‘Obstruction’ for Me, but Not for Thee
In an October, 2013 response to a common age-old political phenomenon he characterized as “Republican obstruction,” then-President Barack Obama said, “You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it. Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That’s not being faithful to what this country’s about.”
Republicans took Obama’s advice.
In the 2014 mid-term elections, Republicans captured the Senate for the first time in eight years, increased their House majority, and swept Democrats out of state legislatures across America.
Suddenly, “not being faithful to what this country’s about” became fashionable – again.
Then, in 2016, despite Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability,” Donald Trump won the presidency following which Democrats worked diligently to “break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.”
Ironic, huh?
In a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s TV show, conservative journalist Mary Katharine Ham had an exchange with liberal podcaster Sam Harris over Democrats’ double standards and hypocrisy.
Convinced that defeating Trump was paramount, in an August podcast, Harris excused the conspiracy to suppress revelations of Hunter Biden’s laptop to help Joe Biden win: “I think it was warranted. Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared.”
On Maher’s show, Harris addressed former President Trump’s “abnormality,” saying, “…we have never had a person like Trump in our politics, certainly not in the lifetime of anyone in this studio, and he has violated, …has shattered every norm. We didn’t even know how much we relied on norms. We are a nation of laws, but more important than the laws are the norms.”
Ms. Ham replied, “I agree with you about…norms, and here’s the problem. A bunch of people, including in the justice system, looked at Trump and said, ‘He’s going to bust all the norms, and you know what we need to do? Bust all the norms to stop him!’”
Sadly, the problem of placing left-wingers’ view of “norms” above the rule of law as an excuse to weaponize government agencies and target political opponents hasn’t been limited to the FBI/justice system.
In 2011, the Internal Revenue Service illegally targeted conservative organizations, delaying or denying them tax-exempt status until they could no longer effectively oppose Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection.
Then, during Trump’s candidacy and presidency, Democrats turned violating norms into an art form, starting with unfounded, Clinton campaign-funded, media-amplified allegations of “Russia collusion.”
In November, 2020, Victor Davis Hansen observed, pre-inauguration: “Trump, in their view, violated all rules of polite behavior, of presidential comportment, of beltway protocols. So [Democrats] felt no compunction in revealing their own low methods of opposing him on their own theory that only scoundrels might ferret out other alleged scoundrels.”
Under constitutional law, the Executive Branch workforce in all federal agencies, including intelligence, law enforcement and the military, are supposed to be apolitical, responsible to the elected president regardless of party affiliation. But, ignoring that they report to the president and work for the people even during a Trump presidency, unelected, embedded, career civil “servants” often sought to obstruct the president and impose their own policy agendas.
Many (most?) federal employees and all of their organizations – the administrative or “deep” state – opposed Trump administration initiatives, delayed or obstructed administration policies, while engaging in pro-Democrat political activities, including awarding Democrats a massive advantage in campaign contributions.
During Trump’s presidency, Pentagon officials misled, ignored orders from and/or substituted their own priorities over the constitutional authority of their Commander-in-Chief.
In office, Trump conducted a vigorous public counterassault that exposed and discredited the vicious opposition from America’s administrative state, biased corporate media (“fake news”), and bicoastal “elites,” Democrats and Republicans alike.
Trump issued an Executive Order (Schedule F) creating a new class of federal employees with limited hiring restrictions as a way to “drain the swamp” that, upon assuming office, was quickly rescinded by President(ish) Joe Biden, a self-serving, self-aggrandizing swamp careerist who enriched himself and his family there.
More Hansen: “Hating Donald Trump in the hater’s eyes makes one moral. But in the real world, such pathological fixations usually result in abject immorality and moral decline, as the hater becomes far worse than what he hates.”
No truer words…
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2023/10/09/jerry-shenk-obstruction-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
