I would like to apologize to the citizens and constitutional government of the Republic of Honduras for the actions of the Obama administration. Apparently the open hand will only be extended to those who clench their fists in rage at America.
I would also like to take this opportunity to extend the middle finger of non-friendship to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. May you soon water the tree of liberty.
{ 41 comments }
Well, thankfully, Honduras government appears to be stocked – in more than one branch – with actual freedom loving patriots that will have none of Zelaya’s BS. Which, sadly, is far more than you can say for this country.
How pathetic is it when a poor, third world, backwater country makes the most powerful nation in the world look like fools ?
So, in the year 2009 we have a situation where a freedom loving country desperately trying to maintain their democratic ideals in the face of a potential move into despotism, is having to defy the United States of America to do so.
As much as I have been dismayed and angered by the Obama administration’s actions in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and even with our longest and best allies, the actions they have taken in Honduras truly have convinced me that Obama is not simply ignorant and naive when it comes to tyranny, he truly is sympathetic to tyranny. In a clear and compelling choice between democratic ideals and the people of an entire nation, and an obvious grab for despotic power, Obama has openly and decisively sided with the despots.
What this means for our own country is something we will all likely find out. One thing it means is that this nation can no longer call itself a “beacon of hope for liberty.” Those days are gone as long as this man remains in the White House.
I am far more concerned about things like this than I am about some mid-high level administration official is a Twoofer. And I think the rest of us should be as well.
Sure Dean, I would be too, if these two things were entirely unrelated events instead of BOTH of them demonstrating a commitment to the same fundamental ideological perspective. Some of us don’t see the Honduras reaction and the elevation of a barking moonbat communist sympathizer (at least) to high office as two different and unrelated things, you know.
Yeah, really disappointed with Obama administration on this important issue.
–HB
Really, Dean ? Mid level official ? If not for the fact that he likely wouldn’t be confirmed in a bazillion years, not the least of which is his BASIS for being a 9/11 truther, this guy would likely be Secretary of maybe Commerce or Labor. Although, if you lumped Treasury, Commerce, and Labor together into a pseudo Secretary of the Economy, THAT is likely where Obama would have put him.
But, certainly, mid level. Much like Geitner is mid level.
And lets put the simple dismissal of him as a “Twoofer” to rest here. Nice that name calling as it is in this case, is the call sign of no interest in debate. It’s not simply the fact that someone is a supporter of the the 9/11 Truther movement that makes them scary, its more about delving into what 9/11 truther stand for and what they believe in. And what else they believe in that springs forth from what makes them embrace 9/11 Truthers.
You see, I guarantee if you sat this guy in front of Congress and let them go through a confirmation process his views would become crystal clear as he explained himself about 9/11 Truth or Mumia or STORM or any number of things he has said and done.
Its not trivial, Dean.
Mid-level?
In my experience Mid-levelers in an organization rarely (read = never) have direct access and influence on the CEO.
He’s a top-level adviser and has direct access to the President’s ear.
And when did we let the system of checks-and-balances that our system so desperately depends on for stability to be overturned in such a blatant way. Czars should be subject to Congressional oversight just like any position.
I, and Glen Beck, agree with Robert Byrd; but I guess since it’s Beck who agrees with this then it’s just crazy-talk.
I never thought I’d be in agreement with an ex grand wizard of the KKK, but in this case, I agree with Byrd. This whole “czar” nonsense needs to be stopped, or else they need to be put through the same approval process as cabinet members.
How about even crafting legislation that calls for remaking the structure of the various government agencies Obama is assigning these people to ? At least then Congress would get to vote yay or nay, thus enforcing the original checks and balances approach the founders intended.
And I would say this especially applies in this case since it seems clear that Jones influence is intended to stretch across multiple agencies – Treasury, Commerce, and Labor.
CC,
I think he only made it to “Exalted Cyclops” or something.
Byrd was never close to a Grand Wizard. He was a very low-level functionary called a Kleagle, whose basic job was to greet people at the door, make coffee, and talk people into becoming members of a local branch. Eventually, he made it up to head of that local branch. That was all over 60 years ago, and he’s been apologizing for it his entire life. I think at some point it just becomes mean to keep throwing it at the man.
I also agree that the whole “czar” thing is nonsense. It’s just another of the many pernicious things the insane Drug War gave us. Now the title proliferates everywhere, but in the end it looks to me like all they wind up doing is confusing things and diluting power.
