Obama’s Hypocrisy and Other High Crimes

June 21, 2011

by Jeff Huber

“Let me be perfectly clear: I have taught the Constitution, I understand the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution when I am President of the United States."

--Senator Barack Obama, Feb. 26, 2008

Irony, sentenced the death penalty and executed by lethal bull roar injections during the Bush/Cheney regime, continues to claw at its coffin lid. 

The XJE2020 "Liberator"

Young Mr. Obama set a new benchmark in self-satirizing political posturing when he said in a speech last Thursday that he was copacetic about negotiating with the Taliban as long as they “renounce violence and accept the Afghan Constitution.”  This eclipsed even the pot-and-kettle hypocrisy we witnessed when young Mr. Bush used to admonish lesser tinhorns for not obeying the “rule of law.”

Obama’s embrace of violence has been so stark I suspect that most of us are too numb to fully comprehend it.  Bush was the first president to drive the country off a cliff in two optional and unwinnable wars.  Obama has embarked us on yet a third imperial snipe hunt, and he’s done so in a way that makes Bush’s contempt for the Constitution seem as venial as snitching a couple of extra cookies from the jar. 

Obama doesn’t want Congress to have any say so on whether or not he can commit forces to hostilities beyond 60 days as required of him by the War Powers Act of 1973, so he had some of the lawyers who work for him tell him the War Powers Act doesn't apply to Libya since all we're doing that's hostile, per se, is bombing some stuff with them predator drones so our troops aren’t subject to enemy fire.

By that benchmark, the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and Dresden in World War II, long after Japanese and German air defenses had been destroyed, didn’t amount to hostilities wither.  If tomorrow we decide to level Iran or Yemen or whatever other little country we’re displeased with at the moment with intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, that won't amount to hostilities either. 

Blowing a fistful of Muslim wedding chapels to kibbles with cruise missiles launched from naval combatants at sea doesn't amount to hostilities any more.  When the Air Force brings its gizmologically supercalifrag Prompt Global Strike on line, presidents like Bombardier Barry will be able to make smithereens out of third world Palookavilles worldwide within an hour of pushing a button on his iPad, sort of the same way he signed the extension of the Patriot Act a few weeks ago and that won’t constitute hostilities.  When the Navy gets its cockamamie UCAS aka Unmanned Combat Air System aka “killer drones,” presidents like Chicago Slim can order aircraft carrier strikes on the south side of Tripoli and kill all the civilians they want to and it won’t count as hostilities.  And when the Army and Marines get their combat robots with cool names like “Swords” and “Warrior X700,” presidents like Barack “I won’t be like George W. Bush” Obama will be able to invade and occupy whole countries and even regions and that won’t constitute hostilities either.

It’s disconcerting to reflect that you bought the chump “change” slogan when you voted for Obama.  It’s even more cognitively disturbing to accept that your choice in 2012 will be between him and a staunch ally of Tea Bag Barbie.  But neither of those perceptive horrors holds a candle to the appalling realization that you agree wholeheartedly with something that came from the mouth of House Speaker Bill Boehner.  Of the administrations claim that our gun-barrel polka in Libya doesn’t amount to hostilities, Pumpkin said, “it doesn't pass the straight-face test."

No, it doesn't.  And yet it is with a straight face that Team O tells us why the boss rejected the advice of two top Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers when he decided to blow of Congress and its silly little concerns about the War Powers Act and separation of powers.  As the administration’s spin physicians told Charlie Savage of the New York Times to tell us, Mr. Obama decided instead to follow the advice of the White House counsel that said our activities fell short of hostilities, and that under normal circumstances the White House counsel’s interpretation of the law (Savage’s words, my italics) is legally binding on the executive branch.

The  top secret amendment to the Constitution that transfers judicial power from the judicial branch to the White House counsel must be the same amendment that allows FBI agents to ignore the Bill of Rights if, in their considered opinion, violating the first ten unclassified amendments is sanctioned by the broad guidelines of their bosses in the Justice Department.

Lord John Acton was divinely correct when he said that absolute power corrupts absolutely; he conspicuously did not add a codicil that said power only corrupts Republicans.  Obama’s extra-constitutional hijinks overreach even those of Richard Nixon.  Nixon was hounded out of office, in part because of a vibrant, healthy free press that duly performed its function as a fourth estate guarantor of our laws and freedoms.  That free press is now the Big Brother Broadcasting System.  Content-wise, the mainstream media and the rabid right tabloid outlets are virtually inseparable.  

I never imagined I’d look back on the Nixon era and think Those were the good old days.  

P.S.  The recent un-sourced announcements about Obama moving closer to ending the Bananastan bungle is exactly the same pre-election trick Dick Nixon pulled regarding Vietnam, not once but twice.  

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) is author of the critically lauded novel Bathtub Admirals, a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance.