SOTU: As usual, the Right gets it wrong

[markpkessinger]

(I did a screen grab of the image below from last night's Rachel Maddow show, and posted it to Facebook with this commentary. after seeing various posts by right wingers fulminating aboutt President Obama's "abuse" of executive orders.)

There are many valid criticisms to be made of President Obama's State of the Union address last night -- I've made a few of them myself. But, as usual, the Right gets it wrong. All over Facebook, the media and the blogosphere today, Republicans have been foaming at the mouth over Obama's "imperial presidency," his "violation" of the Constitution and his "excessive use" of executive orders. Two points:

(1) Where in the Constitution is it contemplated that a political party that holds a majority in one half of one-third of the government could or would be permitted to prevent a duly-elected president from governing? Before Republicans have any room to talk about violations of the constitution, they should be required to demonstrate whence their authority to stymie a president, not through voting yea or nay on legislation, but through an absurd quirk of procedural rules? Yes, Congress hs the right to vote down legislation a president might want them to pass. Under the Constitution, the appropriate way to exercise that rigbt is to vote on legislation, not to abuse procedural rules for a purpose they were never intended.

(2) There is nothing unconstitutional about executive orders. They have been repeatedly upheld by the Court, suhject to certain limitations as to scope, duration, etc. And as Rachel Maddow pointed out tonight, Obama has issued fewer executive orders in his time in office than any of his recent predecessors (see the attached chart, which I screen-grabbed from the Rachel Maddow show).

Once again, Republicans are simply wrong -- wrong on the principle, and wrong on the specifics.

[Rex]

1. Well, the words 'Republican' and 'wrong' practically mean the same thing.

nt.