America could receive no greater Fourth of July gift than to restore the presidency to its proper boundaries, reversing the threat to our freedoms from an out-of-control chief executive.
Rather than behaving as commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama has become America’s mocker-in-chief. He constantly belittles, derides, mocks and ridicules those who disagree with him. To him, he’s playing a can’t-lose game with other people’s money — ours. And with our freedoms.
“So sue me,” President Obama mockingly says to outraged Americans who want to drag him back to the boundaries of his constitutional powers and duties.
Faithfully executing our laws is one of those duties. Faithfully being on the first tee every weekend is not.
Enforcing laws, such as those against illegal immigration, would be a good start at restoring proper order. By giving a free pass against enforcement to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, Obama also issued a golden invitation to hundreds of thousands more to rush our borders. Now our southern border resembles the world’s most out-of-control mosh pit.
With his constant actions that ignore the constitutional limits on his power, only impeachment or Supreme Court rulings can hold President Obama in check. He fears neither. So Obama treats his abuse of authority like a game, smug in thinking that he has outsmarted everyone and has become untouchable.
By themselves, Obama’s don’t-enforce-the-law immigration edicts would justify removing him from office. But the very effort would stratospherically escalate the already absurd claims that Obama is opposed due to his race. The president knows the House fears backlash of taking such a step, and he knows the Democrats in the Senate have his back. Even if they lost their majority in elections this fall, his party would stay well above the one-third of the Senate required to defeat impeachment.
As to the courts, Obama doesn’t care whether he loses one Supreme Court ruling or 20, or what his win-loss record is. By his reckoning, even winning a single case leaves him with more power than he had before. The losses, however, don’t strip any power from him; they simply deny him authority that wasn’t his to begin with. In the meantime, he had his way and imposed his will, even if only temporarily. It’s just too bad for those who got hurt, like the businesses that paid fortunes fighting the now-invalidated decisions made by Obama’s illegally-appointed National Labor Relations Board commissioners.
To Obama’s analysis, there’s no downside because he never faces the voters again. Therefore, public outrage means nothing to him.
Obama knows three things when he mockingly says, “So sue me”:
1.) The courts have created barriers against challenging presidents who abuse their authority. Hopefully, the courts now will recognize the necessity of hearing this case. As House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, proposes, it should be sufficient for one house of Congress to sue the president over usurping power or his failure to enforce laws. There is no need to require both houses of Congress to sue, as courts have done in the past.
2.) Obama knows that taxpayers will foot the bill for defending him. It doesn’t cost him a penny, unlike when government sues private citizens. He’s playing with other people’s money — ours as taxpayers.
3.) Lawsuits drag on and on, but time is on Obama’s side. Lower court rulings will be ignored and Obama’s orders will stand in the meantime. It will require the Supreme Court to tell Obama — again — that he’s out of bounds, but it usually takes years before a case reaches that court. By that time, Obama expects to be safely out of office. Then he could look back, laugh and mock, gleeful that he outsmarted everyone. This makes it vital for the House of Representatives to launch its lawsuit immediately.
America’s biggest border-crossing disaster is not the tens of thousands coming north across the Rio Grande. The greater disaster is that President Obama is crossing the borders of our Constitution, namely its limits on presidential power and its separation of powers. We need to send him back to the proper side of that border.
Hear former Congressman Ernest Istook’s daily talk radio show online at www.kzlsam.com, noon to 3 p.m. Eastern. Get Ernest’s free email newsletter. Sign up here.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.