This is fabulous stuff — all other American political commentators should take note. After a painfully funny joke about the oil spill, Jon Stewart eviscerates President Obama’s seeming retreat on his commitment to undoing certain, well, shall we say “illegal” practices of the Bush administration. And he does it while making you smile. It’s a lot harder than he makes it look.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Respect My Authoritah | ||||
|
||||
Please share widely!
and I think Jon Stewart is one. Here, here…nicely done.
and yet there are still so many blindly willing to defend him.
<
p>This cannot be tolerated. When renditions are going on and people aren’t getting their day in court… indefinitely… this is not democracy anymore. This is starting to look a whole lot like fascism — and Obama is not only just like Bush when it comes to the Imperial Presidency, but doing his best to be worse.
<
p>If we don’t primary him in 2012, this stuff will continue to go on and these powers will be cemented into the office, allowing future Presidents to expand upon them. Enough is enough. Our nation is dying. If Obama is going to continue to break his promises on matters this significant to the simple premise of freedom, then our party has a fundamental duty to replace him with someone who will do right by the citizens of these United States.
If we don’t get it, we’ll get some more change in 2010,”
– Howard Dean
<
p>One can only hope that the hideous cycle of triangulation uber alles can be broken.
<
p>
…may be exactly the person to mount the primary challenge Ryan is calling for.
<
p>Blindly?? Wherefore would you use that word? From my point of view, clear- and open-eyed as I can be, the Iraq war and the grand war on terror was a ginormous cluster-f**k of truly epic proportion: ill-conceived, ill-waged and ill-intentioned from start to finish.
<
p>Did you somehow think that the cleanup would fit into a nice tidy box… ? Did you somehow think that all that fail would be handily dealt with…?
<
p>
<
p>Stewart, though smart and probably very liberal, is, ultimately, just a comedian. He makes jokes. And, as Stewart himself has been at pains to point out, taking him seriously is a fools errand. His jokes, in this instance, pivot off media interpretation and raging de-contextualization done by simpletons: the swirling melange of fears and anxieties form the interpretations… and don’t let’s make the mistake that your fears aren’t amongst this swirl. It is for you, after all, that this de-contexualizing is done. So let us not mistake the comedy bit for cogent analysis. Comedians, after all, either create tension or pluck it from the air as available…. but the tension doesn’t have to be real, it just has to be tension.
<
p>
<
p>I too am disappointed at Obama with respect to renditions and Guantanamo. I don’t, however, yet choose to make the wholesale leap to viewing this as a betrayal. That’s too simple and too easy by half. Maybe Obama had to make some behind the scenes compromises. Maybe you don’t like that. Fine. But you’re the one being blind here: I see Obama as a more-or-less bloodless technocrat… you’re the one who wishes him to be a fire-breathing liberal holy warrior. If I believe Obama to be a better man than George Bush (and I do…) then I’m forced to admit the possibility that Obama’s hands, to some extent, remain tied by the legacy of Bush doctrines and Obama’s own personality and strategies. There’s also no way of knowing the extent of neo-con infiltration in both the adminstration and defense departments, to say nothing of intelligence agencies. There’s really no way to know, from this remove, if, as Stewart contends, Obama is just happily seduced by power or if he’s fighting an internecine struggle with the remainder of neo-cons in the defense and intelligence agencies. It’s altogether possible that the struggle is over and Obama lost.
<
p>Neither option makes me feel calm, to be honest, but if I chose to believe that Obama was earnest on the campaign and has tried, and/or is trying to keep his word, which seems a possibility, then I’m at a loss as to whom it is we might ‘replace him with’… Anyone similarly honest and earnest might, in similar circumstances, become equally as compromised. Alternately, if, as some are starting to contend, that Obama is more venal than Bush, then we’ve all be duped (again) and who’s to stop someone even worse from running an even more duplicitous campaign far to the left of Obama and doing an even more abrupt turnaround once in office. Simply replacing Obama doesn’t get us out of this mess.
<
p>Nor do I much trust the media. Designer outrage is all the fashion now, no matter the meager cloth with which to cut it with… And many of those reporting on this issue reported on similar issues with respect to the Bush administration… without the outrage. I distrust this intensely. Bush had a vast panoply of cheerleaders in the press, some of whom remain in situ. Obama not so much. Having a lack of cheerleaders, for any side or facet, is, to my way of thinking, the proper manner of things… but that’s not the situation we have here.
<
p>In summary: Obama is cleaning up one of the biggest, most un-holy un-righteous of messes ever created in the US of A… and not doing an altogether clean job of it… all the while contending with a feckless and fickle press and a defense and intelligence department that, at the least, has institutionalized an inability to comprehend it’s own mistakes. I won’t defend Obamas actions as ‘good’ or even ‘deisrable’… but that doesn’t mean I’m going to move to knee-jerk condemnation.
He isn’t cleaning it up. He isn’t trying to clean it up. He’s perpetuating and extending the worst of the Bush policies. He keeps on saying he’s going to make things better and do things differently, but saying it is as far as he goes. It’s reached the point that it looks a lot like lying. Watch that Daily Show again – Obama has repeatedly chosen to continue policies that he explicitly promised he would end. These are not things he needed Congressional support to do; they are stuff he could accomplish all by himself, but he isn’t doing it.
<
p>Well, insofar as Guantanamo is concerned, he’s already signed the order… In fact, he signed the order to close Guantanamo within a year… some 16 months ago. At least with respect to Guantanamo, Obama has fulfilled the obligation of intention: His intent is to close Guantanamo.
<
p>BUT WAIT!!!
<
p>In May of ’09 the Senate refused to fund the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo!!! Oy Vey! An amendment to HR 2346. Mitch McConnel introduced the amendment.
<
p>So, sure, the POTUS can sign things and have intent, but actually getting them done involves a little more.
he hasn’t exactly been publicly lobbying for the Congress to give him the funds, now has he?
<
p>The optics are that he made a promise, and he’s done just enough to claim to have done his part. He didn’t get the job done.
Or maybe – MAYBE – after being given access to and reviewing all classified information – he accepted that the Bush policies were necessary and continued them.
<
p>I’ve heard this apologia about evil Bush infiltration of the Obama administration before, and it’s nonsense. He’s the EXECUTIVE. The COMMANDER IN CHIEF. He has control over military matters.
<
p>Harry Truman ended the segregation of the armed forces with Executive Order 9981 – not legislation. Obama could end DADT tomorrow, but he CHOOSES NOT TO DO SO.
<
p>Obama is our hero, except when Bush exerts his evil mind-control over him. Get a grip.
How about constitutional?
That is actually not correct. DADT is a congressional statute, and therefore it stays in place until Congress repeals it. Obama could (and should) effectively end DADT by stalling or dramatically slowing the pace of discharge proceedings; that is well within his purview as Commander in Chief. But he can’t repeal a statute by himself. The legal situation was different with Truman.
Obama could end DADT tomorrow, but he CHOOSES NOT TO DO SO since, after all, he can’t.
<
p>(shrugs)
<
p>I’m glad that Obama is making progress on these civil rights — he’s expanded federal benefits to partners, and he’s slowly working on eliminating DADT. Politically, America is slowly warming up to the idea of gay people as people, not as gays. I’m an incremental, so I generally feel content about it. I also recognize that all civil rights advances are, by definition most urgent because fellow Americans are suffering needlessly and unfairly.
The point is that people here are infuriated, say, that Guantanamo wasn’t closed immediately, but never answer the question– what do we do with these people? I think it likely that, upon assuming office, Obama found that, notwithstanding the bad decision to open Guantanamo, there are things that make it difficult to close.
Put them in one or more SupahMax sites. Hell, build a new SupahMax. They’re terrorists/enemy combatants, not superman+batman+silver_surfer heroes.
Some of them definitely are neither of those things. It would be tough to convict most of even the worst of them, since the evidence is so tainted.
Alleged badguys.
<
p>Nice attempt at spin, dude, but this is about the RENDITIONS and the lying that’s going on, all on Obama’s part. It doesn’t matter that it’s Stewart who’s the one pointing it out. You don’t have to take Stewart seriously, but you do have to take the issues he brings up seriously when they’re valid and true. In this case, they’re valid and true.
<
p>
<
p>Anyone who supports a President who supports blatantly violating basic premises of the Constitution such as habeaus corpus is either supporting the President blindly, or actually supports blatantly unconstitutional, vile, ugly and evil policies. People are having their lives stripped away, being held indefinitely in a prison that was promised to be closed over a year ago, often without a single means of legally defending themselves — and many of them are most probably innocent. There’s a special place in hell for anyone who supports those kinds of policies, as far as I’m concerned.
<
p>
He’s the frakking President. He could order Guatanimo shut down tomorrow and have every single prisoner there brought to American prisons and granted a full, legal trial within 12 months, with public defendants if they can’t afford their own legal counsel.
