Executive Order Hypocrisy

The following was uttered by our favorite pundit, Keith Olbermann, echoing John Podesta of Center For American Progress.

“As President Obama calls for more bipartisanship in the ‘post-shellacking era’ of his Presidents, progressives tries to stop the broken record and tries to offer the President some advice: ‘Screw all that. You are the chief executive, you have executive powers, use them,’”

As stated, he was echoing the sentiment of John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff. The Center For American Progress released an agenda outlining how President Obama can circumvent the new Congress through executive orders. It is CAP Suggestions For Executive Orders. 

The following is a partial transcript of an interview Podesta did with Chris Wallace. All of it can be found here Podesta Interview. Highlights and italics are my emphasis

WALLACE: Your transition team has reportedly already identified a number of areas where he could issue executive orders as soon as he takes office to demonstrate — first of all, to solve problems that he thinks needs solving, but also to demonstrate quickly that change has come to Washington.
What's at the top of the list?
PODESTA: Well, I'm not going to preview decisions that he has yet to make. But I would say that as a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed, and decide which ones should be kept, and which ones should be repealed, and which ones should be amended.
And that process is going on. It's been undertaken...
WALLACE: Can you give me an idea of a couple of areas that...
PODESTA: Well, I think across the — I think across the board...
WALLACE: ... could be — like, for instance, stem cell research, he could end the federal restriction on that by executive order, correct?
PODESTA: I think across the board, on stem cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country.
They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they — walking out the door. I think that's a mistake.
But I think that we're looking at — again, in virtually every agency to see where we can move forward, whether that's on energy transformation, on improving health care, on stem cell research.
There's a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we'll see the president do that to try to restore the — a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good, that we're going to try to restore wages, give people the right kind of ways that they can build on their own lives, and when they work hard that they'll be rewarded for it.

John Podesta is at least being consistent. He doesn't have a problem with executive orders, only the executive who's issuing the orders. Olbermann is a different story. His support for this position is brazenly hypocritical. This is from a man who took every conceivable shot at George W Bush for over reaching his authority as President and yet is perfectly willing to Obama reach for the same tool? Can't pass Cap and Trade through Congress like Olby wants? Just have the President order it anyway through the regulatory body of the EPA. Don't like "Don't Ask Don't Tell"? (A law signed by Clinton) Just issue an exec order.

It goes on and on. Don't like the voters kicking 60 odd Democrats to the curb and your majority with it? Just reinvent the regulatory wheel and impose "card check" through the NLRB. Want to redefine the Internet so it is subject to the FCC? Impose "Net Neutrality" with an exec order and regulate the greatest instrument of free speech and expression in human history. After all, the Internet should never be anonymous and transparency is in the greater public interest. There are many more examples that could be cited, but the larger point is the very desire to ignore the outcome of elections and use legalisms to overcome the will of the people.

Many will say that those policies that can be so executed without the Legislative Branch are in the public interest. A rather elitist sentiment. Only someone who feels the voters decided foolishly would absolve themselves from their will as expressed at the ballot box. Obama has had two years to get Cap and Trade through an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress and could not get his own party to pass it. Now that we have a new Republican House, executive orders are in vogue. How about that for bipartisanship? Supporters would say that Republicans are merely obstructing the process, thereby necessitating executive action.Call it what you want, but obstruction is neither wrong or immoral. If the President wants a particular policy enacted and you are in total disagreement, why wouldn't you take all available means to prevent its passage out of personal and political principal? One man's obstruction is another's core conviction.



There is an abundant amount of hypocrisy in American life and politics. Franklin Roosevelt once said about Anastazio Somoza, "He's a son of a bitch, but at least he's our son of a bitch". That sentiment does not work in domestic American politics. If it was wrong for George Bush, then it's wrong for Barack Obama. If, on the other hand FDR's assessment of Somoza is more to your liking by analogy, then by all means do not consider yourself a democrat.