Friday, February 25, 2011

The Latest

Having been caught off guard by President Obama's announcement that he would not enforce the odious Defense of Marriage Act, the right uncharacteristically took a day to articulate a typically incoherent response. But fear not: They've found their footing. The president's announcement, it seems,

  • is a needless distraction from the pressing business of turning the economy around and creating jobs. Never mind that the first thing the new Republican house majority accomplished was to introduce and approve socially conservative legislation, or that the only thing they've proposed to do about jobs is to eliminate them;
  • along the same lines, the announcement polarizes the country at a time when we should be acting as one. Never mind that the Defense of Marriage Act polarized by design or that, since Obama's election, every public act and utterance by conservatives has been deliberately divisive;
  • a cynical political ploy by a cynical president who doesn't care any more about gay rights than...than...well, we do. Never mind that securing a political advantage by supporting gay rights is an impossibility if, as conservatives insist, they represent majority sentiment;
  • is an arrogant power grab, that unilaterally declaring the act unconstitutional only shows Obama's contempt for the Constitution. Never mind that Obama declared no such thing: The announcement is in response to an opinion issued by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. Once an AG -- the executive branch makes such an unambiguous statement, the POTUS had better have a good reason not to follow through;
Moreover, one of the initial actions of House Republicans was to pass a rule requiring that all legislation passed by Congress include a Constitutional justification. The Attorney General's office is certainly better positioned than the legislative branch to make such a determination -- true conservatives would applaud this effort to rein in state overreach.

Once again, these people show that they don't like government except when they like it. When they do, any effort to contravene them is by definition an arrogant, unconstitutional power grab. To be fair, they know more than a little about arrogant, unconstitutional power grabs.

4 comments:

Roy said...

Yeah, I subscribe to PFAW's Right Wing Watch blog, and I saw the results of the far right meltdown over this. I keep hoping that announcements like this from the President will work them up so much that they'll all have massive strokes that carry thrm off; Bryan Fisher of the AFA certainly looked and sounded like his head was about to explode. Unfortunately that tactic hasn't worked yet.

K. said...

I'll have to check out that blog. Sounds like good fun!

injaynesworld said...

Asshats. All of them. Cantor actually said Obama doesn't care about the Constitution. Yeah -- that's why he's a professor of Constitutional law.

K. said...

It seems patently obvious to me that if you're POTUS and the AG of the United States notifies you that a law you're enforcing won't withstand constitutional scrutiny, you put the brakes on.

It's the teabaggers who have made a fetish out of the Constitution and the constant violations of it. If Holder had determined that Brady Bill was unconstitutional, the 'baggers would be screaming at Obama to stop enforcing it.