<
p>In fact, Section 14103 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act prohibits the expenditure of appropriated funds to release a Guantanamo detainee into the United States or to bring him here for trial. There is an exception if the Attorney General certifies that the detainee “poses little or no security risk to the United States.”
<
p>TedF
under armed guard is lost on me. These aren’t Supervillains, they don’t have magic powers- they’re just mortals.
my point was simply that Ryan’s argument–that the President, because he is President, could simply order the detainees brought to the US tomorrow–was not correct. You may well be right that the AG should make the certification the statute requires.
<
p>TedF
…force a constitutional showdown and say I’m preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution as my oath requires. Let the courts sort it out if necessary.
Inherent executive power to ignore statutes? That’s so 2002. Besides, I thought the whole point of this thread was how bad it was that the President is repeating President Bush’s mistakes. Ignoring statutes on the grounds you suggest is following what I regard as the single most dangerous idea to come out of the Bush years.
<
p>TedF
…with executive power in principle. Bush abused his to ignore the Constitution while I’m suggesting that Obama use his to uphold it.
Oh, Christopher! I’m sorry you take this view. Here’s how our views compare, as I see it (maybe this will be a little polemical).
<
p>You: You fundamentally disagree with the basic point John Stewart was making in his inimitable way, which was that Obama came to office with the good intention of reining in presidential overreaching, but that when he realized that he could use his newfound powers for good and not for evil, he succumbed to temptation. Instead, you think that expanded presidential powers are just fine as long as they’re in the right hands. (And let’s hope we keep electing Democrats!)
<
p>Me: I agree with Stewart’s basic point–presidential overreaching should be restrained regardless what we think of the person holding the presidency. In this thread, I’ve questioned whethe rthe President has done the awful things Ryan has accused him of, particularly with regard to rendition, but if the administration is sending people abroad to be tortured in contravention of the administration’s own executive order on the subject, then I’ll criticize away.
<
p>Maybe this is another instance of the “process liberal”/”substantive liberal” debate that sometimes happens on BMG.
<
p>TedF
…and remember, the President’s constitutional duty is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
<
p>TedF
…and the Constitution is “the supreme law of the land” by which all are bound, any ordinary statute notwithstanding.
which is “who decides”? If it is up to the President to decide what the Constitution means, then the President can ignore statutes that he in his infinite wisdom decides contravene the Constitution. But if it’s not up to him, then it’s more complicated.
<
p>Your position seems awfully close to the Cheney-ish view that it’s up to the President to determine the extent of his own powers, which effectively grants unlimited power to the President. If you don’t think that’s the case, I’d love to hear an explanation as to why.
At least not in the way you are framing it. The “Cheney-ish” (to use your term) view promoted by the likes of John Yoo claims that there are unlimited prerogatives the President can claim in time of war AND the President can determine what constitutes wartime. I am very specifically and emphatically advocating ADHERING to the Constitution in this instance. I absolutely believe the Constitution LIMITS the President’s actions even if Congress passes a law like the one being discussed. When Congress passes a law that says basically, “The President shall do X,” but the Constitution says basically, “Thou shalt not do X” the Constitution must prevail. Bush’s problem was not that he refused to enforce laws he believed to be unconstitutional; his problem was that he found powers in the Constitution that don’t exist. My opinion is that SCOTUS is the ultimate referee on the Constitution. If they decide a law is constitutional, the President has a duty to enforce it while possibly trying to simultaneously get the law changed. If they say it’s unconstitutional then he must not enforce it. Until such decision is rendered the President must make a judgement himself, though he should also adhere to the most recent intervening lower court decision as the case makes its way to SCOTUS. Maybe what I’m saying is I’m more tolerant of a POTUS saying he can’t do something constitutionally than that he can.
The thing about the Cheney/Yoo position is that, in their view, they are adhering to the Constitution. They just interpret the Constitution differently (and while I don’t agree with their interpretation, it is not a completely unreasonable one). That’s why these questions are so difficult.
<
p>More in my comment downthread.
Like I said the Supreme Court must ultimately make the call, but this is a key reason why it matters who is President. I favor Hamilton’s “energy of the executive” model, but it’s perfectly legit to have a public debate about how each candidate will use power if elected. Power can be used for both good and bad ends. It’s partly attitude too. I sensed from the last administration a very cocky we’re at war – deal with it attitude, while I would expect Obama the law professor to be more communicative with Congress and lay out exactly what he is doing and why he is doing it based on citing the Constitutional text and possibly case precedent.
all statutes without the ability to disregard unconstitutional, or constitutionally questionable, statutes then he is not adhering to his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” The three co-equal branches all have a duty to adhere to the constitution in all their actions. You really believe that the Constitution requires the President to enforce a clearly unconstitutional statute?
