OPINION:
On the day the president’s Rasputin, Valerie Jarrett, announced that her boss would by executive order require universal background checks for all gun buyers, despite congressional rejection of such a scheme, the White House called any Republican presidential candidate who refuses to denounce Donald Trump as unfit to be president.
“If they are so cowed by Mr. Trump and his supporters that they are not willing to stand by the values enshrined in the Constitution,” press secretary Josh Earnest said, “then they have no business serving as president of the United States.” That’s rich, considering how Mr. Obama himself finds a new way almost daily to flout those very constitutional values.
Mr. Trump’s proposal to bar Muslim refugees from immigrating to the United States may or may not be either wise or constitutional, but it requires abundant chutzpah for anyone in Mr. Obama’s White House to denounce anyone out of a concern for the Constitution. Mr. Obama uses that document for target practice, like a good old boy plinking a highway sign by dark.
It’s unusual for an incumbent president to prescribe policy positions for presidential candidates of the opposing party, or to presume to pass on the qualifications of someone to succeed him. It’s not only bad presidential form (he could look to George W. for right example), but it’s likely to nudge such candidates to take contrary positions for both political and substantive reasons. The idea that this president feels called on to make such demands is testament to his arrogance and his deafness to the traditions and customs of his country.
He’s entitled not to like Donald Trump, or disagree with his policies — many Americans do disagree — but someone at the White House should explain to the president that Mr. Trump’s remarkable popularity comes not from unreasonable Republican voters, but from popular outrage at the direction this president has taken the country. If anyone is responsible for Mr. Trump’s soaring popularity, it’s Mr. Obama and his stubborn and foolish policies on immigration, and his blindness to the threat both here and abroad from radical Islamic terrorism. The backlash threatens to become a firestorm.
The latest CBS/New York Times poll shows the Trump lead increasing over his rivals. Mr. Obama’s “popping off,” as he might describe it, feeds that very backlash. If the president and his men (and women) are so sure that he’s a sore loser they should obey the first or second rule of politics: When your opponent is destroying himself, get out of his way.
The president should further pay attention to history. In 1976, Jimmy Carter and his closest aides held prayer meetings to ask the Lord to lead the Republicans to nominate Ronald Reagan, whom they were sure was a guaranteed loser. Indeed, some wise men in the Carter White House thought the Gipper was the only man Mr. Jimmy could defeat. Prayers (or something) were answered. The rest, as they say, is history.
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