Column
The
next president unbound by the 'Obama overreach'
By Victor Davis Hanson
Donald
Trump’s supporters see a potential Hillary Clinton victory in November as the
end of any conservative chance to restore small government, constitutional
protections, fiscal sanity and personal liberty.
Clinton’s
progressives swear that a Trump victory would spell the implosion of America as
they know it, alleging Trump parallels with every dictator from Josef Stalin to
Adolf Hitler.
Part of the
frenzy over 2016 as a make-or-break election is because a closely divided
Senate’s future may hinge on the coattails of the presidential winner. An aging
U.S. Supreme Court may also translate into perhaps three to four court picks
for the next president.
Yet such
considerations only partly explain the current election frenzy.
The model of
the imperial Obama presidency is the greater fear. Over the last eight years,
President Barack Obama has transformed the powers of presidency in a way not
seen in decades.
Congress
talks grandly of “comprehensive immigration reform,” but Obama, as he promised
with his pen and phone, bypassed the House and Senate to virtually open the
border with Mexico. He issued executive-order amnesties. He allowed entire
cities to be exempt from federal immigration law.
Perils of presidential power
The Senate
used to ratify treaties. In the past, a president could not unilaterally
approve the Treaty of Versailles, enroll the United States in the League of
Nations, fight in Vietnam or Iraq without congressional authorization, change
existing laws by non-enforcement, or rewrite bankruptcy laws.
Not now.
Obama set a precedent that he did not need Senate ratification to make a
landmark treaty with Iran on nuclear enrichment.
He picked
and chose which elements of the Affordable Care Act would be enforced — predicated
on his 2012 re-election efforts.
Rebuffed by
Congress, Obama is now slowly shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center
by insidiously having inmates sent to other countries.
Respective
opponents of both Trump and Clinton should be worried.
Either
winner could follow the precedent of allowing any sanctuary city or state in
the United States to be immune from any federal law found displeasing — from
the liberal Endangered Species Act and federal gun registration laws to
conservative abortion restrictions.
Could anyone
complain if Trump’s secretary of state were investigated by Trump’s attorney
general for lying about a private email server — in the manner of Clinton being
investigated by Loretta Lynch?
Would anyone
object should a President Trump agree to a treaty with Russian President
Vladimir Putin in the same way Obama overrode Congress with the Iran deal?
If a
President Clinton decides to strike North Korea, would she really need
congressional authorization, considering Obama’s unauthorized Libyan bombing
mission?
What would
Americans say if President Trump’s IRS — mirror-imaging Lois Lerner — hounded
the progressive nonprofit organizations of George Soros?
Partisans
are shocked that the press does not go after Trump’s various inconsistencies
and fibs about his supposed initial opposition to the Iraq War, or press him on
the details of Trump University.
Conservatives
counter that Clinton has never had to come clean about the likely illegal
pay-for-play influence peddling of the Clinton Foundation or her serial lies
about her private email server.
But why, if
elected, should either worry much about media scrutiny?
Obama
established the precedent that a president should be given a pass on lying to
the American people. Did Americans, as Obama repeatedly promised, really get to
keep their doctors and health plans while enjoying lower premiums and
deductibles, as the country saved billions through his Affordable Care Act?
More
recently, did Obama mean to tell a lie when he swore that he sent cash to the Iranians
only because he could not wire them the money — when in truth the
administration had wired money to Iran in the past? Was cash to Iran really not
a ransom for American hostages, as the president asserted?
Can the next
president, like Obama, double the national debt and claim to be a deficit hawk?
Congress has
proven woefully inept at asserting its constitutional right to check and
balance Obama’s executive overreach. The courts have often abdicated their own
oversight.
But the
press is the most blameworthy. White House press conferences now resemble those
in the Kremlin, with journalists tossing Putin softball questions about his
latest fishing or hunting trip.
One reason
Americans are scared about the next president is that they should be.
In 2017, a
President Trump or President Clinton will be able to do almost anything he or
she wishes without much oversight — thanks to the precedent of Obama’s
overreach, abetted by a lapdog press that forgot that the ends never justify
the means. (Chicago Tribune)
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist
and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author,
most recently, of “The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.”
