The Three Great Lies

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” “The check is in the mail.” “The President really looks forward to working with Congress.” The third of the three great lies was mouthed by Jay Carney, President Obama’s press secretary and full-time sockpuppet. It's hard to see how The One plans to work with Congress since his executive/bureaucratic administration has largely ignored Congress (or at least about half of Congress).

Carney spoke the words at the weekly press conference, the day after Obama made four highly-questionable recess appointments—three to the National Labor Relations Board and one to the newly-created Dodd-Frank Consumer Financial Protection Board. Those appointments may or may not be valid, but they are clearly an exercise in derogation of Congressional privilege.

After saying “the fact is, the President firmly believes he has the constitutional authority to do so,” Carney offered a diametrically opposite theory of why the President proceeded with the appointments. “It’s not about whether Congress is in session. What it’s really about is the absolute urgency to install Richard Cordray as our consumer watchdog so that he can get to work today protecting the middle class.” This isn’t only about Republicans. The Senate that soundly rejected Cordray (and one of the three NLRB appointees) is still controlled by Democrats.

Well, in this instance, it is all about whether the Senate is in session. The President “firmly believes” a lot of things which are completely wrong—historically, constitutionally, legally, economically, factually, and politically. But in this case, Carney should have stuck to defense number one. There are respected authorities who argue that Congress is not in session, and the appointments are valid. I’m not one of them, but the problem here is that Carney has announced the President’s desire “to work with Congress” while at the same time challenging Congress on its own rules. That doesn’t sound like cooperation to me. Forget the anger and acrimony over the appointments for a moment, and consider how much Obama has any intention of cooperating.

For Obama, “working with” is a synonym for “taking potshots at.” As of this writing, only one Democratic Senator has formally announced that he believes the appointments are valid and that the Senate is in recess. All other Democrats who talked about the issue at all merely praised the appointments and scrupulously avoided discussing the issue of the Senate being in pro forma session. Senate Republicans had sent a formal letter to the President in December, signed by forty-seven of the Senators, requesting that the appointments not be made during a recess. Obama ignored them, and as a result the Senate did not consent to a recess, and the House went on vacation without the required consent of the Senate (Article I, Section 5 of the US Constitution).

But to make sure, the Senate avoided the three-day (or five-day) recess rule (depending on which expert you listen to) by staying in pro forma session. In his last exhibition of cooperation prior to his announcement of further cooperation (yeah, I know), the President spat in the face of the Senate. Right or wrong, the majority or near-majority of Senators believed that the pro forma session was sufficient to fend off recess appointments. Even if the President was right, which may have to be determined by the Supreme Court, the appointment of four highly-partisan and generally unpopular bureaucrats is anything but a demonstration of cooperation with Congress.

All tyrants and wannabe tyrants are in a hurry because they believe that they alone know what’s best for their nations, and waiting for any other branch of government to act is simply not acceptable. Some, like Hitler, simply declared the basic law null and void and ruled by fiat. Others, like Middle East potentates and clerics either write the basic law to suit themselves, or exercise a stranglehold on the legislatures which are charged with writing the nation’s laws. Obama hasn’t reached that point, but he’s on the path.

This President has chosen a course that is questionably constitutional, bootstrapping on the incremental power-grabs known as executive orders and recess appointments. He is not the first, but an alarming number of his executive orders seem to be aimed directly at seizing power from Congress. If Obama succeeds with these four appointments, he will have added a new chapter to executive power by establishing that Congress is not the branch which exercises power over its own rules and procedures.

Previous Presidents have acted by executive order, as well as weakening Congressional legislation with “signing statements.” Previous Presidents have made recess appointments. Then-Senator Obama somehow has changed his views on the subject since becoming President because he had opposed George W. Bush’s recess appointment of John Bolton as UN ambassador on the ground that presidents shouldn’t recess-appoint “unpopular” people whom the Senate had already rejected.

So back to the original theme. Big battles inside and between the various branches of government are not unusual and can be annoying or uplifting, depending on the subject matter of the quarrel. Even power-grabs can be politically-expedient if the president chooses to defy Congress by ignoring its own self-imposed rules. But don’t call it cooperation. Man up. Tell the truth. Don’t hide behind your questionable interpretation of the Constitution. If Obama truly “looks forward to working with Congress, these odd recess appointments are a strange way of showing it.

"Congress should do this, right away" is quickly becoming "Congress will do this right away, or else."