Friday, June 19, 2009

Loyalty to The Preznit

I was disgusted with Democrats who caved in and voted for bills that they disagreed with because they were stampeded into doing so by the Bush Administration, and with Republicans who did the same out of "loyalty" to their party and their president. There was wide opprobrium delivered to the tune that Congress had "abdicated its role in government" as a result of that kind of thing.

It got worse when Democrats had a majority in both houses during the last two years of the Bush Administration, and continued the same behavior.

This past Tuesday Congress passed a War Funding bill; was forced to do so by the Obama Administration in much the same manner as the previous administration passed bills in its first two years; strong arming party members based on "loyalty to their president" and with Obama making phone calls to reluctant members. The upshot is we have Democrats caving in and voting for a bill that they disagree with because they have been stampeded into doing so by the Obama Administration.

The president who promised to put war-fighting costs back into the budget where it belongs is demanding passage of a war-fighting supplemental bill. Some members of Congress are objecting to the war funding itself (good for them), others are objecting to the items which could probably not pass on their own but have been added on to a must-pass bill (good for them, too). Does any of this sound familiar?

So we still have a president who is willing to demand that the Congress bend to his will, and we still have a Congress that is willing to subvert its own authourity in deference to the demands of the President.

How, in principle, is it to any degree better for us to have an Obama Administration emasculating Congress than it was to have the Bush Administration doing so? Just because we like his policies better does not mean that his implementation of them against the will of Congress, his acting in an imperial manner to put them in place, is an acceptable method of government. He promised to "restore the constitution."

Our constitution specifies a Legislative Branch, not an Imperial President.

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