Friday, September 12, 2014

MY SECRET SHAME: OBAMA'S SHREDDING THE CONSTITUTION, AND I DON'T REALLY CARE

In The New York Times today, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman and the Times Editorial Board assert that we're in a legal and constitutional crisis because President Obama seems likely to ramp up military action against ISIS without getting Congress's explicit approval. I understand that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force drawn up right after the 9/11 attacks doesn't really apply to a group that didn't exist in 2001, and that's in conflict with Al Qaeda. I understand that what the president plans to do will take ongoing military action past the deadline imposed by the 1973 War Powers Act.

But America is a failed state now, so I have to confess that I'm struggling to care.

Let me address one objection from the main Times editorial:
By avoiding responsibility, [lawmakers in Congress] allow President Obama free rein to set a dangerous precedent that will last well past this particular military campaign.
I don't think that matters. The Bush administration wiped its keister with the Constitution and didn't need any "dangerous precedent" to do so, just an overabundance of unmitigated gall. After that, I have no doubt that the next Republican president -- and quite possibly the next Democratic one -- would ignore our legal framework for war-making even if this followed eight years of Obama respecting every word of the Constitution and the law, even the Congress-declares-war provision that was last properly observed in 1942.

A key issue here is that we have one political party that has deliberately chosen to render America's government unable to function as long as a Democrat sits in the Oval Office. Ackerman says that "leaders of both parties have signaled a willingness to engage in a serious debate" on this matter. Yeah? Really? If Ackerman's definition of "leaders" is "titular leaders," then I think he's missed a few transmissions from Republican Zealot Central. I don't care what John Boehner thinks -- what does Ted Cruz think? Are he and his posse going to demand the repeal of Obamacare and the construction of a Great Wall of the Rio Grande in order to allow a vote on the president's plan?

I'd add that America doesn't really believe in the nation's war-making law in any case. All the talk leading up to the president's speech on Wednesday concerned what Obama would do about ISIS, not what the government as a whole would do. If there's a vote and it fails, Ron Fournier will tell us that Congress has absolutely no responsibility for what happens next, because the president could have won the vote if he'd led harder.

If Republicans in Congress resist voting (see that Jack Kingston quote) and resist working with president, then we have a non-functioning government, and that's the real constitutional crisis.

In the mid-1980s, I worked in what I gradually realized was an irreversibly dysfunctional division of an otherwise solid company. A situation like that prompts two responses: at first you try to do other people's jobs for them, and then eventually you just do your job and wait for the whole thing to collapse (or you don't even bother to do that much). To me, America increasingly feels like that job. These days, the president often seems as if he's moved on to Response #2, but on ISIS he's chosen Response #1.

I'd be in favor of a properly hashed-out, fully constitutional response, but there's no reason to think it's possible. So somebody has to step up.

10 comments:

Tom Hilton said...

I agree with almost all of this, except that I'm not even trying to care.

Victor said...

"...to render America's government unable to function as long as a Democrat sits in the Oval Office..."

Yeah, and when a Republican sits in the Oval Office, the Republicans run-up debt like drunken sailors on shore leave, and make the government ever more dysfunctional by cutting taxes on the rich, and getting us into stupid military conflicts.

But, then, they get to carp, whine, bitch, moan, gnash their teeth, and tear at their hair and garments at what the Democrats have to spend and do to fix the ever-deepening shithole the Republicans keep digging this country into every time they get within sniffing distance of power.

Yastreblyansky said...

That dysfunctional job analogy is wonderful. I guess it's not even an analogy.

Ken_L said...

This of course is the same president who is constantly criticised for playing golf instead of doing his job. Obama the man of contrasts: weak but dictatorial, feckless but ruthless, lazy but tireless in his efforts to bring down America, secret Muslim traitor who ignores the constitution to kill Muslims ... but it all makes good content for the 18332 mad conservative blogs out there.

Ken_L said...

The professed outrage at Obama's alleged disregard for the constitution (and Bush's, for that matter) is of course pure political theatre. The giveaway is that after 6 years of Obama's supposed lawless antics, there is no move by conservatives to amend the constitution to prevent future presidents acting in the same way. No, it seems Americans actually prefer a system where one person gets to run the show as a petty dictator for 8 years like a gladiator in a bear pit, while everyone else barracks or boos from the stands. It seems a peculiar way to run a country but who am I to judge.

Grung_e_Gene said...

All problems in America started jan 20, 2009. Boom!

Philo Vaihinger said...

If you couldn’t write in empty hyperbole, what would you have to say?

America is a failed state now, so I have to confess that I'm struggling to care [about presidential war-making].

. . . .

A key issue here is that we have one political party that has deliberately chosen to render America's government unable to function as long as a Democrat sits in the Oval Office.

. . . .

I'd be in favor of a properly hashed-out, fully constitutional response, but there's no reason to think it's possible. So somebody has to step up.


As to that last, "somebody" doesn’t have to be us.

ISIS is not our problem.

Victor said...

Phil,
Pogo:
"We have met the enemy and it is us."

marieburns said...

... AND/OR, maybe Obama just outfoxed the Congress.

It's worth noting that following President Obama's address to the nation in which he demonstrated his "imperial hubris," as Ackerman characterizes it (I like & respect Ackerman, even if he is "overexaggerating" here), both Boehner & Reid vowed to bring up authorization bills. So perhaps Obama used that imperial hubris to bully/shame the do-nothing Congress into doing something. Slick.

John Kahler said...

As if Congress has no power. They could, you know, legislate. Do their job, pass and present to the president. See if it gets signed. But that is not beneficial to the circus called GOP legislators. "Shoe leadership" they say, but can't define what that means. If they have ideas, give them. Tiring hearing the wining and blame form capital hill and the Village. Though the GOP wants the president to fail. It's their main objective, publicly pronounced from Inauguration Day on.