While Republicans and Tea Partiers consistently come under fire for their supposedly scaremongering, inciteful rhetoric ("Ponzi scheme" springs to mind of late, despite its fundamental accuracy), President Obama sometimes goes off on a particular tangent that I find much more troubling. According to the Washington Examiner, President Obama essentially told his supporters that he sometimes finds himself wishing he was a king. Or a wizard. Or something.
President Obama told a Hispanic group in Washington Wednesday that when it comes to the issue of immigration, "I'd like to work my way around Congress."
"As I mentioned when I was at La Raza a few weeks back, I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own," Obama told a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "There are times where -- until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again -- I'd like to work my way around Congress." [emphasis mine]
Now, I don't want to exhibit the same overly-offendable nitpickiness I accuse liberals of when they take umbrage with conservatives' 'radical language.' The President is allowed to speak off-the-cuff and voice his frustrations over his inability to wholesale his political agenda, but I think his words here reflect a frighteningly flippant attitude towards both the Constitution and our legislative process. I mean, yeah, Mr. President, I'm sure it would be nice for you to declare yourself Supreme Emperor of the Universe and watch your academic, utopian visions of grandeur fail spectacularly due to nobody's fault but your own, but the fact is, our system works the way it does for several reasons, and good reasons at that. They're called "checks and balances."
The President did go on to acknowledge that "We live in a democracy, and at the end of the day, I can't do this all by myself under our democratic system," but the thing is, it isn't for lack of trying. The President has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to circumvent Congress on immigration, using an executive order to implement parts the DREAM Act after Congress voted it down. Perhaps the Constitution didn't figure too largely in the Constitutional Law class at Harvard, but speeches like his show something less than respect for our sacred founding document, and raise the question of how far the President is willing to take his own power.