Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Hypocrisy of Obama's Legal Defense of DADT

The Obama administration has come up with lame excuses as to why the DOJ must defend DADT and the religious based discrimination that it represents. The excuse runs pretty much along these lines: there is tradition that the Justice Department defends laws adopted by Congress and signed by a president, regardless of whether the president in office likes them. To this excuses is added the ruse that it would be bad precedent to allow a mere district court judge to invalidate a federal statute no matter how egregious and unconstitutional that law might be. The Liar-in-Chief - while disingenuously being video taped in an "It Gets Better" clip continues to grasp for any and every excuse for his efforts to make sure that things don't actually get better for LGBT Americans. A piece in Harpers pretty much rips the Obama DOJ a new one as it takes down the excuses put forth for Obama's legal efforts to keep DADT the law of the land. Here are some highlights that look at the hypocrisy of this excuse as articulated by former Bush-era Solicitor General Paul Clement and underscored by all of the laws that DOJ and Obama have not enforced. First a restatement of the excuse:
*
There is a long tradition that the Justice Department defends laws adopted by Congress and signed by a president, regardless of whether the president in office likes them. This practice cuts across party lines. And it has caused serious heartburn for more than one attorney general. . . . Otherwise, Clement says, the nation would be subjected to “the spectacle of the executive branch defending only laws it likes, with Congress intervening to defend others.”
*
I particulalry like the attention drawn to all of the laws the DOJ and the Liar-in-Chief have chosen to NOT enforced in this tongue in cheek manner:
*
For instance, the Justice Department didn’t like the Anti-Torture Statute, but it enforced the statute anyway, which is why so many senior officials of the Bush era were prosecuted and sent to prison for their programmatic endorsement of torture and official cruelty, which are felonies. And, even though the Justice Department did not approve of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and its felony counts for warrantless surveillance by federal agents, it faithfully implemented the statute, which again explains a slew of very unpleasant prosecutions of senior government officials. A Justice Department that was less scrupulous about the “faithful execution” clause would have written secret memos advancing cockamamie theories about unlimited executive power and then simply ignored the statutes. But of course the Justice Department with which Mr. Clement was associated would never have contemplated such a thing.
*
Obviously, Obama seeks to enforce laws on a very selective basis. Bush, Cheney, and many others should have been prosecuted for war crimes and other felonies if Obama truly felt compelled to faithful enforce the laws as written. The fact that countless felons have gone unprosecuted and unpunished under the Obama DOJ shows the lie of claimed justification for supporting DADT in the courts. Ted Olson summed it up this way:
*
“It would be appropriate for them to say ‘the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that,’” Olson told ABC News. The principle that the Holder Justice Department is seeking to uphold is not fidelity to the Constitution, but rather legal policy schizophrenia.
*
Obama is a liar and the sooner the LGBT community grasps that sad reality, the better off we will be. The man cannot be trusted whatsoever.

No comments: