“About That ‘Worst President’ Poll”: A Problematic Conclusion For The Media And Republicans To Draw
I’ve thought a couple of times about writing something on that annoying Quinnipiac poll conservative gabbers are gabbing about that shows Barack Obama eclipsing past bad presidents as the “worst” president. But Sean Trende of RCP did a better job of debunking it than I could, so here’s his take:
A poll from Quinnipiac has been making the rounds of late, with the media focusing in on a question that purportedly shows Americans consider Barack Obama the worst president since World War II (he led all others with 33 percent of the responses). But that is a problematic conclusion to draw from this particular question. First, we could just as easily state that 67 percent of Americans believe that someone other than Obama is the worst postwar president.
More importantly, these sorts of “multiple choice” questions, which pop up from time to time in various contexts, tend to raise eyebrows, because partisan unity can drive the results. And what really drives this particular finding is that Republicans are much more unified in their dislike of Obama than Democrats are in their dislike of any particular GOP president. A full 63 percent of Republicans identify Obama as the worst, with Jimmy Carter lagging far behind at 14 percent, an almost 50-percentage-point differential.
Among Democrats, however, 54 percent name George W. Bush as the worst president, followed by Richard Nixon at 20 percent, a 34-point differential. Had Democrats been able to agree more on their least-favorite president, Obama might not have come in first.
Indeed, if we add up the percentages for all the Democratic and Republican presidents on the list, 49 percent of respondents named a Republican commander-in-chief, while 47 percent named a Democratic one. (Among Independents, 50 percent named a Democrat, while 43 percent named a Republican, but this probably reflects the disproportionate number of disaffected Republicans who currently consider themselves Independent).
The bottom line is that Republican presidents offer a target-rich environment for ratings of the “worst.” And that shouldn’t be anything for them to brag about.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly, Political Animal, July 3, 2014
“Just Something To Think About”: 15 Major Decisions This Year From A Partisan Supreme Court
Since Monday’s dramatic Supreme Court decisions, I’ve seen a few people recall that back in 2000, a lot of liberals justified voting for Ralph Nader (or not voting at all) on the basis that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Bush appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the high court, and it’s safe to say that Gore’s nominees would have been somewhat different, so it’s unlikely we’ll be hearing that argument again. Wherever you place your priorities in terms of the actions of the executive branch, at this point in history, the nominating of Supreme Court justices has become extremely partisan, in a way that isn’t necessarily bad.
What I mean is that whatever the preferences of a particular president, his or her nominee will have to fit within a predictable mold set by the president’s party. For Republicans, that probably means someone who served in a previous Republican president’s Justice Department (as both Roberts and Alito did in Reagan’s), is a member of the Federalist Society, may have done some corporate work on the side, and spent a few years issuing safely conservative rulings on an appellate court. For Democrats, it probably means someone who is an academic (like Elena Kagan), or if not, someone whose record on the bench gives a clear indication of their leanings (like Sonia Sotomayor)—and is more likely to be a woman or a member of a racial or ethnic minority.
As George W. Bush found out when he tried to nominate his good buddy Harriet Miers, the president’s party won’t tolerate someone without a clear record—they want to be sure that they’ll get exactly what they expect from a justice. That means that there will be no surprises for anybody (not that people can’t be fooled a little bit; with a friendly smile, a soothing voice, and some patently disingenuous baseball metaphors, John Roberts convinced a lot of Democrats he might be something other than the intensely ideological justice he has been).
As I said, this isn’t necessarily bad; a justice like David Souter who surprises everyone is only pleasing if the surprise works to your side’s benefit. But now that the Supreme Court’s term has ended in dramatic fashion, it’s worth taking a moment to look back on what they did over the past year, in case anyone is harboring any lingering doubts about the importance of the Court. Here are some of the major decisions, and a quick glance at them shows just how much impact the Supreme Court has on all of our lives:
- McCutcheon v. FEC: The law limiting the total amount a donor can give to multiple political candidates was struck down.
- Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action: Michigan’s law banning affirmative action at state universities is constitutional.
- EPA v. EME Homer City Generation: The EPA’s rules curtailing air pollution that travels from one state to another are constitutional.
- Greece, NY v. Galloway: Local officials can open public meetings with sectarian prayers.