Oh, and, I believe I said mid-high level. Washington isn’t corporate America, but even in corporate America these things aren’t all that written in stone.
A “Czar”–and we have a ton of “czars” these days–is not at the same level as a cabinet position. Thus it’s not top level. But it’s not bottom either. Yes, a Czar will tend to have the President’s ear–for a few minutes every now and then. Usually that’s going to involve briefings where the President listens, asks a few questions, then gives some orders. Then the Czar goes off and tries to get the people with actual power to allow him to coordinate their efforts.
Power-wise, the position appears to generally be somewhat below the head of the FBI or CIA, somewhere around an undersecretary’s level.
I’ve only brought up the Robert Byrd KKK thing twice: once when the whole trent lott/strom thurmond idiocy exploded on the left (I was talking to two female graduate students and they actually said “The GOP is the party of the KKK” so I said “Well, there is only one former KKK member in the Congress” and when I told them Byrd they didn’t believe me); 2 When the whole “Bush’s Grandpa was a Nazi” business erupted (as if that proved Bush was a Nazi).
And so what if the Czar only has the President’s ear for a few minutes a week; he has it. This practice needs to be reigned in; either by discontinuing the practice or with some sort of Congressional oversight. The people need to know who is giving the President advice and what sort of advice is it; and we need a say.
Anyhow, back to the topic of the post (Honduras/Obama/Cuba). Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to sheer, unadulteratedincompetence.
Dave, and for that matter CC as well:
Damned straight. If I ever felt the need to apologize for the actions or words of my President and my Government, this is it.
True colors show through. Simple as that.
I hate to say it… but I warned you.
(Note, not any specific “you” but a collective “you” when I warned that Obama’s associations with radical leftists was a harbringer of his actual administration’s actions.)
Oh, on the Robert Byrd KKK thing. I’ll bring it up all the dang time. I have no problem reminding people that the KKK and the Democrat party were virtually one and the same when I was a kid in Louisiana.
What’s this crap about “I would like to apologize”, Dave? Are you some kind of altruist who just can’t live without the approval of others, including hundreds of millions of others whom you never have met and never will meet?
I didn’t recall Dave Price either being elected US president or even getting an Obama cabinet appointment.
So who are you to apologize for someone’s stupid foreign policy maneuvers?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
At least then Congress would get to vote yay or nay, thus enforcing the original checks and balances approach the founders intended.
And so what if the Czar only has the President’s ear for a few minutes a week; he has it. This practice needs to be reigned in; either by discontinuing the practice or with some sort of Congressional oversight. The people need to know who is giving the President advice and what sort of advice is it; and we need a say.
Not only is this difficult to enforce (Congress approving who the President can get advice from) but it is the exact antithesis of the checks and balances the FF’s envisioned. The Excutive branch doesn’t work for the Legislative branch. They are either co-equal, or the C+B’s disappear.
Just because some folks here don’t like the current head of the Executive branch isn’t a rational reason to subvert the C+B’s envisioned by the FF’s.
RogerR: You can interpret the FF’s intentions however you like. I think the fact that the Constitution calls for confirmations from the Senate of Cabinet Secretaries and SCOTUS Justices sort of speaks for itself. It is your interpretation which I believe is faulty. Obama did not create the “Czar” thing in the Executive branch, but I’ve opposed that practice from the beginning. Just as I opposed allowing the (unelected and unconfirmed) spouse of the President draft and lead a major economy-impacting policy initiative when Clinton was President.
I’m quite comfortable that I can divine the intentions of the founding fathers myself, and frankly I’m quite willing to say my interpretation is more accurate than yours.
CC:
It wasn’t I who brought those long dead white men into the discussion.
Let’s look at what the Constitution says:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Even the FF’s, dealing with the size of govt in the late 1700′s realized that it probably made little sense to have all govt officials approved by Congress. And Presidential advisors aren’t really officers of the govt.
Read what Lyons said, and now tell me how we should have applied that to Karl Rove’s position in the Bush Administration. He wasn’t approved by Congress. He had much more influence than anybody with the possible exception of the VP. You would never hear me saying that the President isn’t entitled to appoint his own advisors.
Do you disagree?
RogerR: I don’t care whether the President appoints “advisers” with wild abandon.
I care when those “advisers” are given executive authority to run parts of the executive branch of government and become de facto Cabinet Secretaries. If all they did was “advise” I’d probably be OK, but these Czars have staffs and issue edicts that are treated as law.
Although I will grant that there is definitely some gray area here and you could argue both sides of this one. It would be interesting to see what the SCOTUS would say about it.
Karl Rove had staff as well. As for your claim that the Czars “issue edicts that are treated as law”, I don’t think that is correct.
You’ll have to give me some kind of objective verification of that.
I think their power lies in their ability to convince the President and his Cabinet, or the Congress. I don’t think the Czars have any statutory authority.
Roger, its very simple. When the President manufactures executive positions and supplies them with budgets of $30 Billion, he is creating positions on par with someone in the cabinet. Nobody is saying ALL executive hires need to be confirmed by Congress, but cabinet level positions DO. I would argue that Green Jobs Czar is exactly that.
The ironic thing is that people like to reference other “czars” as making this okey dokey. The original, I believe is the “Drug Czar”. Guess what – that position is confirmed by the Senate
Obama Drug Czar Confirmation Hearings
Obama wants 30 new czars ? Fine. Send them through the Senate, too. You really think Van Jones would have made it through a confirmation hearing ? Not a chance.
And BTW, Roger, in case you missed it, every penny spent by the executive branch is subject to budget oversight (read approval) by Congress.
Okay, I have to chime in here…
RogerR said: “…tell me how we should have applied that to Karl Rove’s position in the Bush Administration. He wasn’t approved by Congress. “
Here is the relevant section of the Constitution: [Quoted from RogerR's own post above.]
“… but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Karl Rove was George Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff. The positions of Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff were both established by congress in 1946 under Democrat president Harry Truman. (Back then, the title of the position was called “Assistant to the President of the United States”. It was changed to “Chief of Staff” in 1961.)
In other words, Constitutionally, Karl Rove’s position *was* approved by congress.
In other words, Constitutionally, Karl Rove’s position *was* approved by congress.
Thanks for clarification, but I’m not sure you understood the dispute.
First was the assertion that the job Jones held was NOT an inferior officer. But clearly he was inferior to the Chief of Staff, who, according to the logic of your post, was considered an inferior officer, or not an officer at all. Otherwise, the 1946 law would be unconstitutional.
Secondly, folks were saying it violated the C+B’s not to have Congressional approval of Presidential advisors. But clearly that conflicts with the 1946 law.
But there is nothing to keep the Congress from establishing a Green Czar position and requiring Congressional approval. But they can’t demand to have approval over all who the President wishes to consult with, because that violates the Separation of Powers, IMHO.
RogerR:
I think you and I clearly have different ideas about the separation of powers and how it applies.
I think this would be a very interesting case to put before the SCOTUS.
My impression of the Checks and Balances is that if it were to “tilt” a little in Congress’s favor then that was preferable to it tilting in the President’s favor. The “FFs” (or at least most of them. It’s always precarious to say “The FFs believed X”. They weren’t uniform in belief) were notoriously cautious about having so much power invested in one man.
Mike: That’s about how I see it too. Between the Congress, the Courts and the Presidency, I believe that the majority of the founding fathers were more concerned about the President tilting the balance in his favor than the other two branches.
However, to be completely fair (and I said there were debatable gray areas here) I think that the vast majority of the founding fathers would find our modern interpretation of all three branches to be nigh incomprehensible. The idea that the SCOTUS would be making up law around things like abortion would probably strike them as the government having run aground on the rocks of absurdity.
I guess I’m more in the Scalia camp on this. For the office of the Presidency to be a co-equal branch, he must be able to get confidential advice from his chosen advisors. That’s crucial to the Separation of Powers. Otherwise, he becomes something of a Country Manager working for Congress.
COunt me among the camp that finds czars unthreatening – mainly because they do lack authority to actually dictate. However, i also like the idea of making them subject to congressional confirmation. this owuld reign in the tendency to appoint them willy nilly.
the way i have seen czars so far operate is that they are interdisciplinary actors. most govt depts are so vast that coordination of resources between them in impossible – even if they are wiling. what a czar does is deal with a specific policy objective: “reduce drugs from south america” or “increase incentives for green job creation” and then they (and their staff, which is necessary to do teh legwork) go out and identify what resources aross the govt exist to do the job. They then go talk to the president (they might get 30min of the presidents time once every couple of weeks at best) and make their case in a report. if the president signs off on it, then that report goes to cabinet heads who will then actually mobilize the resources accordingly.
I think all of this is great – but the problem I have with it is that the appointment of a czar is sometimes a bandaid. “hey look we are making progress” kind of thing, even though in practice the actual policy goal the czar is tasked with may not be feasible, or may simply be too unrealistic. but by appointment of a czar there exists the perception of progress.
Also theres the simply issue of task overload. The departments of govt have enough to do and not enough funds as it is. Czars roll into town functioning effectively as “unfunded mandates” whose needs then impinge on other areas and can be a distraction.
by forcing congressional oversight of czars, then the President will have to 1. make sure he does find people who are better vetted and more qualified (a constraint that both Republican and Democrat presidents alike can benefit from) and 2. will have to choose his policy priorities more carefully, ensuring that the resources the czar needs to draw upon are actually available and the cabinet departments are not being stretched too thin.
If the president wants to avoid congressional oversight, then he shoudl appoint czars who are specifically and explicitly limited to operating under a specific government department and whose immediate supervisor is the relevant Cabinet head. The czar can still report to the president directly but they have to work within that departments’ existing structure.
Alternatively, a czar may be a purely advisory position, able to look at resources across departments n order to solve specific policy objectives, but whose final recommendations are only a report. The actual task of implementing the objective would then fall to the departments, who can create an inter-departmental task force to carry out the policy, and the czar can sit on that task force along with personnel from each department (including the cabinet secretaries). This advisory type of czar would also not need congressional confirmation.
Actually, there’s nothing either in the Constitution of the United States, the United States Code, nor even in Arnold Harris’s rules of common sense, that preclude President Barack Hussein Obama from googling up a certain phone number in Madison, Wisconsin, then getting on the telephone and an areacode 608 number, and if he founds you at home, saying:
“Aziz, I’ve read your stuff online and you sound like an intelligent sort of guy. So tell me what you think about xxxxxx, yyyyy and maybe even zzzzz. (Rahm, get off the extension line so I can talk in private with Mr Poonawalla.” )
That would indeed make you about as much a presidential advisor as has ever lived. No senatorial confirmation needed. And don’t try telling me that more than one US president hasn’t done something pretty much like that.
As I’m more or crudely reminding you, there is no constitutional provision that dictates from whom any elected official in this country will get advice and listen to it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
MORRISON v. OLSON, 487 U.S. 654 (1988)
JUSTICE SCALIA, dissenting.
It is the proud boast of our democracy that we have “a government of laws and not of men.” Many Americans are familiar with that phrase; not many know its derivation. It comes from Part the First, Article XXX, of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which reads in full as follows:
“In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”
The Framers of the Federal Constitution similarly viewed the principle of separation of powers as the absolutely central guarantee of a just Government. In No. 47 of The Federalist, Madison wrote that “[n]o political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty.” The Federalist No. 47, p. 301 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (hereinafter Federalist). Without a secure structure of separated powers, our Bill of Rights would be worthless, as are the bills of rights of many nations of the world that have adopted, or even improved upon, the mere words of ours.
“But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. . . . As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified.” Id., at 322-323.
In case anybody out there hasn’t read Scalia’s dissent in this case, it is worth the read.
And, despite Aziz’s assertion that Congressional oversight will produce more qualified office holder, I doubt that Scalia could be confirmed today by a Democratic Senate.
RogerR: You continue to assert that the role of one of these Czars is somehow merely an advisory role. People have multiple times said “Fine, get advice from whomever you want.”
This is not about “advisers” no matter how much you want to pretend it is. It’s about creating pseudo cabinet level positions without any sort of oversight or review. Scalia’s quote above does not apply to the creation of pseudo cabinet level positions. It applies to the general concept of the separation of powers. Find a quote from Scalia about the constitutionality of czars if you can. Why you think a case about the attempt to subpoena documents from the executive branch applies to the creation of pseudo czars is a mystery to me and I am sure Scalia would be just as mystified by how you are attempting to apply his words from one situation to a totally different situation.
Also, I could not imagine a more damning and compelling example of the vicious partisan nature of today’s Democrat party than your assertion that Scalia could not get confirmed by a Democrat Senate today. You are probably right, and that goes a long way to explaining why this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
There’s a croatian folk saying that the fish stinks from its head and not from its tail.
Applied to the current administration, the fish tail that seemed to stink was one of a few dozen so-called czars, most of whom the american public have never heard of, and nearly all of whom accomplish little or nothing in managing our government.
