By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
President James Buchanan didn’t just failed to stop the Civil War, Save Jerseyans, for which I won’t condemn him because it was likely inevitable. He didn’t even try. In his State of the Union message to Congress, Buchanan gave a verbal shrug.
“All for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way, Buchanan said. “As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.”
Inspiring!
We’ve had other duds since. Jimmy Carter comes to mind, who infamously asked Americans to wear sweaters as an energy crisis deepened and our international antagonists acted unchecked.
Yes, they sucked. Big time. But their crimes were largely ones of omission.
We can’t say the same for our current chief executive, can we?
President Barack Obama’s commissions will live in infamy. Nationalizing a large percentage of the U.S. economy (and lying about millions losing their health plans). Running guns for drug cartels. Auditing select groups and individuals for partisan reasons. Prematurely withdrawing from Iraq and an evil force to arise that’s worthy of Hollywood movie. I don’t have enough patience (and you don’t have enough time) for a full list.
But you know what the absolute worst is? Hands down?
For starters, his abject disregard for the rule of law is as sickening as it is dangerous. And I ain’t talking about Obamacare even though it certainly qualifies.
You’ve undoubtedly heard about POTUS’s new push to enact an international carbon emissions treaty without a Senate resolution of ratification. Our Constitution gives the Senate sole authority to approve treaties negotiated by the executive branch through a two-thirds vote; Barack doesn’t care. And this isn’t the first time he’s tried to act like a king. He rules by executive order, coerces through regulations, doles out exemptions to friends and, on the all-important immigration issue, again seeks to circumvent Congress’s express authority over immigration policy.
Yet as tyrannical as this president tends to behave when he wants something, if we’re being honest, dictatorial behavior isn’t per se evidence of evil intent or incompetent leadership. Most historians contextually forgive President Abraham Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus and ignoring the Supreme Court.
The difference? Lincoln did it to save the Republic and the rule of law during the throes a rebellion. Obama disregards the rules – or rewrites them himself – for partisan, ideological ends.
I regard this most recent attempt at imperial presidential power as “rock bottom” precisely because of the context in which it’s occurring, Save Jerseyans. Barack Obama and his party, desperate to hold on to a Senate that he’s more-than-happy to circumvent, is actually raising the specter of his impeachment to rally the Democrat base.
He’s DARING Republicans to impeach him over immigration amnesty or emissions treaties. We’ve had presidents fail to lead before. Make mistakes. What we’ve never seen is a president TRY to turn the country against itself for ideological reasons. Until now.
It’s sick stuff, the likes of which Americans haven’t seen before, and I’m speaking as a South Jersey Republican living in machine territory. Not much surprises me!
Lincoln would be ashamed. Buchanan might, too, were it not for the fact that he’s about to be usurped as history’s worst U.S. President. Upon leaving office, the Great Emancipator’s immediate predecessor vowed that “history will vindicate my memory.” Not quite, sir; you’re simply the beneficiary of the presidency’s race to the bottom. Rock bottom.
