The Constitution Just Keeps Frustrating Obama and the Dems By David Harsanyi
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/the-constitution-just-keeps-frustrating-obama-and-the-dems/
Obama helped popularize and normalize the idea that executive overreach was acceptable if the president claimed there was moral imperative to act.
I f it’s not the Supreme Court, or the Electoral College, or states’ rights, or equal Senate representation, or most of the Bill of Rights standing in the way of “progress,” it’s the Treaty Clause. Without it, Barack Obama would already have slowed the oceans’ rise and allowed our beleaguered planet to heal. Just ask him.
This week, the former president, owner of multiple homes — including an $11.75 million mansion on 30 acres in Martha’s Vineyard — had some complaints at the United Nations Climate Change Conference about our profligate habits. Then he said this:
It takes some nuclear-powered audacity for Barack Obama, of all people, to whine about unilateral governance. The only reason Donald Trump was able to “unilaterally” withdraw from any international agreement was that the previous president had enlisted the nation in said agreement without the consent of Congress. The Paris Accord is allegedly the most critical international agreement ever forged by mankind, and yet it wasn’t quite important enough to be subjected to genuine national debate or the checks and balances of American government.
When first joining the Paris agreement, Obama noted that global warming “does not pause for partisan gridlock.” Or, in other words, the former president offered one of his numerous rationalizations for a historic slew of executive abuses. Obama didn’t merely ignore the limitations of his office, he popularized and normalized the notion that executive overreach was acceptable if the president claimed there was moral imperative to act. And Obama didn’t simply pretend that every issue was an existential threat — now a mainstay of Democratic Party politics — he openly bragged about working around the lawmaking branch of government that refused to accede to his demands. He continues to make that destructive argument on foreign soil.
There is, of course, a simple, nearly foolproof method of avoiding the embarrassing dilemma of failed deals: Go to Congress and debate the issue. Ratify treaties. Or don’t, and move on. (Any climate deal that is subjected to scrutiny would likely meet the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the Senate in 1997, though perhaps not by a 95-0 vote.)
These days, the Democrats, who are currently in charge, rely on un-American arguments in favor of direct democracy and majoritarianism. In those days, Obama regularly accused Republicans, who ran Congress, of “failing to act,” as if they had a God-given obligation to pass the president’s agenda. If Congress is simply rubber-stamping the executive-branches desires, it is irrelevant. The Constitution is built to frustrate one-party rule, which is why progressives find the document so aggravating when they win the White House.
It’s not only the climate issue. CNN’s chief national-security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, says foreign diplomats are asking him, “What do US commitments on climate, Iran deal, NATO, etc. mean if the next president might reverse them? We’ve seen the pendulum swing over last several years. Takeaway for partners is: US is no longer a reliable ally.” Echoing this theme, Iran’s new foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, recently demanded assurances that “Washington will not renege on the deal again” before restarting talks on a nuclear deal with the Biden administration.
The United States upholds all its treaties. It never reneged on any deal with Iran, since the Senate made no binding commitment to the mullahs. Amir-Abdollahian only needs to read the 2015 open letter to Iran by GOP senators to understand the supposed intricacies of the American system — a letter the entire left-wing establishment freaked out over. Then-vice president Joe Biden called the irrefutable contents of the letter “false” and “dangerous” and “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.”
Biden reveres the institution so much that he too has decided to circumvent it and unilaterally rejoin the Paris agreement. Hopefully, the next Republican president will again withdraw from it — and not merely because the unworkable deal undercuts American competitiveness and makes us poorer, but because presidents who govern by fiat should have their legacies atomized for the good of the nation.
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