The fish head in this case is always the president. And this one sure as hell stinks. You will all have your chance to wrap us this particular fish and put it outside in the garbage can. But not until more than three years from now. Meantime, just open the kitchen windows, and use plenty of Air Wick, if they sell some political version of that stuff.
But just sitting there bitching about it will get you nowhere.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold:
I beg to differ. The “sitting here bitching” that is going on here and in town hall meetings across the country has all but halted Obama’s lurching to the left as congressional representatives are realizing that the American people did not ask for, and do not expect, Obama to reshape this nation in a collectivist image.
I say the opposite. KEEP IT UP!!!! IT’S WORKING!!!!
I agree with CC. We have to keep it up. It’s working.
Yes, we can’t do anything about Obama for three more years, but we can do a lot to stop his plans in their place.
Obamacare has been stopped in its tracks, Van Jones has been forced out of the White House…
All because people were “bitching.”
The voice of the people isn’t heard only once every four years in November.
Arnold (and others here): You cannot possibly understand how happy I am that the internet (Al Gore’s creation, remember? :) ) has allowed the people of this nation to thwart the wrongheaded collectivist actions of Barack Obama in a world where the mainstream media is so far in Obama’s pocket that the New York Times had not written a single word on the Van Jones controversy until he submitted his resignation.
I wonder how many people comprehend what this means. Among other things it means the MSM has completely lost control of the narrative, and their obvious attempts to prop up Democrats and Leftists has been plainly exposed for anyone to see.
It is the height of journalistic unethical conduct for the NY Times to have ignored this story until now. For those (few) people who still consider the NY Times to be the “Newspaper of Record” you have to wonder what they think of a situation where the NY Times is JUST NOW reporting on a controversy that raged hot enough that it took down a high-ranking member of Obama’s administration.
And this isn’t the first time either.
The Gray Lady is a dead lady walking.
And I couldn’t be happier.
MikeLyons says:
My impression of the Checks and Balances is that if it were to “tilt” a little in Congress’s favor then that was preferable to it tilting in the President’s favor.
CC says:
Mike: That’s about how I see it too. Between the Congress, the Courts and the Presidency, I believe that the majority of the founding fathers were more concerned about the President tilting the balance in his favor than the other two branches.
Scalia says:
“But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. . . . As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified.” Id., at 322-323.
Sorry that I’m trying to engage people in thoughtful discussions, when they really only want to call people names and assert positions without arguments.
As far as czars and the Constitution, the word czar in these discussions is empty of any useful content. Hence it isn’t Constitutionally relevant.
Also, I could not imagine a more damning and compelling example of the vicious partisan nature of today’s Democrat party than your assertion that Scalia could not get confirmed by a Democrat Senate today. You are probably right, and that goes a long way to explaining why this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
Contrasted with
KEEP IT UP!!!! IT’S WORKING!!!!
If it’s only one side, that is quickly punished in our political system. That doesn’t seem to be happening. You are apparently too much of a partisan to recognize that you’ve condemned your own actions.
RogerR: I’m not surprised that you are upset that Republicans and Conservatives have discovered how to effectively combat your goals using your own tactics and techniques against you.
It’s not coincidence that Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is climbing up the charts. Conservatives, who have avoided such tactics for generations while leftists have used them against us have finally decided “Well, they set the ground rules, we’ll just have to play by them.”
If you’re in a street fight and your opponent picks up a stick, you’re just a fool if you don’t pick one up too. Conservatives have been polite, naive fools for too long. That is now changing.
On your Scalia quote, I guess if I wanted to smugly pretend to be “engaging in thoughtful discussion” I could go find some random quotation and put it in italics, supposing the my opponents wouldn’t actually, you know, go RESEARCH the quote to find out if it is relevant or not. But I don’t do that, when I put a quote in a debate, it actually is RELEVANT to the debate, not some random quotation that I think might make me resemble something like a scholar.
As I said, find a Scalia quote about the constitutionality of czars if you want to pretend to be “engaging in thoughtful discussion.” When you take a quote from Scalia about subpoenaing documents from one branch to the other out of context, I will “engage in thoughtful discussion” and call you out on it.
I’m not surprised that you are upset that . . .
Of course you aren’t surprised by a factoid that is the product of your own imagination. I’m not upset, more bemused.
And I wasn’t “smugly pretending”, but more “smugly hoping to be engaging in thoughtful discussion” . But that requires at least two parties, and I now understand that it is no longer part of the Conservative playbook.
Good luck with that new strategy. I’m sure that’s all you folks will need to prevail.
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