Napoleon crowned himself; Obama makes law by himself

LA JOLLA, California — The drafters of the US Constitution, fearing ” the rule of one opinion, whether of a tyrant or of a mob,” created a government structure premised on the idea that humans are fallible, fickle, and unreliable…and need to be feared. James Madison, who promoted this Hobbesian view, famously wrote that ” if men were angels, we wouldn’t need a government.” He insisted on the “Checks and Balances” among different  “co-equal Powers,”  the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary, and on their “separation” as proposed by the French philosopher Montesquieu.

In US history, there have been ,from time to time, encroachments of the Executive branch on the other two, but never as pervasive and imperious as is happening today in the Obama administration. I am reminded  of the French revolution of 1789–which followed very closely the American revolution of 1776– that was taken over by the “Convention” and its bloody “terreur,”  then by the weak and inept “Directoire” which gave way to the “Consulate” of Napoleon Bonaparte who , a few years later, was crowned–  in fact, “crowned himself” — emperor.” He once exclaimed: ” The crown of France was sitting idle on the floor; I had only to bend a little to seize it.” And then he ruled, unchallenged, in a way historians called “bonapartism.”

While, at this juncture, such a development is unthinkable in America, History is full of surprises, and constant vigilance is essential to preserve Liberty. And any burgeoning sign of danger, even if ostensibly innocuous, should be nipped in the bud. We can admire President Obama’s candor when he said ” I can’t wait for Congress to act, and I will govern [ rule?] by executive orders and regulations if necessary.” It sounded like a warning of things to come, and the inexplicable silence of the Congress, of both parties, emboldened the Chief Executive–and Commander-in-Chief–to “act” and usurp  Congress’ prerogatives. A few commentators and pundits denounced the acts as mini-coups.Judge Andrew Napolitano, usually very measured in his proclamations, declared apprehensively:” I think Obama is dangerously close to totalitarian rule by decree.”

I wrote elsewhere about the executive order– amending the law without the Congress– never to deport children of illegal immigrants who came to America at a young age, and to practically allow them to follow a path to citizenship, and even to award them advantages unavailable to full-fledged citizens.

Or, the other executive order waiving the requirement to “work” for welfare recipients, which is also a change in a law worked out with great difficuly in a bipartisan effort, and signed by President Clinton, in 1996, who claimed triumphantly that It has “changed welfare as we know it.”

I have yet to see these two clear usurpations of power, bypassing Congress and operating outside  constitutional channels,  challenged by the Congress, or by others, in the U.S.Supreme Court.

These manifestations of “bonapartism” are not limited to the Legislative. I wrote elsewhere about the inerference in the Judiciary, and about picking and choosing beneficiaries of federal largesse, like the Solyndra adventure where more than half a billion dollars have been wasted, and the revival of Acorn, under a disguise, that continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars, after the passing of the Defund Acorn Act because of fraud. In 2007, Obama proclaimed: ” I have been fighting alongside Acorn…my entire career.”” And I naively believed that the Congress had “the power of the purse.”

 This begs the question: What makes this president act in defiance of the Constitution ? Some analysts impute his behavior to his “narcissism.” His constant use of “I” and even “We” (the “nous-de-majeste” used by the French kings before the Revolution) confirms that. In 2008, before the elections,he declared, with a messianic tone: “WE are the people we have been waiting for.”

 I also believe that he has been encouraged by “a drugged populace and a supine press,” in the words of a pundit. The president surrounded himself with 36 “czars” and an Attorney General who are , like him, far to the Left of mainstream Democratic party.

The czars are functionaries on the federal payroll who have never gone through the arduous Senate confirmation process and answer to him only ; the attorney general, by his multiple controversial

actions, has shown that, for him, political considerations take precedence over the impartial administration of the law, which he swore to uphold.

All presidents claim “executive privileges,” mostly to protect national secrets. But recently, in a conflict between the Congress and the Department of Justice about the “Fast and Furious” fiasco,” the attorney general refused to produce documents vital to the Congress investigation, and was found ‘in contempt of Congress.” But in an astonishing intervention, the president extended his executive privilege to those documents which he previously claimed he had never seen.

This is the same attorney general who decided arbitrarily “no longer to defend DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act, against gay marriage, a well established law) because his boss changed his political mind and is now FOR gay marriage after he was AGAINST it; and who also dropped the charges of “voters harassment”  against the New Black Panther Party but decided to sue Arizona, Texas, and Florida, and will sue any state that will ask the voters to show an I.D. card to prevent fraud, as it happened in the past, thanks to Acorn, when dead people and illegal aliens cast their “votes.”

It is not President Obama’s inexperience, or even ineptitude, that is dangerous; it is his extreme leftist  ideology and his policies to implement it with the help of like-minded czars and attorney general. Doing it in a constitutional way through Congress is one thing, but ruling by fiat, bypassing Congress, using and abusing executive orders and privileges, a la Bonaparte, is another. It should be fought by all, Democrats and Republicans, because it is dangerous to America.

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Yetiv is a freelance lecturer and writer based in La Jolla. He may be contacted at isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com