- Hall v. Florida: Florida’s rule that anyone with an IQ over 70 can be executed is unconstitutional.
- Wood v. Moss: The Secret Service was justified in moving protesters opposed to the president farther from where he was having lunch than protesters supporting the president.
- Abramski v. U.S.: “Straw purchases” of guns are illegal.
- Lane v. Franks: A whistleblower can’t be fired for testifying in court.
- Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is upheld.
- Riley v. California: Police need a warrant to search your cell phone.
- ABC v. Aereo: Aereo’s model of streaming over-the-air broadcasts to subscribers was declared illegal.
- McCullen v. Coakley: A 35-foot buffer zone to prevent harassment outside abortion clinics was struck down.
- NLRB v. Canning: The president can’t make recess appointments during pro forma Senate sessions.
- Harris v. Quinn: Home health care workers paid by the state don’t have to contribute to unions that negotiate on their behalf.
- Burwell v. Hobby Lobby: “Closely held” companies can deny their employees health coverage for contraception.
These are just some of the 74 opinions the Court delivered during this term. They range over a broad swath of commercial, political, and personal activity. And while there were a few cases where the Court was unanimous, as a general rule the more important a case is, the more likely there is to be a partisan division whose outcome is determined by who appointed the current nine justices.
Three of the current justices (Scalia, Kennedy, and Breyer) are in their 70s, and one (Ginsberg) is in her 80s. The next president, particularly if he or she serves two terms, is probably going to have the opportunity to reshape the Court for decades to come. Just something to think about.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 1, 2014
“So When Is The Senate In Recess?”: An Extended Recess Broken Up By Several Pro Forma Sessions Is Still A Recess
Before the Circuit Court went all activist in the Canning case, everyone thought the question was defining what counted as a “recess.” On that issue, the Supreme Court had a clear answer today: “For purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause, the Senate is in session when it says that it is, provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business.”
That’s a nominal defeat for President Barack Obama, who had claimed that an extended recess broken up by several pro forma sessions is still a recess.
The history here is that a Senate with a Democratic majority used pro forma sessions every three days in 2007-2008 to prevent President George W. Bush from making recess appointments, and Bush didn’t contest the maneuver. Then, in 2011, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives tried the same workaround, which forced the Senate to stay “in session” because of the constitutional provision that when one chamber is in session, the other cannot adjourn for “more than three days.”
The Senate-initiated attempt to block recess appointments seemed dicey, but probably reasonable. The House-initiated obstruction, however, was constitutionally noxious. After all, the House has no constitutional role in presidential nominations. By refusing to recess, the Senate essentially is enforcing its role in advise and consent. That changes when lawmakers hold pro forma sessions instead of “real” sessions and enforce that role at their convenience. When the House does it, however, that chamber is being inserted into matters it has no business being involved in.
The court didn’t differentiate those two very different situations today, but Associate Justice Stephen Breyer reminded everyone that there is another option for combating the House: The Constitution allows the president to act if the two chambers cannot agree on adjournment. Although I argued strongly at the time that Democrats shouldn’t allow the House to veto nominations — and that therefore Obama should have acted — I believed that the unused Article II power of adjournment was the safest constitutional ground.
As it turns out, the House option is pretty much a moot question since Senate Democrats pushed through the nuclear option, which allows nominations to go through with a simple majority vote. The House option for obstruction was relevant only in cases in which the president and Senate majority were from one party, and the House majority and a Senate minority large enough to kill nominations by filibuster were from the other party. Given simple majority confirmation, the House no longer has the power to obstruct. I suppose it’s still true that a president and the Senate majority might prefer a simple recess appointment to going through the hurdles of confirmation, even if it’s guaranteed to happen, but that’s not as big a deal as the attempt to nullify entire agencies by the House in conjunction with a Senate minority.
To be sure, the Senate will still have the ability to refuse to confirm any nominee and to prevent recess appointments. But that was always going to be the case; the only thing at stake here (on the narrow question of what counts as a recess) was how inconvenient it was going to be for the Senate to do so. In the long term, odds are that future legislation will be written more carefully to prevent nullification by obstructing nominations, now that Republicans have revealed that such a weapon is available and will be used. Constitutionally, none of that is a big deal.
