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Gonzales Defends Obama’s Use Of Executive Power

225px-alberto_gonzales_-_official_doj_photographPresident_Barack_ObamaFirst there is the record low polls of his popularity. Then there is the growing independent view that there is no chance that the Democrats can retake the House and that the GOP could not only gain seats in the House but retake the Senate. However, nothing likely prepared President Barack Obama for this. His controversial use of unilateral authority has been defended by . . . former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. You may recall Gonzales who was so vilified for his politicalization of the Justice Department and blind support of executive power that he had a difficult time even landing a job. The Gonzales defense is part of a bizarre new world of Democratic politics. Democratic members of Congress recently lined up to quote Associate Justice Antonin Scalia for his restrictive views on standing — a view that has been used to bar public interest organizations in environmental and civil liberties cases. The Obama Administration now routinely pitches appeals to the four most conservative members of the Supreme Court on presidential powers and the most vocal supporters of the President’s use of virtually unchecked power is coming from former Bush officials. Such is the inversive world in which we live. The Democrats have largely abandoned traditional values tied to civil liberties, war powers, privacy, and other core issues in favor of supporting Obama. The result is that you find yourself left with Alberto Gonzales as your pro bono counsel.

Gonzales wrote his reassuring pat on the back to Obama in USA Today. This is the same Attorney General who defended the expansion of the American über presidency during periods of two wars, unrestrained surveillance, and of course our infamous torture program. One of his fiercest critics (and a critic of unilateral executive actions) was a junior senator from Illinois. Senator Obama denounced Gonzales as someone who saw himself as “the president’s attorney instead of being the people’s attorney” and an attorney general who was not “actually trying to look out for the American people’s interests.”

Now Gonzales is encouraging Obama to forget the naysayers including “[s]ome constitutional scholars” who cited English and early American history, and order sweeping changes affecting millions of undocumented individuals who came to the U.S. illegally.

Gonzales blames Congress for failing “to pass legislation to address these issues before heading home for the August recess.” That failure justifies, according to Gonzales, the President acting alone. Of course, that would be simply resolving the difference with Congress on the President’s terms. While the President says that Congress has failed to act in various areas, the House has passed various bills that have been blocked by the Democratic majority in the Senate. That is perfectly appropriate. However, what the White House really means is that the Congress has not acted as it has demanded. Neither side can agree. Indeed, the country is divided in many of these areas. Such deep divisions result in divisions in Congress. Less gets done. You have to compromise or you have to change the make up in Congress. It is not a license to “go it alone” and become a government onto yourself.

Gonzales is now Dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of Law at Belmont University College of Law. This is perfectly consistent for Gonzales who critics saw one of the most extreme voices for blind executive power and someone who never seemed to meet an executive power that he did not like. Gonzales insists that “courts have generally been inclined to defer to the executive’s discretion in executing the law based upon competing priorities and budgetary constraints. Furthermore, often the courts refuse to even hear cases that present a political question.” However, what has been discussed is the wholesale change in status of potentially millions of people here illegally. Few would argue that such a change is consistent with the original intent of the immigration laws that use mandatory language of deportation. It is also precisely the reform blocked in Congress. Even accepting a historical level of deference in the immigration area (which is undeniable), this would be another case of a massive change ordered without congressional approval. Even if the President could get away with such a change, it is a bad practice that will further magnify the crisis over separation of powers. The Framers were correct in seeing the value of divided government to force the two branches to reach compromise, particularly on major federal changes like the proposed immigration orders.

We have not yet seen the specific changes that Obama is considering ordering on his sole authority. However, most of the proposals have been sweeping and troubling from a separation of powers standpoint.

While Gonzales recognizes that there might be some legitimate objections to such unilateral actions, he warns that we should not allow “the constitutional battlefield [to] become littered with the souls of innocent children. This is not just a classroom exercise or court room drama. This is a real world crisis involving human beings.” That is a strikingly familiar argument from the Bush Administration when constitutional objections over torture or war powers were consistently dismissed as abstractions or blindness to real-world threats and realities. Regardless of the merits, the proposed immigration changes are sweeping and should not be the result of a single person dictating such changes on his sole authority.

