DOUG SMITH: THE ODOR OF MENDACITY

An Obama consistency: An odiferous approach to governing.

There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity …You can smell it. It smells like death,”

Big Daddy, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Not surprisingly, to anyone who has not been in a coma since 2008, Barack Obama lied about immigration reform.

Candidate Obama in 2008 promised to “put comprehensive immigration reform back on the nation’s agenda during my first year in office.”

Then in March 2009, President Obama said it was “a serious concern, but not an urgent one.”

In June, “I want to actively get something done and not put it off until a year, two years, three years, five years from now.”

By August, his words had changed to:

“And what we’ve said is in the fall when we come back, we’re going to complete health care reform. We still have to act on energy legislation that has passed the House … We still have financial regulatory reform that has to get done … That’s a pretty big stack of bills.”

In March 2011, President Obama said “the nation’s laws are clear enough that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform to my appropriate role as president.”

Now, it seems, he is about to act, albeit illegally, when he could have done so legally – and not “now” in 2009, but “five years from now” in 2014.

One wonders, why now? He could have done it with a Democrat majority in both Houses from 2009 to 2010. Could it be that he also knew that to do so would cost him so much political capital that the Affordable Care Act, which cost so much, would have failed? Was he worried about 2010? No, as he told the Dems, who lost in a landslide, no worries, you’ve got me now!

He may have been worried about 2012. Because it seems likely this would have made him a one term President.

Whatever his reasons then, he clearly lied to the supporters.

So why now?

Well, now his feelings are hurt because he has been roundly rejected by the American public. He is in a mood to punish the voters for not liking him. He is in a mood to pick a fight with the GOP.

He is a Leftist, so it is all about how he feels, never what he does. Bill Clinton can feel your pain, and that is supposed to be enough. He never worked as hard in his life as he did on this. The fact that he was talking about a failure did not matter, he FELT right. And so back to Barack. He is hurt and angry, and his feelings dictate his actions. He also feels, (never reasons), that, since the voters can no longer punish Him (sorry Mary Landrieu), the GOP options to fight back are:

1. Talk angrily
2. Sue him
3. Cut funding
4. Impeach him

Now, he doesn’t care how angrily they talk. They don’t like him. He doesn’t like anyone But HIM, and doesn’t care what they may say. Let them talk.

Sue him. ( Hahahahaha) That is funny. He has been sued. He has had federal judges issue orders, which he has roundly ignored. What is a lawsuit? If you are going to violate the Constitution, why would you worry what a court says? Even if courts rule against him, it will likely take until he is out of office, or nearly so, for SCOTUS to give the final ruling on the question anyway.

Cut funding? Yes. A legitimate, and intended tool of Congress to force compliance or negotiation with a President. But, history shows him that if they don’t give him everything he wants, in the Trillions, he can balk and let the government shut down, and they will get the blame for it. Of course, should it happen after January, he won’t have Harry Reid to shield him. He will have to veto a budget that defunds his actions, or defunds the ACA, and let the government shut down. But so what? He doesn’t care. He still thinks the press will blame the GOP. He wants what he wants, and to him, that is a law. He is betting they won’t have the stomach for the fight.

Impeach him? He is willing to bet the store, or more properly, the country, that the political will does not exist to impeach him. He is convinced that as egregious as his actions may be, and as much harm as they may cause, the bar for impeaching the first black President is impossibly high. In any event, he is convinced that the GOP will not have the stomach for it in the next 2 years.

He may be right. But he should not be. The legitimate roles of the Congress to check an overreaching Executive should always be on the table. Remember Civics class? Checks and balances. The balance was in November. He has gone too far, and his policies are rejected. The country wants him to moderate his actions. But he will not, if the will to check him does not exist.

Barack Obama is governing like a petulant child. In November, the voters said, loudly, let’s have the adults take charge again.

Here’s hoping they do.

Tags: DOUG SMITH, FSP, IMMIGRATION REFORM