A Nation of Laws, Not Men, Must Impeach Obama
By Diana West
February 06, 2014
February 06, 2014
One of the hats I wear is
that of Washington correspondent for Dispatch International, a European weekly
newspaper co-edited by Danish journalist and historian Lars Hedegaard. The name
may ring a bell with U.S. readers because last February, a man dressed up as a
postman with a fake package tried to assassinate Hedegaard, a noted critic of
Islamization and proponent of free speech, at his home in Copenhagen.
International headlines followed.
One year later, Hedegaard lives under state protection, and there have been
no arrests. But that’s not what this week’s column is about.
A few days ago, Hedegaard wrote me with a new assignment:
“Would you write something about a disturbing phenomenon: the fact that
Obama rules by decree and neglects the Constitution. How can this go on? Nixon
was a complete amateur compared to this would-be Kim Jong-un. It looks like a
coup d’etat. Nobody talks about it in Europe.”
So that’s what America looks like from 4,000 miles away.
Given the lack of context “over there,” my overview had to start with the
basics of Barack Obama’s presidency: numerous unconfirmed “czars” (like George
W. Bush), sweeping executive orders and massive amounts of regulation. “I’ve
got a pen and I’ve got a phone” is the way the president recently described his
tools of power, noticeably omitting whether he also had a copy of the U.S.
Constitution. By the time I’d recapped the so-called unilateral presidency for
the European reader, I was newly aghast.
For many Americans, living through the Obama era day-by-day, executive order
by executive order, 100 regulations by 100 regulations (there were 80,000 pages
of new regulations in 2013 alone), our nation’s transformation becomes so much
enveloping static. Yes, there are shrieks and screams (over Obamacare’s
rollout, for instance), but mostly people seem to shut out the background noise
of an aggressively collectivizing government doing business. Outrages against
the Constitution clank and sputter – What? The executive branch can’t write
legislation! – but they never really backfire on Obama. His poll numbers dip,
yes. White noise ensues.
Such ambivalence may stem from the fact that many Americans are not well
educated about how our government of three co-equal branches is supposed to
function. Confession: Despite private school and an Ivy League education, I
didn’t really get the picture until later in life.
Barack Obama, the government’s chief executive, is seizing powers that
belong to the legislative branch. He’s not the first president to do so; not by
a long shot. That’s also part of the ambivalence problem. Obama fits an
accepted historical mode of abuse exemplified, for example, by the even more
dictatorial FDR. Meanwhile, as Obama’s defenders correctly note, Obama, having
issued 168 “decrees,” ranks on the low end among modern presidents. What
distinguishes Obama’s fiats in our time, however, as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah,
told CNSNews.com, is that Obama “has repeatedly made use of executive orders to
change statute, to change law, to change legislation enacted by Congress.”
An election for President and Commander in Chief of the Military must strive to be above reproach. Our public institutions must give the public confidence that a presidential candidate has complied with the election process that is prescribed by our Constitution and laws. It is only after a presidential candidate satisfies the rules of such a process that he/she can expect members of the public, regardless of their party affiliations, to give him/her the respect that the Office of President so much deserves.
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