Here’s a footnote to my weekend column about the revoltingly unrepublican lifestyle of the modern presidency.
Walter Bagehot, the great English constitutionalist, used to distinguish between the “dignified” and “efficient” parts of the Westminster system — i.e., the monarchy and the executive. The United States combines them in one person. Judging from the 40-car conga line to stage a pseudo-browse at a mom-’n'-pop bookstore on Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama and the court eunuchs of the media seem to prefer the ceremonial side (“dignified” hardly seems the word for these leaden rituals).
But, whether in one person or two, the “dignified” and “efficient” parts of a functioning government are supposed to synchronize. Here was last week’s pre-Martha bit of ersatz presidential theater, in the less fashionable zip codes of Minnesota:
Passing trade deals is something that “Congress can do right now,” remarked President Obama Monday at a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
Really?
The truth is that Congress can’t do anything on free trade agreements “right now,” because the President has yet to send the agreements to Congress for final approval.
Oh.
I am assured by my liberal friends that Barack Obama is not intentionally attempting to destroy America. Let us also grant that an honorable man would not intentionally deceive the burghers of Cannon Falls for cheap political point-scoring. So what does that leave? That the president is merely ignorant and incompetent and doesn’t know his job?
That single line from a single speech is an almost perfect vignette of everything that’s wrong with the Washington leviathan. The American taxpayers pay for a luxury Canadian bus, dozens of accompanying vehicles, salaried aides, and federal speechwriters in order to zip the president halfway across the country to blame somebody else for something only he can do — if only he’d stayed back at the office.
In many organizations, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. We’re way beyond that. Not only does the president’s left hand not know what the right hand is even supposed to do, but his left hand cannot even issue a cheap self-serving whine about something his right hand has failed to do without blowing gazillions of taxpayer dollars.
"So what does that leave? That the President is merely ignorant, incompetent and doesn’t know his job?"
I've wrestled with that one for years.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot to mention that it's not "Congress" which "passes" trade deals; it's the Senate which votes to approve ratification. He makes a swipe at "Congress," which everyone is supposed to read as "Boehner and his Republicans," but the House has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
So, as you say, if this is not intentional, what is it? Complete ignorance?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePretty sad when the best case scenario with Obama is he's completely ignorant.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo much for the esteemed Constitutional Professor.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEven that's a lie; he was a guest lecturer. He was never seated.
I've done guest lectures, too; that doesn't make me a "professor."
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse> "So, as you say, if this is not intentional, what is it? Complete ignorance?"
What's more, the guy was ostensibly a lecturer on CONSTITUTIONAL law at the U-Chig Law School.
But if you take some time to read what he actually had to say about the CONSTITUTION:
External Link
then you'll get the strong impression that he's never even crossed paths with the document.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is simply inaccurate. Where do you guys get this junk? External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRedfate, what about DavidJ's post is junk? Since you're a stickler for accuracy, let the accuracy flow.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou weren't aware that only the Senate votes on treaties?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOr is it that you weren't aware that the Democrats control the Senate?
Trade agreements can be enacted as congressional-executive agreements by majority votes of both houses of Congress. The 11th Circuit declined to hold such arrangements unconstitutional in a challenge to NAFTA, saying that the issue was a "political matter."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSecurity costs for protecting the president are what they are. I don't complain too loudly about that, even with Obama. Those who whined about his $1.1M bus are only displaying their own idiocy; Obama didn't pick that out and he is the president. You want Biden instead?
However, I believe the president has some responsibility, or should have some awareness and concern for how common people are impacted when he moves around. Everywhere a president goes there is a bubble of protection on land and air, and the people who live and work within that bubble are going to mighty inconvenienced.
Obama - once again - is clueless, ignorant, or simply doesn't care (I'm guessing the latter) about his impact. He goes where HE wants to go, and the commoners just need to move out of the way. If that means shutting down half a block for a couple hours so he can visit a bookstore, too bad. If he wants to take his wife on a date, what does he care that hundreds of flights get delayed in the busiest airspace in the country. So what? It's all about HIM.
