“The president is not going to negotiate with himself,” White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer insisted last week. As Tom Friedman, the New York Times’ Maestro of Mixed Metaphors, might put it, it’s hardball time, the clock is ticking, and the GOP had better come to the table before we go over the fiscal cliff.
The good news for the Republicans is that President Obama is probably overinterpreting his “mandate.” The bad news is, as Obama has shown over the last four years, he’s willing to work his will unilaterally and has nearly unprecedented powers to do so. Never mind “negotiating with himself”; increasingly, this president won’t even negotiate with Congress.
“We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job,” Obama announced late last year. By “do its job” he actually meant “agree with the president and pass laws authorizing him to act.” He let loose with a flurry of executive orders — special breaks for debt-addled students and homeowners, and unilateral revision of immigration laws and welfare work requirements — all via royal dispensation.
As part of that offensive, in January, Obama invoked the Constitution’s recess appointments clause to fill several top federal posts, including three members of the National Labor Relations Board. On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral arguments in the first of several pending cases challenging that move.
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