Why You Don’t Want Ron Fournier to Be a Journalist
I was wrong. It turns out that National Journal editorial director Ron Fournier wasn’t out sick the day his eighth-grade civics class learned about the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government, after all. He was present and learned about it. But he missed a class a few weeks later explaining that the president lacks the authority to order a military invasion of the House of Representatives and sequestration–the literal kind, not the budgetary kind.
I know, I know; the president is the commander in chief. But it’s Congress that must formally declare war, and Congress probably wouldn’t declare war on itself. One house might declare war on the other, but that wouldn’t meet the Constitution’s requirement that both houses vote to declare war on the same target.
There is, of course, the option of CIA renditions. Which, after reading Fournier’s new blog post [h/t Greg Sargent] responding to the critics of a blog post in which he blamed Obama for the sequester because in “any enterprise, the chief executive is ultimately accountable for success and failure”–any enterprise, even one in which the chief executive isn’t actually the chief executive, but instead is the chief of the executive branch–I’m presuming is what Fournier has in mind.
Originally, I’d thought he meant that he wanted Obama to simply capitulate to the House Republicans and let them gut discretionary spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. In other words, delegate federal fiscal policy to the Tea Party. Others thought that, too, among them an unidentified senior White House official, who wrote to Fournier to complain. And Fournier says he doesn’t understand what he calls this defensive reaction. He quotes part of the defensive reaction:
But Fournier says the White House official misunderstood him. Fournier explains:
Actually, the White House official’s description was exactly what Fournier was saying, Because although Fournier wants the president to act like a CEO, he knows that in this particular enterprise there is no CEO, and one branch of the enterprise is controlled by the Tea Party.
Fournier titles this post, “Why You Don’t Want Me to Be President.” The answer to that question is that he has no idea how the president could get the House to compromise. But Fournier reminds that, unlike Obama, he didn’t run for president in 2008 promising to lead. And Fournier says he wants the president to lead.
Except that actually he makes clear that what he wants the president to do is follow. The subtitle of his post is “The White House is waving the white flag on working with a hardheaded GOP.”
Beverly,
The answer for the President is really very simple. Under the new legal interpretation of the War Powers Act he could, through the Justice Dept, charge certain key members of the Congress with obstruction of legislative action with an intent to create economic destruction. In conference with his National Security adviser, the FBI and possibly the CIA, he could build a solid case that those charged are committing economic terrorism. They could then be held in secret confinement which would eventually require that their seats in the Congress be filled by a special election. The mere disappearance of the group, it should be kept small, not more than a dozen key leaders of the opposition, will cause the newly elected members to act more judiciously and carry out their oaths of office and not obstruct the functions of the Congress.
It seems like a no brainer to me. Once the government gets back on track those who had been charged could be either released to their families or, better yet, renditioned to their ancestral homelands. Though it’s unlikely that the Scots, the English or the Irish would want that group back.
I sure as hell hope they’re waterboarded, Jack.