Is the Opposition Loyal? Part Two

Tonight we will not hear the President of the United States address a joint session of Congress regarding the dire economic condition of the nation. It was Mr. Obama’s intention to begin this new session of Congress by addressing the issues about which the whole country is concerned. As is well known, Speaker John Boehner has informed the President that the United States House of Representatives will be otherwise engaged.

“ ‘As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,’ the speaker wrote. ‘ With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.’ ” (“Obama Moves Jobs Speech After Skirmish With Boehner,” The New York Times, August 31, 2011)

Mr. Boehner’s unprecedented refusal to grant the President’s request has been reported, reviewed, and, from the very beginning, denounced as just another petty political squabble. Blame has been cast on both the Speaker and the President.

“ ‘If the objective of the White House and Speaker Boehner was to demonstrate to the American people that they have gotten the message from the markets and from voters that our economic straits are so dire that it is time to set petty politics aside, they have failed before they started,’ said David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. ‘This childish gamesmanship regarding timing reconfirms to the world that Washington is a sandbox full of petulant children who don’t play well together.' He called Wednesday’s antics 'late-summer silliness.’ ” (The New York Times, same article as above)

Despite the fact that Mr. Boehner is the first member of Congress to deny a president permission to speak to a joint session of Congress, it is the President who has received the most criticism. He is accused of playing politics.

“The real story, of course, was that the White House had high-handedly announced its preferred time for the speech, which just happened to conflict with a long-planned GOP presidential candidates’ debate at the Reagan library.” (The Weekly Standard, “The Scrapbook: Dissing Boehner,” September 12, 2011)

Even before Mr. Boehner took his stand against the President’s supposedly political proposal, talk radio condemned the idea. How could the President dare to upstage a Republican Party candidate debate? It is only reasonable to conclude that Mr. Boehner’s motive to deny the President’s proposal is to thwart Mr. Obama’s alleged political gambit and please the likes of Mr. Limbaugh. His stated reason is lame. The House has no business this evening that cannot be postponed.

Other aspects to this story have been reported, mostly from anonymous sources. Most of what has been reported is irrelevant. It remains that Mr. Boehner has done what has never been done before. In this, he has shown that, despite the fact that the Republican Party likes to wrap itself in the Constitution and boast its fidelity to the intentions of the Founding Fathers, it knows and cares little for either.

Let us grant the Republican contention that Mr. Obama scheduled his address to Congress to upstage Republican candidate debate. I do not know that this is so. It is, however, the best reason the Republicans have to deny the President’s request. So let it stand.

The activities of any political party should not interfere with the work of the elected government. A single debate, this early, is of negligible importance, particularly when compared to an official address by the sitting president.

The Republicans are far from selecting a candidate for the coming election. They have held one straw poll, in which Mrs. Bachman was selected. The Iowa straw poll historically has had little positive effect on selecting the eventual Republican candidate and even less on the results of the national election. Mrs. Bachmann’s victory was quickly eclipsed by Texas Governor Rick Perry’s mere announcement of his candidacy.

Even with Mr. Perry’s announcement, there is dissatisfaction among Republicans with the candidates vying for the ticket. Despite the fact time is growing short, there are calls for Representative Paul Ryan, Governor Chris Christie and even Mrs. Sarah Palin to enter the race.

The Republican contention that tonight’s debate should take precedence over a president's speech to Congress is nothing less than hubris.

The Constitution established three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial. There is no mention of political parties. Political parties have no official standing in the work of government. In fact, the Founding Fathers disliked the idea of political parties and hoped that the nation could do without them.

The Republicans should know this if they knew the Constitution and its history as they claim. James Madison penned Federalist 10 as a warning against political parties, which he called “factions.” The Founding Fathers hope of politics without political parties did not survive their lifetime, and even Mr. Madison became a member of a political party. Nevertheless, the Founding Fathers would be appalled to see this day when a single party’s candidate debate interferes with the work of the elected government.

Perhaps some would question the wisdom of Mr. Obama using his office to upstage a single debate of the opposing party’s candidate debate. Let them. There is no reason that any sitting president should take into consideration the internal work of the opposing party in the rightful execution of his duties. More importantly, there is no reason the opposing party should expect such consideration.

The Constitution established three branches of government. Mr. Boehner won a majority of the votes of the 8^th congressional district of Ohio to become a member of the lower chamber of the legislative branch. The majority of that lower chamber elected Mr. Boehner Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Boehner thus represents both the 8^th congressional district and one half of the bicameral legislature.