Last, it's telling that he doesn't have a home. Reagan and Bush 43 vacationed mostly to their ranches, Bush 41 would go to his oceanfront home in Maine, and even Carter would go back to Georgia. But to Obama (like Clinton), the White House is HIS house. He doesn't see or respect it as the People's house.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Those who whined about his $1.1M bus are only displaying their own idiocy; Obama didn't pick that out and he is the president. You want Biden instead?"
We are not whining that the President is protected.
We are whining (ahem, forcefully stating in manly ways) that he is _driven_ in something that should be reserved for official business but instead was used effectively an Obama 2012 event, paid for by taxpayers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInterestingly, there is a precedent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen WWII started, the Secret Service decreed that the President needed a special rail car for his security. An existing private car (named the Ferdinand Magellan) was rebuilt for the purpose by the Pullman company and sold to the government (cost seems to have gone unrecorded).
There are photos of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower campaigning from the open rear platform of this car. FDR used it extensively for normal travel. Truman dug it out for his 1948 "Whistle Stop Campaign;" 28,000 miles worth. Ike hardly used it, and it was sold to a museum during his second term.
It was "loaned" to Ronald Reagan in 1984 for a one-day Ohio campaign tour.
Still, the President/his party/his campaign should be required to pay rental on any government assets he uses in the course of campaigning. The rationale that he must fly AF1 for national security purposes is baloney.
I could have have been clearer about *who* I was referring to. I had Karl Rove in mind when I wrote that because the spokesman of Rove's group said this:
"We're going to make a star out of Obama's million-dollar campaign bus because it symbolizes his presidency: politics instead of results, a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, and a long ride that leads nowhere," Duncan said.
Really? I don't want to pay for Obama's campaigning, but complaining about the bus? It's just stupid.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSeems to be a liberal affliction, like Bill Clinton remembering all the black church burnings that didn't happen during his adolescence or Hillary telling New Zealanders she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary...even though she was born before he climbed Mt. Everest and was just a chicken farmer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe's the smartest man ever to read soaring rhetoric from a teleprompter. Even that description leaves me really only sure of the teleprompter. I would think the Republicans, especially in those states would make hay out of his stupid trade gaff. Alas, I have little faith in that either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse> "I am assured by my liberal friends that Barack Obama is not intentionally attempting to destroy America."
Then your liberal friends are lying to you.
Oh, and by the way, either they aren't really "liberal", or else they aren't really your friends.
Because if they really are "liberal", then secretly they are scheming to annihilate you.
And don't even try to kid yourself about this.
PS: Are Canadian green-card-holders allowed to exercise the RKBA in New Hampshire?
'Cause you need to start preparing for what's heading your way - what's heading all of our ways...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWatching Obama swanning about in public, chili dog in one hand, double ice cream cone in the other brings to mind George Wills comment: "Today's president from Illinois, a chronic campaigner and incontinent complainer who is uninhibited by considerations of presidential dignity,..."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe he'll be the first past-president to file for bankruptcy. They're living life like MC Hammer, the one-hit-wonder who went from $20 million to zero in just a few years by extravagant spending on himself and the huge entourage that he loved surrounding himself with.
I suspect they can't envision this current lifestyle ever ending. I'm sure they're telling themselves that after holding office they'll make bazillions on book sales, consulting, and speaker fees. Not sure that worked out well for Carter and Nixon immediately after office for them. Eventually, after about 20 years, the public forgot/forgave and started buying their stuff, but I just don't see the Obama's having the foresight to budget their money that long.
Hopefully he'll be a one-term-wonder. Either way, I'll bet his love for deficit spending isn't just of public money, but, rather, extends to his private financings as well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"The three pending free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama should be ready to be introduced to Congress soon after lawmakers return from their summer break on Sept. 6." External Link
I've started a contest with myself to see how efficiently I can prove a Mark Steyn post to be completely inaccurate and misleading. Single quote/single link is the gold standard at the moment.
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