The Democrats can certainly criticize some Republicans for conflicting positions in the past but they may appear entirely untethered by core values. The repeated references to Scalia’s views on standing in opposing the House lawsuit was particularly odd. Scalia has long held the most extreme view of standing on the Court — even too extreme for conservative members like Samuel Alito. It is a view that has been used to defeat environmental protections and to block public interest groups from being able to be heard in court. It is now being cited as authority to block an effort by the House to be heard on separation of powers challenges. The Democrats appear to be following the advice from Kautilya’s Arthashastra that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Of course, Kautilya (or Chanakya) would later, according to legend, be betrayed by his friend and burned alive. Not a particularly auspicious strategy with Democratic polls continuing to drop around the country.

Source: USA Today

54 thoughts on “Gonzales Defends Obama’s Use Of Executive Power”

  2. “Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

    Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

    It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.” Frederic Bastiat

  3. The only way we can restrain an imperial president run amuck is through an informed pubic holding him accountable.

  4. Especially Democrats need to raise hell, Republicans should as well!

    The United States is becoming a high-tech banana republic – when Republicans run things they will punish political opponents (not based on law breaking or wrongdoing) and when Democrats control things they will punish Republicans.

    The next leaders like Bush and Cheney will return the favor to Democrats on domestic spying, CoinTelPro (blacklisting) and other abuses. Democrats can’t say anything when they end up on the receiving end of abuses next time.

    Government sponsored punishment of any kind should be based on actual crimes and actual wrong doing based on probable cause that receives constitutional due process – government should never punish anyone for legal freedom of speech and association.

  10. rafflaw
    How did Gonzo become Dean?
    … Elite connections and two sets of laws.

  11. Democans or Republicrats – same turds, different piles.

    Bring back Bull-Moose, heck, just bring back real choice and a true multi-party system.

    Anybody?

  12. RE: Ferguson, MO.

    @ACLU – Here another example of selective outrage. You can tell its election time.

    @ the Mainstream Media – and at the same time, major censorship by the main stream media. Almost all of the “Main Stream Media” articles about this incident are making the statement “they were unarmed teens just walking down the street and the cop shot them.” The fact that the teens were resisting arrest and were both in a scuffle with the cop, trying to get his gun, is strangely missing.

    Hmmm…

    Wonder if the secret Google group of 1000 “Main Stream Journalists” have anything to do with that?

    Jim Rose

  13. What’s the surprise here? Barack Bahama has long proven he’s even more
    right-wing than either of the booshes.

    1. bill mcwilliams – look at the number of people the Soviets suppressed. They are hardly right-wing.

  15. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    Pardons and forgiving of law breaking are within the Office of the President of the US.

    BUT, that only applies to LEAGAL citizens of the United States.

    Current Immigration law, created by Congress, is the only legal method
    for illegals to obtain LEGAL status. If so, then the POTUS has no legal right to offer anything to 5 million immigrants to achieve legal status.

    Jim Rose

  17. I would be very worried if Alberto Gonzales agreed with me on any issue of substance. Just how did he get to be Dean of any Law School??

    1. rafflaw – looked the school up and they have some kind of deal going with ASCAP which sounds a little fishy. That could be because I think ASCAP is fishy and does not correctly pay royalties to its artists. Its in TN so what can I say.

  18. These underlying points would be moot in a constitutional America. All similarly contentious issues pertain to those of the unconstitutional welfare state. The current Obamacare overreach is unconstitutional, antithetical and only the most recent failure of the SCOTUS. Off course, the President has absolutely no business participating in the healthcare or any other industry other than to promote the facilitating infrastructure and security. When America reverts to its intended form, these issues resolve and their residual, legitimate activities occur in the private sector.

    A government limited to security and infrastructure composed of honest and honorable men in temporary positions of service to the nation was the American thesis.

    Liberals have perverted that thesis and replaced a monarch with a dictatorship of the proletariat; tyrannical and oppressive.

    The Founders had no idea they NEEDED to tell you that “you shall make no law respecting an establishment of” BUSINESS. They thought you understood that business was free. Communism didn’t exist in that era. If you replace the word RELIGION with the word BUSINESS in the 1st Amendment you will understand America.

    The Founders thought you would read and understand the Preamble which literally limited government to security and infrastructure while placing ALL and EVERY other endeavor, business and industry in the free markets of the private sector without governmental interference.

    *******************************************************************************************

    1st Amendment
    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    Preamble
    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  20. AHWWWW, it’s so nice to see that current and former presidential staff get along so well with the new boss. You’d almost think the one president was continuing the legacy of the other, but that could not be, correct?

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