Tag Archives: presidential lawsuit

To what end, Mr. Speaker?

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is “frustrated.” He acknowledges that President Obama is frustrated and so are “the American people” frustrated with the lack of cohesion in our federal government.

The speaker’s remedy? He says he wants to sue the president for exercising his executive authority.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/john-boehner-obama-so-sue-me-reaction-constitution-108601.html?hp=f1

I can barely contain my disdain for this nonsense.

Boehner wrote an op-ed for CNN.com in which he said Obama has failed to “faithfully execute” his office under the Constitution. Why didn’t he gripe when President Bush was issuing executive orders at a greater clip than his successor has done?

I have this sense that the president has hurt the speaker’s feelings with his quips from various podiums in recent weeks. “So sue me,” was his latest barb, in which he said he wouldn’t apologize for doing things using his constitutionally granted authority allows him to do.

Boehner says Obama is circumventing the legislative process and is stripping Congress of its own authority.

In a fascinating twist, though, one of the speaker’s own allies — Erick Erickson, of Redstate.com — writes in another commentary that Boehner is engaging in “political theater.”

He has no end game, Erickson writes, adding that there’s nothing to be gained from this wasteful exercise.

“I realize John Boehner and the House Republicans may lack the testicular fortitude to fight President Obama,” he wrote, “but I would kindly ask that he save the taxpayers further money on a political stunt solely designed to incite Republican voters.”

“John Boehner’s lawsuit is nothing more than political theater and a further Republican waste of taxpayer dollars,” Erickson said.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.