Richard Nixon once argued to David Frost in a now-famous post-resignation interview that anything a President does is by definition legal:
George Will writes today that the spirit of Nixon has returned with a vengeance in President Barack Obama, who has suddenly discovered that statutes are inferior to presidential whim. Rather than wait for Congress to address the need for delays in ObamaCare mandates, or even work with efforts to provide them, the President stiffed Congress by declaring the legislative branch unnecessary for the statutory process:
Obama’s explanation began with an irrelevancy. He consulted with businesses before disregarding his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That duty does not lapse when a president decides Washington’s “political environment” is not “normal.” …Twenty-three days before his news conference, the House voted 264 to 161, with 35 Democrats in the majority, for the rule of law — for, that is, the Authority for Mandate Delay Act. It would have done lawfully what Obama did by ukase. He threatened to vetothis use of legislation to alter a law. The White House called it “unnecessary,” presumably because he has an uncircumscribed “executive authority” to alter laws.
At least Nixon took care to limit his claim to national security, or nearly so, Will writes. Obama seems to have adopted in on the grandest possible scale, especially for protecting his political interests:
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