Don’t you remember the brouhaha during the Bush years about signing statements? Precisely what we all found so objectionable (at least I did) was that the President was signing statutes rather than vetoing them and then taking the position that he need not obey them to the extent he regarded them as unconstitutional. An ABA task force unanimously resolved to
<
p>
<
p>President Obama signed the 2009 supplemental appropriations bill that is at issue here. What has changed, other than the fact that it is a Democrat rather than a Republican in the White House?
<
p>TedF
…you make the argument for a line item veto. Yes, I’d prefer the President simply veto bills he thinks are clearly unconstitutional. However, it’s tough to veto appropriations bills if we want money to keep flowing especially in security contexts. I think it’s absolutely appropriate to hold my nose and sign something that is largely necessary and state that I won’t enforce this particular rider on constitutional grounds.
I do not make the argument for a line item veto. The line item veto is unconstitutional.
<
p>TedF
I do favor it, but acknowledge it would require a constitutional amendment. I think it was the one item on Gingrich’s “Contract With America” that I favored.
It renders fiscal compromise impossible.
<
p>The Dems want funding for XXX. The GOP for YYY. Both are somewhat reasonable, but there’s only so much money and so much mojo. So, they agree to fund some of XXX and some of YYY to get a budget done. This is particularly relevant when the House is Dem and the Senate GOP, or vice versa.
<
p>Now, introduce line item veto. The Dem president will line item veto YYY. Knowing this, the GOP won’t agree to XXX, and will drag the budget even further down the tubes. There’s no ability for the legislature to agree to a compromise between the two chambers with a line-item veto.
<
p>It’s true, the current method of compromise is to spend extra. The alternative, however, is to spend nothing because you just won’t get a budget. I just don’t see how that’s a better situation.
How did THAT work politically for the Congressional party in 1995? The President shouldn’t be forced to swallow items he doesn’t want unless such veto is specifically overriden. BTW, I see this as more than a budget tool, but for the President to be able to pick and choose. This would eliminate the need to issue signing statements and remove the temptation to selectively enforce laws which that President himself signed. I just remember how the GOP treated President Clinton back then and I felt they backed him in to a corner. Fortunately, Clinton vetoed the budget rather than be subjected to that disrepectful treatment from a Speaker who fancied himself Prime Minister and his minions.
This, IMHO, is the shibboleth that gets this whole debate off track. What does it mean for a statute to be “clearly unconstitutional” (assuming there hasn’t been a court decision)? In other words, this is more question-begging. Remember, all Members of Congress take pretty much the same “preserve, protect and defend” oath that the President takes. So if they vote for a statute (presumably in large enough numbers to override a presidential veto), how can the President refuse to enforce it on the grounds that it’s “clearly unconstitutional”?
<
p>The thing is, Congress never (or, at least, very rarely) gives us the easy case. They (almost) never pass a statute along the lines of “a person may be convicted of treason on purely circumstantial evidence.” Obviously such a statute directly contravenes the plain words of the Constitution. But that just doesn’t happen. What we generally get is statutes that fall between the cracks, where there’s a plausible argument either way. In that case, who decides? What is the President’s duty?
You have to look at each branch in a vacuum. Each branch has a separate and distinct obligation to act in accordance with the Constitution. Congress cannot pass a law unless they believe it is constitutional. And the President cannot enforce a law unless he believes it is constitutional. The Judiciary ultimately decides what the Constitution says, and its decisions are binding on both the other branches.
<
p>My view might be a little “ivory tower” as opposed to “practical real world” because it puts politics aside and assumes good faith by each branch. But what other choice is there? You asked:
I’ll flip the question and ask you – How can the President enforce a statute if he truly believes that it is unconstitutional? What duty do you think the President has to abide by the Constitution? None? Blindly enforce whatever Congress passes?
When I was a kid I imagined that the separation of powers, checks and balances, etc, were a brilliant idea and worked perfectly to preserve cirizens’ rights, protect us from tyrrany, keep America the greatest democracy in the world, etc. But these discussions, and recent events, have made me wonder whether this system was really all it was cracked up to be, in practice. It seems the framers might have failed to antiicpate some things. For instance, let’s say the Supreme Court declares an activity unconstitutional, like, for instance, warrantless wiretapping. Then let’s say the president says “Whatever. F#* you. We’re gonna keep doing it anyway, for our own reasons.” The Supreme Court has no army or police power. All Congress can do is impeach, and let’s say some of them (or even most of them) kinda sorta like the idea as well. What happens? Nothing, as far as I can tell.