The President of the United States is elected by the whole nation, albeit indirectly through the Electoral College. Mr. Obama won the office of President of the United States by a clear majority of the popular vote and the Electoral College – without the assistance of a decision of the Supreme Court. He represents not a district, or even a state. He is President of the whole country and for the whole country.

To be sure, the president is not a dictator. There are constitutional limits to his authority. The Constitution provides checks and balances so that no single branch of government has power beyond what is necessary to exercise its duties to the country.

However, the Republicans have taken the legislature beyond anything the Founding Fathers imagined. Republican senators, by the mere threat of filibuster, have turn back presidential appointments. The single disqualifying mark of an appointee is that the appointment came from Mr. Obama.

“Speaking with National Journal magazine about Republican Party priorities for the 2008-2010 Congress, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained that ‘the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.’ ” (Wikipedia, Mitch McConnell)

Senator McConnell has expressed clearly that the single priority of the Republican Party is not the welfare of the country, but the augmentation of the power of the Republican Party. In keeping with this priority, the Republican Party perpetrated the unnecessary debt-ceiling crisis. In keeping with this priority, Mr. Boehner denied the President of the United States a joint session of Congress. In these and several other instances the Republican Party has demonstrated that it has no respect for the constitutionally established office of the executive as long as Mr. Obama occupies it – the vote of the people be damned.

This is not the governance the Founding Fathers envisioned. This is the factionalism that James Madison abhorred.

In September 2009, the President addressed a joint session of Congress. It was there that Representative Joe Wilson set the true precedent for Mr. Boehner’s action this month. Mr. Wilson broke with tradition and shouted at the President. On September 11, 2009, I asked the question, “Is the Opposition Loyal?” on this blog (see archive). This question stands.

[Works consulted for this essay: The Debate on the Constitution, Part One, Library of America, 1993; James Madison, Writings, Library of America, 1999; Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, Richard Beeman, Random House, 2009; The Oxford Companion to United States History, edited by Paul S. Boyer, Oxford University Press, 2001.]

This Gun Smokes

       I wish you would ever write me a Letter half as long as I write you; and tell me if you may where your Fleet are gone? What sort of Defence Virginia can make against our common Enemy? Whether it is so situated as to make an able Defence? Are not the Gentry Lords and the common people vassals, are they not like the uncivilized Natives Brittain represents us to be? …

      I am willing to allow the Colony great merrit for having produced a Washington but they have been shamefully duped by a Dunmore.

     I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Equally Strong in the Breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and christian principal of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us.—Abigal Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776

Mrs. Adams was an amazing lady. In the above citation, taken from her prescient “Remember the Ladies” epistle to husband and future United States president, John Adams, she hits at the contradiction of the ideals of the Founding Fathers and their practice.

She is a bit chagrinned that Lord Dunmore has caught them out.

In 1775 Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, declared martial law and promised freedom for slaves who would desert their patriot masters and join the British in stopping the revolution. His proclamation was somewhat successful, and at the end of the war, the British evacuated some 20,000 freedmen from their former colonies.

Mrs. Adams in the midst of all this blames the Virginian slaveholding patriots. They talk liberty, and “deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs.” This is not right. More importantly, for Mrs. Adams, this is not Christian.

The founding of the United States of America was a wonderful, multifaceted event that bequeathed both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was the promise of liberty for all. The curse was the denial of liberty – the continuation of slavery, particularly in the southern states like Virginia, the home of slaveholders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Even James Madison, who played a major role in the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and later in the appending of the Bill of Rights, owned over 100 slaves to do the work on his Montpelier plantation.

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of beginning the Civil War. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called upon the country to “recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals…” The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s further addressed the “faults and crimes” which issued from the curse of slavery. With the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, America’s first African-American president, one would like to think that this country had finally consigned the curse to history.

The birther movement, however, squelches such optimism.

The birthers claim that Mr. Obama is not legally president of the United States of America because – they contend – he was not born in America. Mr. Obama’s birth in Hawaii was never questioned before his election. He fought a vigorous campaign first against his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton and then against the formidable Senator John McCain. Both opponents were capable of raising the question of his origin and did not. It was only after the election that the movement gained a following.

The blogosphere was the medium and the message resonated with everyone who believed that a man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama, and a skin of a different hue from their own, could not possibly be the legitimate president of their country. This was despite the facts that both elected and bureaucratic officials of Hawaii vouched for his birth in their state, and contemporary news accounts in the local papers witnessed to the birth. Even the publication of a copy birth certificate suitable for the issuing of a United States passport did not satisfy them.

