Maybe I am just tired from driving to and from the airport, but I had to read George Will’s column three times before I thought that I maybe kind of understood it. Reading his stuff sometimes feels like my efforts to read Spanish. I can kind of follow along until I can’t. “What is that word doing there?” “Does it mean something different than what I think it means?”
Unless you immerse yourself in the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer media bubble, comparing the president to George III makes no sense. These so-called “egregious” offenses against the separations of power are largely the creation of heat-fevered minds. Mr. Will’s concern that a law he loathes, the Affordable Care Act, isn’t being implemented according to the exact wording of the bill is touching. These are the same crocodile tears they shed for the American victims in Benghazi and for prisoner-of-war Bowe Bergdahl. They politicize every single little thing.
So, by all means, try to take the president to court to enforce the Affordable Care Act. It would be poetic justice.
Shorter George Will:
As usual the Republicans protect the real abuses of executive authority because they love Gitmo and the NSA.
Perhaps President Cheney could explain the Unitary Executive Doctrine to Mr. Will.
He is not a consequential thinker. So blinded by the obsession to remove Obama from office, he’s willing to accept Rivkin’s declaration that Obama nullified the ACA by granting an extension that was to the direct benefit of Big business, otherwise known as the GOP donor pool.
First we had to listen to Orly Taitz about the birth certificate now we have to endure Will channeling David Rivkin?
Knowing only that Will compares Obama to George III is enough for me not to bother reading it. His first draft may have compared Obama to Hitler or Saddam, but after his spanking this week, he began his edit process. Painstakingly considering and then rejecting Mao, Mussolini, Franco, Hirohito, Roman emperors, ancient Greeks, kings from wherever and whenever before landing on George III, a name that should (but isn’t) familiar to most Americans. An enemy of the US before the US existed was close enough to whatever point Will had in mind.
Good reminder piece from The Atlantic why Obama’s actions are rooted in legal authority.
If he wasn’t also so bad at writing about baseball, his other self proclaimed expertise, I would suggest he take a vacation from pundit duty
is the recognition that, like so many neocons and wingnuts, he is just deeply*, profoundly* dishonest (although the self-deception of willfully self-imposed ignorance can never be entirely ruled out with hacks like Will).
*yes, yes, I know that’s redundant. It’s for emphasis!
Among the signifiers of Will’s profound dishonesty is his claim that a Bill restraining Executive power could/would happen if “Republicans control the Senate and a Republican holds the president’s signing pen.”
We saw how interested Republicans were in restraining W. Bush’s abuses of power when they had full Congressional control. And have GOP leaders become more conciliatory and balanced in their use of power since then? The premise that Congressional Republicans would cut the power of a Republican President is preposterous on its face.
Will has always wanted to fool the public, but he appears to have become a fool as well.
Will was never great but he’s gotten so much worse over the years. He used to be hopelessly pin-headed but intelligent and, for the most part, honest. That was a long time ago. Since the rocky start to W’s administration, he’s become more and more of a hack with each passing day. At this point, it’s pathetic that any paper claiming to have credibility can get away with running his column.