President Obama Still Doesn't Get It

Dear Friends,

Lately there have been some signs that President Obama now understands that he will never be able to please or get help from Republicans and that he might actually be a moderately liberal President.  Unfortunately, two articles on the front page of The New York Times yesterday brought me back to the reality that President Obama is not at all progressive and seems intent on repeating the errors of the first term of his Presidency.

At first glance one article with the headline "Post-Filibuster, Obama Faces New Anger Over Judicial Choices" (here) gave me hope that President Obama was making good use of the change in Senate rules to permit up or down votes on judicial nominees.  After all, it took a lot of work to get the Democrats in the Senate to actually change the rule so that democracy could function.  Unfortunately, President Obama is undermining the rule change by adhering to the tradition that the Senators from the state involved must approve the judicial nominees in that state.  Even in the best of times, this tradition was not a good one.  In today's political environment, it is a disaster.  President Obama has even gone so far as to nominate judges that were approved by right wing Republican Senators.  We do not need supposedly Democratic Presidents appointing conservative right wing judges.

The other article entitled, "U.S. Militant, Hidden, Spurs Drone Debate" (here) indicates that President Obama continues to believe that he can kill American citizens without due process. I have written about this problem before (here).  How can we believe that we are entitled to due process of law when all it takes is the Executive Branch of the government to say

"We have clear and convincing evidence that he’s involved in the production and distribution of I.E.D.’s,” said one senior administration official, referring to improvised explosive devices, long the leading killer of American troops in Afghanistan.

If a Constitutional Law professor who claims to be a Democrat treats the Constitution this way, what hope do we have?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal