If a Republican had tried this …
by Greg Krehbiel on 4 January 2012
I’m 100% in favor of the various branches of government pushing the limits of their power — because I want the other two branches to wake up and realize it’s their business to rein them in.
I don’t like judicial activism, but I want the justices to do something so outrageous that Congress or the president finally says “enough” and has a serious discussion about the limits of judicial power.
I don’t like the idea of an imperial presidency, but if that’s what it takes to get Congress to wake up … so be it.
So in one sense I don’t mind that Obama is abusing the idea of recess appointments. He may be responding to abuse by Congress. I just hope it causes some outrage.
Of course it won’t. If Bush had done it, the media would be all over it in a heart beat. We’d hear about it on the evening news.
If Obama does it …. Yawn. Oh well. No story here.
-- 2012-01-04 » Greg Krehbiel
4 January 2012 @ 5:50 pm
Funny. I remember Republicans having what my wife would call a “cow-hemorrhage” when any of Dubya’s nominees were blocked, but near the end of Obama’s first term there are still posts that are not filled purely because the Republican party doesn’t want the agencies in question to do their jobs.
And for the record, I’m not too impressed with any of the last several Congresses in terms of using their parliamentary rules constructively, or following the Constitution, or anything. Neither of the last two presidents have had much respect for the idea of a limited executive, and Obama’s failure to fulfill our obligations in the UN Convention Against Torture makes him a war criminal.
It’s not one party or the other. It’s the way the winner-take-all mentality has made the country ungovernable.
But what do we expect when <a href="http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2012/01/04/proud-and-willful-congressional-ingorance-sopa-was-just-par-for-the-course-remember-iraq/" ignorance is a feature, not a bug.
4 January 2012 @ 5:51 pm
messed up the tag, but the link works anyway