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Townhall
Obama and the Law
by Mona Charen
May 24, 2013
If you Google "George W. Bush shredding the constitution," you will get
many millions of hits. The New York Times railed, "Ever since 9/11, we
have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution
in the name of fighting terrorism.
President Bush attempted to listen in on the international calls of
suspected terrorists, he used waterboarding on exactly three
terrorists, and he put detainees in Guantanamo.
Mr. Obama -- greeted rapturously in 2008 as the "constitutional law
professor" who would restore respect for our founding document -- has
demonstrated a contempt for law unseen since Nixon.
Nixon was devious, insecure and paranoid. Everyone knows that those are
unfortunate traits. Ever since Nixon, we've been encouraged to be wary
of leaders who are suspicious or guarded.
Obama is brimming with excessive self-regard, intellectual vanity and
supreme self-righteousness. No one has ever warned Americans to regard
these as dangerous traits, but they may be more worrisome than Nixon's
cynicism. Arguably, more damage has been done to the world by zealots
than by misanthropes.
One of the president's defenders, the New Republic's Noam Scheiber, was
asked recently whether the multiple scandals engulfing the
administration would have "legs." He didn't think so. The scandals lack
a common "narrative," he explained.
In fact, the common thread couldn't be clearer: the Obama
administration is unwilling to let something as trivial as the
constitution interfere with its plans for our improvement.
The IRS scandal is hydra-headed. It features the leaking of private tax
return information to Pro Publica, lying to Congress, as well as
allegations that particular individuals were targeted for audits in
retaliation for political activity. The chief outrage, however, is the
fact (acknowledged by the IRS) that the tax-collecting agency was
attempting to hinder the political activities of groups who disapprove
of the current administration -- a naked attack on the First
Amendment...
Read the rest of the article at Townhall
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