Apparently, Biden violating his oath of office is just one of those ‘classic Washington fudges’ that ‘presidents, especially Democrats, have improvised.’
CNN.com, which for six long years between 2015 and 2021 turned itself into a blog about Donald Trump and his many excesses, has weighed in on President Biden’s decision to take executive action that he knows full well is illegal. And boy, is it . . . a complete whitewashing of flagrant and cynical lawbreaking.
Here’s the headline:
Biden shows he’s ready to make drastic moves in Covid-19 fight — even if he’s not sure they’re legal
Off to a bad start. But, hey, headlines can be misleading, so maybe it gets better?
It doesn’t. Here’s the lede:
Even President Joe Biden doesn’t know whether his new federal eviction moratorium for renters is legal and sustainable. But crushing humanitarian and political pressure left him no choice but to take a chance on an emergency move.
Even the president doesn’t know? Yeah, except he does know, as CNN makes clear in the very next paragraph:
The new US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scheme was announced after the White House, hampered by a Supreme Court ruling and Congress’ failure to act, had repeatedly argued it had no constitutional authority to extend the moratorium. Biden himself said on Tuesday that the new moratorium may not be constitutional, and is essentially an attempt to buy time to get backlogged funding out of state coffers and into the pockets of renters and landlords alike.
Let’s recap, then. CNN is confirming here that the president’s action has been “hampered by a Supreme Court ruling,” that the executive branch had “repeatedly argued it had no constitutional authority to extend the moratorium,” and that President Biden “himself said on Tuesday that the new moratorium may not be constitutional, and is essentially an attempt to buy time to get backlogged funding out of state coffers and into the pockets of renters and landlords alike.”
So what does CNN say next? Does it say “Mr. President, please stop!”? Does it say, “this is an egregious violation not only of the norms we’re supposed to care about, but of the rule of law itself”? Does it say, “gosh, this was precisely the sort of thing we spent years predicting under Trump”? Does it say, “If the executive branch can just do what it wants while litigation is pending, we don’t actually have a constitutional order?”
Nah. CNN says this:
The conundrum threatened to force millions of Americans who lost incomes during the pandemic out of their homes in an appalling twist to what has already been an agonizing year. The problem was that the moratorium expired on July 31 at a moment when much of the more than $40 billion in funds already provided by Congress to pay landlords for back rent for tenants is still yet to be handed out by states and local authorities.
To head off mass evictions, the White House came up with a classic Washington fudge — not unfamiliar in an era of Capitol Hill gridlock — in which presidents, especially Democrats, have improvised with executive power to shield constituencies from consequences of a malfunctioning political system.
Oh, how charming! It’s just one of those “classic Washington fudges” that “presidents, especially Democrats, have improvised.”
“Improvised” against what, you might ask? Congress? The Constitution? The law? The Supreme Court? America itself?
Worry not. Biden is merely “improvising” to solve a “conundrum” that has been caused by “a malfunctioning political system.”
This isn’t “analysis.” It’s a partisan justification for tyranny. Outside of Joe Biden, there is nothing “malfunctioning” about the American “political system.” On the contrary: It is perfectly intact. The Supreme Court has spoken. Congress has declined to pass a new statute. And that is that.
There is nothing within our constitutional order that allows the president to “improvise” if the other branches decline to do what the executive branch wants them to do. Nor, for that matter, is there anything in the Constitution that implies that when presidents — “especially Democrats” — don’t get their own way, the system should be considered broken. The villain here is President Biden, and President Biden alone. By pretending otherwise, CNN is not merely abdicating its responsibility; it’s complicit.