It’s easy for Republicans to get angry with Barack Obama over his latest usurpation of congressional authority with his unconscionable and unconstitutional decision to stop deporting most illegal immigrant students and young adults.
For years, even the administration has admitted it didn’t have the power to make such a move. Miraculously, in a presidential election year, Obama has suddenly discovered he has the “discretion” to make such an order.
But that’s what we should expect from Obama. He told us he wanted to “fundamentally transform” America, a constitutional republic based on the rule of law and the will of the people, and he has done his best to do that during his term in office.
What is less expected – and should not be tolerated by Republicans and their nominee to challenge Obama in November – is the reaction of Sen. Marco Rubio, widely considered a top candidate for the GOP vice presidential selection.
Rubio called the decision “welcome news many of these kids desperate for an answer, but it is a short term answer to a long term problem.” He did add this: “And by once again ignoring the Constitution and going around Congress, this short term policy will make it harder to find a balanced and responsible long term one.”
But, as the Atlantic magazine offered in a headline response to Obama’s decision, “Want to thank someone for Obama’s immigration move? Thank Marco Rubio.”
It was two months ago that Rubio floated what the magazine called “a watered-down version of the so-called DREAM Act – and the administration this morning essentially made it the law of the land (at least temporarily.”
I don’t know how to state this any more bluntly, but any idea of nominating Marco Rubio as a vice presidential candidate this year or any year should be scratched. He will represent a major liability to solidifying the Republican base in a year that requires it to defeat Obama’s billion-dollar campaign for re-election. Even putting aside his very real constitutional eligibility problem, Rubio has demonstrated he is out of touch with his own party.
What Obama did is another lawless attack on the republic. He did another end-run around the legislative branch of government – the only branch that has constitutional authority to make laws. It’s a tyrannical attack on everything America stands for.
Beyond that, it is the kind of shameless political pandering to special-interest groups that divides the nation – one of Obama’s specialties.
Obama proposed the DREAM Act. It failed. So he has attempted to enact it by presidential fiat. If the Republican House had any guts, it would move for immediate impeachment, putting aside the reality that the Democratic Senate would never convict. Republicans have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution and hold traitors to it accountable for their attacks on it.
The executive branch of government cannot make law. It cannot change law. Its sole responsibility is to enforce law.
This is hardly the first time the Obama administration has done the opposite.
When the administration announced its decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton a few years ago, he demonstrated his willingness to defy his oath of office. And that’s just what he has done again.
I like what Charles Krauthammer had to say about this: “I think this is not how you run a constitutional republic. This ought to be in the hands of Congress, and it is an end-run. And what’s ironic of course is for eight years, the Democrats have been screaming about the imperial presidency with the Bush administration – the nonsense about the unitary executive. This is out-and-out lawlessness.”
But this is what you get when you elect someone who thinks the Constitution is an archaic document, one that needs to be re-imagined by someone enlightened like Barack Obama.
The last thing we need in this election year, however, is a choice between a constitutionally illegitimate ticket that will do whatever is necessary to destroy the country and another constitutionally illegitimate ticket that will destroy the country under the guise of doing it by the book.
That’s why Rubio, someone I previously thought of as a promising young senator, should be dropped from consideration for the vice presidency – now and forever.
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