To get into the details, the question of what counts as a “recess” is complicated because the Constitution doesn’t offer a definition, and usage now and then is ambiguous. Both Breyer and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia discussed two meanings (recess between two sessions of Congress and recess within one session). But, in fact, there are three usages: everyone in and around Congress knows that “recess” can mean both short periods when Congress is out for a weekend, the night, or even lunch, or it can mean the longer “district work periods” that last for a week (with surrounding weekends) or longer. Without explaining it very well and therefore opening himself up to Scalia’s claims that it’s just an arbitrary ruling, Breyer is basically attempting to follow that perfectly common-sense, ordinary usage distinction. That is the correct way to go; it’s the only option that really conforms to Senate practice.
That leaves the question about the pro forma sessions. Breyer puts a fair amount of weight on the ability of the Senate to transact business (by unanimous consent, or presumably by a voice vote if it wasn’t challenged) during these sessions. That’s true, but it’s also true that everyone talks and acts as if the Senate is in a normal recess during those periods. So the court has erred, but it’s a close call, and relatively little is at stake in this portion of the decision, especially in the post-nuclear era.
By: Jonathan Bernstein, Ten Miles Square, Washington Monthly, June 27, 2014
“This President Should Be Able To Do Absolutely Nothing”: In Dramatic Pointless Gesture, Boehner To Sue Obama
Pretty much since the moment Barack Obama finished speaking the oath of office in January 2009, Republicans have been charging that he was abusing his power, exceeding his authority and acting like a tyrant. You might remember that for a time in those early days, conservatives (led by Glenn Beck) were obsessed with the idea that Obama had appointed a group of “czars” who were wielding unaccountable power to implement all sorts of nefarious schemes. They were unable to say how a “czar” differed from “a person who works in the White House,” and that particular iteration of their outrage faded, but the underlying suspicion only grew. In the years since, the list of alleged usurpations of authority has grown daily, the charge that Obama is “lawless” becoming a constant.
At its root is the idea that Barack Obama’s presidency is inherently illegitimate, and whatever he does in that office must be illegal, or nearly so. This often translates into complaints about process, so that even when they lose, Republicans charge that the game was rigged. For instance, conservatives have said thousands of times that the Affordable Care Act, despite being probably the most exhaustively debated piece of legislation in decades, was “rammed through” Congress before anybody realized what was happening. Actions that all presidents undertake, like making recess appointments, signing executive orders, or simply having agencies write regulations, become yet more evidence of Obama’s horrific authoritarian rule.
It’s safe to say that many if not most Republicans would be eager to impeach Obama were such a move not a guaranteed political disaster for them. So John Boehner has decided to pursue a kind of impeachment-lite, announcing that the House of Representatives will be suing the president for abusing his power. “The Constitution makes it clear that the president’s job is to faithfully execute the law,” he said. “In my view, the president has not faithfully executed the law.” It’s impossible to tell at this point whether the suit has any merit, because Boehner didn’t actually cite any specific transgressions the suit will allege.
But my guess is that the suit will throw in every process complaint the Republicans have had over the last five years, because it’s mostly about Boehner’s right flank, both in Congress and in the Republican electorate. Even if the suit gets thrown out of court, Boehner will still be able to say to the eternally angry members to his right, “Hey, I’m the guy who sued Obama! I hate him as much as you do!”
It’s irresistible to charge Republicans with hypocrisy, especially given the fact that they were unconcerned when the Bush administration pushed so vigorously at the limits of presidential power. Bush and his staff regularly ignored laws they preferred not to follow, often with the thinnest of justifications, whether it was claiming executive privilege to ignore congressional subpoenas or issuing 1,200 signing statements declaring the president’s intention to disregard certain parts of duly passed laws. (They pushed the limits of vice presidential power, too—Dick Cheney famously argued that since the vice president is also president of the Senate, he was a member of both the executive and legislative branches, yet actually a member of neither and thus not subject to either’s legal constraints. Seriously, he actually believed that.)