Still the birthers claim fraud. Recently the state of Arizona has taken up the lost cause by requiring presidential candidates to supply documentation proving birth in the United States. The law does not stand a snowball’s chance on a summer day in that sunny state of surviving a court challenge. It will contribute to the state’s growing reputation as the most xenophobic state in the nation.

The connection between birtherism and racism I must admit has been tenuous. No birther has appeared on Fox News in a white robe with a peaked white hat – the only confirmation that would satisfy some on the right.

Still, in the light of the supplied documentation and government testimony little else explains the irrationality of the birther. I suggested as much in an exchange on Facebook and was taken to task. It was awkward, because while many indications of racism are present in birtherism, it is never explicit.

Then this came up on my Google news page, without a search. It is an Associated Press report, not the New York Times or some other biasedly liberal source.

An Orange County Republican Party official is under fire after sending an email with an altered photo depicting President Barack Obama as an ape.

The email, sent Friday afternoon by party central committee member Marilyn Davenport, depicts a family portrait-style image of apes with Obama's face superimposed on one of them. The photo is accompanied by text that reads, "Now you know why no birth certificate."

Now in all fairness this needs to be added:

Scott Baugh, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, has called on Davenport to resign and said the party's ethics panel will hold a hearing into the incident if she does not do so. The panel will make findings, and a majority vote of the entire 73-member committee can oust her.

"It's just highly inappropriate, it's a despicable message, it drips with racism and I think she should step down from the committee," Baugh said. "It undermines everything we are doing to reach out to ethnic communities."

Kudos to Mr. Baugh. The Republicans of Orange County are not at fault here. This connection of birtherism to racism should not be blown out of proportion. Not all Orange County Republicans are racist. Let us go further and say not all birthers are racist. All that being granted, the irrational birther movement owes much to racism. That much is established by the Orange County Republican Party official’s email.

This is Palm Sunday. Christian churches begin the most holy week of the church year by stripping the liturgy of the lesser Gloria and responses. The Lenten liturgical austerity bespeaks a heightened emphasis on repentance.

This is the 150^th anniversary year of the beginning of the Civil War. When the war ended, the life of President Abraham Lincoln ended on Good Friday, April 15, 1865.

Now, we have our first African American president. Love him or hate him, he is the President and Christians are admonished by the Apostolic Scriptures to pray for those who rule over them.

The confluence of things suggests a time for conservative Christians to examine their hearts. It is a time to denounce what is false and rejoice in what is true, but most of all, to know the difference.
_______________
Monday April 18, 2011


When I wrote this the Arizona legislature had passed a bill requiring Mr. Obama and all other candidates to provide proof of their birth as United States citizens. I should have waited before making the broad judgement above.


This just in from AP:

[Governor] Brewer said in her veto letter that she was troubled that the bill empowered Arizona's secretary of state to judge the qualifications of all candidates when they file to run for office.

"I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions," said Brewer, who was secretary of state until she became governor in 2009.

"In addition, I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their 'early baptismal circumcision certificates' among other records to the Arizona secretary of state," she said. "This is a bridge too far."

The certificates are among the documents a candidate could submit in place of a birth certificate. 


So, two cheers for Arizona. Their governor has pulled the state back from the brink. On the other hand, the reported details of the bill raise serious questions about their lawmakers. Nevertheless, two hearty cheers for Arizona.

Rule of Law

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein goes against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in saying Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has made a legitimate appointment to the US Senate. – Fox News, Web Headline.

It is a new year with a new president and a new Congress. With the new comes the strange. Strange for me is agreeing with a radically liberal senator from – of all places – California.

You know the story. Indicted Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has made his selection for the senatorial seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama. Governor Blagojevich's chances of beating the rap of trying to sell this Senate seat are nil. In addition, he has a potty mouth which has made him the butt of late night humor.

Nevertheless, the fact is that as Mr. Blagojevich is the governor, indicted, but innocent until proven guilty, state law empowers him to make this appointment to the Senate. In addition, there have been no allegations against his appointee.

So where is the rule of law in denying Roland Burris a seat in the Senate?

The appointment was tainted? By what? A foul-mouthed governor? Sad to say, but many of our elected officials suffer from a lack of vocabulary in their private speech. This does not rise to a point of law, in my humble opinion.

Unless there is some evidence that Mr. Burris himself was involved in the federal accusations against Governor Blagojevich, the Senate of the United States of America, the greatest deliberative body in the world, is guilty of an unconstitutional hissy fit.

As a white guy living in Wisconsin, I have no dog in this fight. There is this concern. After eight years of the administration under Mr. Bush playing fast and loose with the Constitution, this first act under a new regime does not bode well.

Senator Feinstein is right – I still cannot believe I am writing this – Mr. Burris should be seated.