harry Reid created the "pro-forma" session gimmick in order to keep George W. Bush from making appointments which had been blocked by the Democrats.
But now that there's precedent that the president can use his recess powers even when there is no recess, then why can't Joe Biden assume that Barack Obama has abdicated even if he hasn't - and has actually just gone to the biffy?
And why should it stop there? If Biden heads into the Whitehouse Latrine carrying the sports pages, then John Boehner can take over the presidency under the assumption that Biden isn't coming back. And if Boehner is smart enough to be wearing adult undergarments, the job is his to keep!
And say, now that the rules have gone out the window, why do the rest of us need to wait until November to vote Obama out of office?!
Either the Constitution is in force, or it isn't.
And all of us, including the president, should act accordingly.
-
0 comments:
Post a Comment