Needless to say, at the time Republicans were perfectly fine with these moves, because when the Bush administration was doing these things, it was in support of policies they favored. And that’s how it goes: Process complaints are almost always a cover for substantive disagreement. A backroom deal made to pass a piece of legislation you agree with is just how the sausage gets made; a deal made for a piece of legislation you disagree with is evidence of deep corruption. A filibuster of a bill you oppose is a principled use of established procedures; a filibuster of a bill you favor is cynical obstructionism. And it’s a little rich to hear congressional Republicans wail that Obama has subverted their will, when their will is that this president should be able to do absolutely nothing.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s impossible that there could be any merit to whatever claims Boehner and his colleagues will make. There may have been situations in which Obama pushed presidential prerogatives beyond what the law and the Constitution allow, which the courts will decide. But this question comes up with every president, both because they all want to pursue their goals and try to find every means at their disposal to do so, and because the limits of that power are somewhat vague and complex. As it happens, in numeric terms, Obama has been far more restrained than his predecessor; he has issued fewer executive orders than other recent presidents, and has also used signing statements only occasionally (although recently he cited one of his signing statements as justification for failing to notify Congress 30 days before the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl).
The numbers aren’t really the point, though; the question is whether Obama actually ever exceeded his authority. This lawsuit may help us understand whether that occurred, and the result might set a useful precedent to guide future presidents. But I doubt it. More likely, it’ll be an intensely partisan document whose purpose is to shake a fist at the president Republicans so despise, and it’ll get tossed out of court and thrown in the dustbin where it belongs, one more futile, angry gesture from an opposition that has lost the ability to offer anything else.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, June 26, 2014
“Iraq Is Beyond Cheney’s Comprehension”: Democracy Is Not Something That Can Be Imported
Much has been said of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed where he criticized President Barack Obama’s handling of Iraq. Cheney’s contribution to the discourse in Iraq is as meaningful as someone holding an emergency meeting on the Titanic to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing bucket.
I doubt there are many levelheaded individuals who would take seriously anything Cheney offers about Iraq, given his dubious contribution to what can only be considered as an unmitigated disaster.
Included in Cheney’s recent screed was the now infamous quote: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.”
Short of Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, what were the artisans of the Iraq War correct about? Weapons of mass destruction, victory would be a “slam dunk,” along with “mission accomplished” are among of the misguided quotes that placed American lives and treasure on a fool’s errand.
Appearing on Meet the Press, Republican Senator Rand Paul countered Cheney’s charges:
I don’t blame President Obama. Has he really got the solution? Maybe there is no solution. But I do blame the Iraq War on the chaos that is in the Middle East. I also blame those who are for the Iraq War for emboldening Iran. These are the same people now who are petrified of what Iran may become, and I understand some of their worry.
While Paul appears to have come to the aid of the president, it was also a salvo fired toward former Secretary of State, and possible 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. An area where Clinton could be vulnerable remains the clumsy manner that she explains her vote as senator in support of the Iraq War.
But Clinton’s inability to explain her participation in Iraq is the least of America’s problems. What should America do as a growing number of Iraqi military forces are withdrawing in the wake of the consolidation of power by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which is now reportedly controlling much of Iraq’s western border?
The latest developments in Iraq are the most glaring evidence to date how sophomoric the 2003 preemptive invasion has proven to be. Democracy is not something that can be imported. Nor is it displaying a purple finger after casting a vote.
Voting does not equate to democracy. Stalin had elections, as did the South during Jim Crow segregation.
Some even attempted to argue that the Arab Spring was the unintended consequence that vindicated former President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
What plagues Iraq and ostensibly the Middle East is most likely beyond America’s sphere of influence.
Columnist Tom Friedman has argued the Middle East needs someone that can appeal to the moral consciousness of the region, a Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, or Martin Luther King-like figure.
While the aforementioned fought against oppression in their homelands, they did so in countries that possessed enough democratic infrastructure so that their marvelous abilities and influence could ultimately rise to the top.
Shadi Hamid, author of Temptations of Power, argues that before any democratic ideals can take hold authentically, the Middle East must go through its own form of Enlightenment period. But such efforts require time.
The Age of Enlightenment in the West began more than 200 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Moreover, the Revolutionary War was fought while many Americans remained loyal to the British.
How can there be any type of stabilization in the Middle East that is not rooted in its own people? And how can the people undertake that revolutionary mission until there is an emphasis placed on reason and the individual that untangles the unhealthy interdependence between religion and politics?
These were probably questions that should have been posed before the preemptive invasion in 2003. But alas, everyone’s IQ is higher ex post facto — certain neocons notwithstanding.
By: Byron Williams, The Huffington Post Blog, June 24, 2014
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