Are We About to See What Obama Can Do When He Doesn’t Give a Damn?

Ah, to be unencumbered by
worries or responsibilities. It’s that feeling of open horizons
known by twenty-somethings with an apartment and a first paycheck,
by healthy retirees with topped-off 401Ks—and by second-term
presidents who have stopped giving a shit about their own political
party’s prospects. In an era of expanding executive power,
President Obama looks like a guy contemplating a world of
interesting possibilities. Even his fellow Democrats seem a bit
jittery about just what the man in the Oval Office has in mind.

Timothy Cama at The Hill
writes, “President Obama’s election-year plan to win a new
international climate change accord is making vulnerable Democrats
nervous.”

So why don’t they just tell the president that any such deal is
DOA in the Senate? At least until after the election?

Because Coral Davenport at the New York Times suggests
that Obama
plans to bypass Congress entirely.

[U]nder the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally
binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of
the Senate.

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate
negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding”
deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their
emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from
Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the
world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path…

American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement
— a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing
1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal
that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not
require a new vote of ratification.

By…umm…creatively building off an existing treaty, the
president could unilaterally reach for the green-garbed legacy he
covets. He would also confirm the fears of everybody who worries
about executive overreach and probably torpedo the chances of at
least a few Democrats in battleground states where the economic
impact of such a deal would be an issue.

The proposal risks putting donkey party candidates in close
races “in front of the firing squad,” according to a Democratic
strategist quoted by Cama.

But how likely is the unilateral strategy? When asked about such
a Senate-bypassing scheme, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest

coyly answered, “Because that agreement is not written, it’s
not yet clear exactly what sort of role Congress would be required
to play.”

President Obama is likely to follow a similar path on
immigration issues. Karen Tumulty and Robert Costa at the
Washington Post
write:

Both political parties are in a state of high anxiety about the
possibility that President Obama will allow millions of illegal
immigrants to remain in the country, fearing that White House
action on the issue could change the course of November’s midterm
elections.

In the past few days, Democratic candidates in nearly every
closely fought Senate race have criticized the idea of aggressive
action by Obama. Some strategists say privately that it would
signal that he has written off the Democrats’ prospects for
retaining control of the chamber, deciding to focus on securing his
legacy instead.

The White House isn’t even shy on the issue. When asked if Obama
might “think twice about taking executive action on immigration,”
Earnest
answered, “No…the President is determined to act where House
Republicans won’t.”

A minority opinion among political strategists is that such a
move is actually a clever plan to get GOP nativists foaming at the
mouth so they hurt Republican prospects. But as reliably batshit as
some Republicans can be on the immigration issue, Democrats are
certain to suffer, too, from unilateral action on a controversial
issue. And the whole idea of a republic based on limited govement
power takes a hit when one person follows the “Stroke of the pen. Law
of the Land. Kinda cool” approach to ruling a country by
fiat.

Note, too, that the wisdom or lack thereof of a unilateral
presidential action is irrelevant to the dangers of growing
executive power. I would personally agree with some of the
president’s ideas on easing immigration restrictions. But the
problems of a president set free to do as he damned well wishes, on
his own, are problems of concentrated power, no matter how it’s
used.

And President Obama look like he sees a world of interesting
possibilities in using that power.

Below, Frank Buckley discusses the
rise of American elective monarchy.