What started out as an interview to champion John Boehner’s lawsuit against Obama turned into an act of sabotage with one sentence from Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.
Video:
http://youtu.be/ZVcIBkK4EeI
Transcript via Fox News Sunday:
WALLACE: Chairman Goodlatte, the president says, it’s all politics, a stunt, he calls it.
REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R-VA.: Absolutely not, Chris. This is all about the United States constitution. Article 1 says the president of the United States — I’m sorry, the Congress is the legislative body. All legislative powers herein granted shall rest in the Congress of the United States. Article 2 says the president shall faithfully execute the laws.
So, it’s not about our wanting to stop him from doing his job. It’s our wanting to do the job that the Constitution prescribes and not to take powers resting in the Congress and to, through not enforcing laws or changing laws that have been passed, taking power from the legislative branch.
It’s very important and this should be bipartisan. People are standing up to protect the balance of power, the check against a too powerful executive branch. It’s been done in the past. It needs to be done again.
….
WALLACE: And what about the argument by the time this gets settled, Barack Obama will no longer be president, sir?
GOODLATTE: Correct. That’s why we passed a law through the House, and I’m proud to say five Democrats joined with all the Republicans to say, yes, we should make it easier for this process to take place — so that the court would hear a case when a majority of either the House or Senate or both elect to bring a case, and would do it in an expedited fashion with a three-judge panel and an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court which could be revived in six to seven months.
WALLACE: Of course, it hasn’t gotten through the Senate.
The fact that the Senate hasn’t passed the bill that would speed up the litigation process destroyed all of Rep. Goodlatte’s points about how critical it is to the future of our democracy that the House files this lawsuit against President Obama right now.
Chris Wallace and Fox News pretty much destroyed the entire House Republican cover story that this lawsuit has nothing to do with politics by pointing out that it will be impossible to speed up the lawsuit because there is no way in hell that Senate Democrats will ever vote for this bill.
It didn’t take long for the Republican facade to be exposed. There is no constitutional crisis being driven by executive overreach that calls for immediate legal action. The Boehner threat of a lawsuit is another dumb election year stunt that is designed to give Republican candidates something to run on this fall.
Senate Republican candidates will be lining up to promise that they will vote for the bill to sue Obama if voters send them to the Senate.
Of course, none of this will matter if Boehner files his lawsuit before Election Day. With one sentence, Fox News’ Chris Wallace obliterated the entire House Republican justification for suing President Obama. The whole sue Obama gimmick has quickly become an anchor around Republican necks. Democrats are raising record sums of money, Fox News is pointing out why this lawsuit won’t make a bit of difference, and John Boehner’s cheap publicity stunt is blowing up in his face.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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