Finally, Barack Obama and the Tea Party agree on something:
Barack Obama mocked Republican lawmakers' plan to file a lawsuit against him for using his executive authority to make policy, saying Congress had forced his hand by failing to take action.
"The suit is a stunt," Obama said in an interview with ABC News that aired on Friday.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday he planned take legal action alleging the president has abused his executive authority by implementing policies without congressional approval.
"I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing," Obama said.
As an example, Obama pointed to efforts to overhaul the U.S. immigration system and said there was wide public support for change.
Sweeping legislation passed the Democratic-controlled Senate last year, but the plan has stalled in the Republican-controlled House, which is led by Boehner. Republicans say the administration must first secure the U.S. borders before easing immigration restrictions.
"What I've told Speaker Boehner directly is: If you're really concerned about me taking too many executive actions, why don't you try getting something done through Congress?" Obama said.
"You're going to squawk if I try to fix some parts of it administratively that are within my authority while you're not doing anything?" he said, referring to congressional Republicans.
The thing Tea Partiers have to understand is, impeachment would be every bit as much of a "stunt" in Barack Obama's eyes. Why? Because of the power realities and who and what Barack Obama is.
Note the implicit assumptions beneath his mindset: "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing." Not a "smidgeon" of consideration for whether or not he has the constitutional legal authority to "do something". Utter, dripping contempt, both for his enemies, for the federal judiciary, and for the U.S. Constitution. Stratospheric willfulness - "I'm going to get what I want regardless of you, anybody else, OR the law of the land" - and his use of it as purest blackmail, like holding the founding document next to a blowtorch and saying, "Pass amnesty, or up in flames it goes, Boner." Which, by this time, would be redundant, but I trust the drift has been caught.
This is not a man that is going to be moved by a lawsuit, by the Supreme Court ruling unanimously against him, or by impeachment, because in his mind, they, and we, are all powerless to stop him. And thus we arrive at the point I've been for months now: How do you stop a lawless dictator using legal means? It's like closing the barn door after the horse is glue.
That's not a disregarding of those legal means, of which both a lawsuit and impeachment are perfectly legitimate parts. We must do our due diligence to exhaust every such avenue, including a Republic Review and an Article V convention to maintain the legitimacy of our own cause. My concern is that (1) none of them will work, because Barack Obama will simply ignore them, or (2) if they do start making progress, it'll be far too late to make any difference. If we optimistically assume that it's not too late to save the country before it goes over the proverbial cliff into the "dark abyss" of Winston Churchill's one time depiction - and I don't - how many TPers realize that this is a desperate race against time? Two years and change until "fundamental transformation" is permanent and irremovable. Whereas our constitutional federal republican system is not designed for swiftness; its wheels turn slowly, eventually, but not quickly, producing the proper and correct result. Frankly, we don't have that kind of time, if we have any at all.
And Barack Obama knows it. Which is another reason why he doesn't fear anything we have in our constitutional arsenal. In his mind, all he has to do is run out the clock, because he's already won.
You know what the only thing that could turn this around really is? Barack Obama somehow morphing into Richard Nixon in the perception of the major media. Are you starting to see why I'm not optimistic?
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