That’s one of the reasons I like term limits.
At least the sedition part.
<
p>… after saving the economy, but before financial reform and between beer summits with the cambridge police and healthcare reform.
<
p>I’m not avoiding the question of whether or no he’s done things I don’t like. He has. My point is “Why?” The knee-jerk rush to call him vile-betrayer and ‘worse than Bush’, seems spawn of childish outrage and not of reason. It’s possible that he’s a vile betrayer… but it’s much more likely that he’s been able to cleanly do 5 of the 34 1/2 things at absolutely must get done… and is working less cleanly on the rest.
<
p>As for “forc[ing] a constitutional showdown’… I think, given his demonstrated brand of comity seeking, forcing confrontations isn’t his style. And, frankly, anybody who’s tried to force a confrontation with some on ‘the other side’ has gotten, at the least, a beat-down, and, at the extreme, a bullet.
<
p>I’m always amazed at people who have the ability to know when the media is cheerleading and when they are telling the unvarnished truth. I’m even more amazed that either the instances of media cheerleading or the unvarnished truth so neatly coincide, remarkably well, with personal outrage. I, for one, will not take the media without salt handy nor will I take John Stewart all that seriously… as he himself has instructed me to do.
<
p>To be sure, I’m fairly certain somebody is lying… I’m just not convinced it’s the POTUS as yet…
<
p>
<
p>Well… we’d have to go back to FDR, at least, to get to a POTUS who hasn’t, arguably, subverted the war powers act in some way. And, well, more Americans supported open subversion of the constitutions 14th and 15th amendments for nearly 100 years, culminating in the civil rights laws of the 60’s. Subverting the constitution is more like a national hobby, actually… Open your eyes, please… Let’s not pretend that Obama is the first to do something we don’t like.
<
p>If you look at this issue objectively, you’ll see a mess of legal entanglements being juggled and pushed by a very determined opposition, some of whom are putative allies. What you won’t see is much willingness to push back on the part of other allies. Isn’t that sad? Yes… very.
<
p>And, regardless of the acts, I’m more concerned with the why… Is he simply not trying at all? Or is he trying to do good and failing? If so, why? Is it incompetence? Does he have opposition? Intransigence on the part of others? Are the policies heavily defended by an entrenched bureaucracy? Was it some quid pro quo? Did he have to promise Lieberman some torture porn before he could get a decent vote on HCR?
<
p>What I’m equally certain of is that eight years of Bush might not be so easily undone as you would wish.
<
p>
<
p>He could do exactly that. Perhaps there is a valid reason he doesn’t do exactly that? I wonder at your all to eager willingness to jump to hyperbole… Your eagerness to imagine malignity at play.
<
p>Perhaps, between holding the economy together, passing stimulus packages, ending torture, requiring equal pay for women, bringing Iraq to conclusion, gluing up the pieces of Americas automobile industry, reengaging the world on climate change, attending soldiers funerals, reforming health care, working on financial regulation, nominating Supreme court justices and building a national energy grid…
<
p>… Perhaps he’s spread thin. Perhaps the battles he’s chosen to fight have taken resources from those he hasn’t? Would that we could right all the wrongs at a nonce…
<
p>
Let me ask about rendition specifically. There is, as I’m sure you know, an Executive Order on rendition, which as I recall was fairly well received even by human-rights groups, even though there was criticism that the President did not ban rendition altogether. There is also the relatively recent decision holding that people who claim to have been tortured abroad after rendition cannot sue, and which may be wrong or may be right. But is it the case that the government today is carrying out renditions by sending people to places where they are likely to be tortured, in contravention of the Executive Order? I think this is one point where Stewart’s criticism was maybe overwrought, but on the other hand I may have missed a news story somewhere along the way on this.
<
p>TedF
Renditions are ugly, wrong — and by all accounts, unconstitutional. He promised to end them — instead he’s expanded them. This is lying… an evil, vicious variety of it, too.
What is the evidence that what you’re saying is right? And are you distinguishing between renditions that meet the terms of Executive Order and those that don’t? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just wondering what the basis for your statement is.
<
p>TedF
Just get out!
The Military/Foreign Policy Complex is in charge. Bush and Obama hire from the same club who work off the same Council on Foreign Relations policy papers. Kucinich was only Dem candidate not a member of the CFR so the media (part of same club) paints him as fringe.
–George Orwell
<
p>Will we bring the troops home before or after we go bankrupt?