The People Speak -- But Who Cares?

For the last few years of the Bush Administration, both the media and the Democrats were constantly crowing about the illegal behavior of the president that had to end. Essentially, this all centered on waterboarding of a few terrorists and the general handling of Guantanamo prisoners (moving them towards millitary trials). Strangely, the fact that the Bush Administration had gotten an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel that the enhanced interrogation techniques were not torture never seemed to matter to folks like then senator Obama. He denounced the waterboarding and the military tribunals as illegal.

Now that we are three years into the Obama Administration, we still have the Guantanamo prisoners heading for millitary tribunals, despite all the pious "orders" from Obama to the contrary. He finally had to admit by his actions that Bush was right.

In the last few days we see another change from candidate Obama to president Obama. Obama strongly opposed the war in Iraq and complained that the Congressional vote authorizing that war was based upon misinformation. Now we have President Obama starting a war against Libya without Congressional authorization. When the law requires the president to seek approval from Congress within a fixed number of days, Obama asks the Office of Legal Counsel if that law applies to him. Obama apparently thinks that getting approval for a war from the representatives of the people is beneath him. The lawyers at Office of Legal Counsel properly advise Obama that he needed Congressional approval. Obama's response has been to ask another lawyer. When he got the same answer, Obama just asked a third lawyer (his personal lawyer in the White House) who disagreed with the other two. Now, Obama says that he had no obligation to seek approval from Congress.

The fact that Obama does not care what the representatives of the people think does not surprise me. In his mind, Obama believes that he is smarter than everyone else. He must be reading his press clippings and actually believing them. I am surprised at how blatantly Obama is showing his disdain for the people. Next we may hear about the divine right of presidents.