Unitary Executive Obama
It appears that President Obama will utilize his Unitary Executive powers to the utmost. (Via Professor Reynolds.) Not surprising, really. He will, of course, follow in his predecessors’ footsteps by embracing the Unitary Executive theory, because President Hope an Change shows us no hope of changing anything except to get more power for himself and his party. He’ll throw a token Republican or two into his cabinet, and that’s probably about it. Otherwise it’ll be the same hyperpartisan nonsense that’s come to define his entire career of being non-moderate “moderate” Democrat who votes lock-step with the party line at every opportunity.
The only thing in particular that’s really only a smidge surprising–only because I was hoping he’d have more sense, alas–is the “no drilling” stance. No, Mr. President, we wouldn’t want to help Americans get more jobs by drilling for more oil in our country while we work on alternatives. I’m sure he’ll oppose nuclear power expansion too. Oh no, we don’t need to do anything except invest in windfarms and solar and other things that decades of research has produced only meager results on. Let’s do nothing else that would be practical and positive on a relatively short timeline. Instead give us blatant nonsense about how it will take years and years and years to drill new oil, and otherwise pretend we don’t need to do it because “alternatives” will be better anyway–the same “alternatives” we’ve been hearing about for decades that are never alternatives to anything but marginally useful applications.
Oh and all that work on new drilling? Hey, thanks for promising to destroy it all with the stroke of a pen. It must be nice to be the King.
Gah. This is gonna be a tough 4-8 years to sit through. Oh well. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss and all that. Environmental destruction, continued dependence on foreign oil, continued lip service to alternatves that do nothing… yep, that’s the “Change” we can hope for. I’m looking forward to it like a root canal.
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10 comments
Dean:
Using similar executive powers does not make the "new boss" the same as the "old boss."
As I have said before here, those people who voted for an image, a mirage, a carefully constructed simulacrum of a human being will learn soon enough that Obama is a man, not a symbol.
And it is my belief that many of them will be asking themselves "what were we thinking" in a few years.
And of course my response is "well, that’s the problem. You WEREN’T thinking."
And as I have said before… you were warned. Repeatedly and forcefully.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Toon of the Day
He’s "the same" in the sense that he’s sending a very clear signal that he will use all the same powers that his predecessors–plural, not singular–used. George Bush did very, very little that changed the theory of the Singular Executive, despite all the hysteria claiming otherwise. He stretched his muscles where he felt he needed to, just like ALL Presidents have done at least since the 1930s (and none more successfully than Franklin Roosevelt, I might add).
Obama will do the same. His commitment to "change" consists of unilaterally changing policies to his liking within whatever powers are available to him, and otherwise working with other authorities whenever it suits him or he has no choice. So be it. It’s what he was elected to do.
I would quite agree with you that some of his followers will be disillusioned by 2012. The far left will especially feel that way. That doesn’t meant he won’t get re-elected of course, as the center-left will undoubtedly mostly be fine with him, although they’ll have some things they’re disappointed with him on too. And many of the issues they were so passionate about will be left in the dustbin of forgotten memories.
So it goes. It’s common. [shrug]
[…] Do Initial Signs Point To Obama Being Just Another Unitary Executive? Dean Esmay says yes. […]
Dean:
You seem to think that Obama will gravitate towards the middle and antagonize the hard left.
I am more inclined to think that Obama will gravitate towards the left and antagonize the middle.
Perhaps he will, as Clinton did, steer back toward the middle as his policies begin to erode his support from the middle, but I am not so sure. Clinton had a lot of faults but overarching arrogance and condescension of his own supporters were not among them. And I do think those are central to Obama’s faults.
We will see. As I have said, Obama’s first week as President-elect has done nothing but reinforce my opinion of the man. Pretty much every action he has taken, and every comment he has made, follows a path that is consistent with his voting record and "private" comments.
I actually hope I am wrong. I would love to say in four years "well, Obama wasn’t really that bad after all."
But so far that is not the direction things seem to be going.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Toon of the Day
What I think is that for practical and intelligent reasons he’s not dumb enough to be more than a center-left politician.
We already know the far left is mad at him for not promising to immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq, and for softening his primary campaign promises, now only promising to make his "18 months after taking office" proposal a goal and not a hard target—-meaning, we’ve got over 21 months and then Obama will think about it, and it’s honestly almost indistinguishable from the Bush administration’s plan. A lot are unhappy about this. Good, let ‘em be, a hard date is an insanely bad idea.
I also note the case of NAFTA, wherein he campaigned hard against it but then privately had his aides telling officials in countries like Canada not to take that stuff very seriously. And, sure enough, as soon as he’d secured the nomination he made it clear that he was only blowing smoke on that and he’s not going to fight to abolish NAFTA. We might only expect some changes and adjustments which, guess what, is also just about indistinguishable from what his opponents had to say.
There have been calls from the far left for Obama to abolish the Unitary Executive theory of the Presidency. It’s very clear to me that he’ll do no such thing.
What does all this say to me? Obama is just another politician and nothing special. It also tells me that the Clinton supporters were right to be mad; Senator Clinton was a lot more responsible talking about these things on the campaign trail than Obama was, Obama was less honest in order to secure the nomination, and yet he won. OK. Well that’s politics sometimes.
He’ll govern as a center-left politician. So we’ll see more government interventionism domestically, somewhat more generous social programs, some tax hikes but not massive ones harkening back to the 1970s, more attempts at multilateralism internationally, and that’s generally it. Or so would be my guess.
Dean:
I hope you are right. I had prepared a long rebuttal to show why I think you are perhaps being too optimistic or even naive, but I’m going to just leave it with "I hope you are right."
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Toon of the Day
[…] Esmay sums it up […]
"is the “no drilling” stance."
You act as if the only reason not to drill in the particular areas is irrational spite. But there are other concerns that people care about that weigh against it. How you come down on all those issues factors into whether you think drilling in a particular area is worthwhile or not. But summing it up into a "No Drilling stance" is not particularly evenhanded.
Bad:
Why not regale us with your "rational" analysis.
Where would you allow drilling?
ANWR?
Off the Coast?
Yellowstone National Park?
Your backyard?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Al Gore and the cooling earth?
[…] a point of clarification: We cited Dean Esmay’s post Obama employing the “Unitary Executive” theory. Esmay, we believe, was exaggerating for […]
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