On ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, conservative columnist George Will made an astute addition to the list of people and circumstances on which President Obama places blame for his own policies and their lackluster results. Instead of acknowledging his own failure to lead, Will noted yesterday, “This president has blamed George W. Bush, the Japanese tsunami, the euro, Greece, the Arab Spring, the Republicans, the tea party and ultimately James Madison for giving us separation of powers for all his problems.” Adding Madison to the list is undoubtedly a reference to comments the president has made recently wherein he complains that constitutional restrictions on his authority prevent him from unilaterally enacting his liberal agenda: Thank God for James Madison , the “father” of our Constitution.
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Obama blames Bush and… James Madison?
-By Warner Todd Huston Our fourth president, James Madison, has been called the father of the Constitution for not inconsiderable reasons. Madison was highly educated, widely read, and well thought of. He was also a prescient man. Madison was so prescient that in February of 1788 he was able to describe the precise reasons why his
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Federalist Papers Identified How Democrats Would Destroy Us
An interesting piece at LAT , ” ‘Tea Party’ Activists Keep Watch on Congress’ New Class .” With a GOP majority now in the House, the role of the tea party in politics and policy will change. The Times ‘ piece points out the polarizing tendency between purity and pragmatism, and considering the longstanding insight that Members of Congress are ” single-minded seekers of reelection ,” I’m confident that purity will be taking a backseat to pragmatism and party unity. As noted at the article: Many grass-roots movements have learned how hard it is to remain outsiders in a place run by insiders and still accomplish something, said Martin Cohen, a professor of political science at James Madison University, who is studying the tea party movement and its parallels to the rise of the Christian right in the 1980s and 1990s. In Washington, vowing not to compromise can be a self-imposed exile into irrelevancy. Ideological purity is in short supply. The lure of a party power can be strong. And the currency of the movement is its grass-roots engagement, Cohen said, something famously tricky to maintain in the face of defeats. “If I had to bet on whether they would change Washington or whether Washington would change them, I would bet on Washington,” he said. Sounds about right, and more at the link . RELATED : At NYT , ” Conservative Seeks Political Balance .” Plus all the latest at Memeorandum , especially, ” G.O.P. Newcomers Set Out to Undo Obama Victories .”
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and his family attended an hourlong service Sunday morning at a church just across the street from the White House. Accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, Obama strolled across Lafayette Square to attend St. John’s Church. Sasha held her father’s hand as they crossed the park. Obama has attended the pale yellow Episcopal church three times previously, as well as other churches in the nation’s capital. A pew nine rows back from the altar at St. John’s carries a small brass plaque designating it as “The President’s Pew.” Church history claims that every president since the nation’s fourth chief executive, James Madison, has visited.
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Obamas Go to First Church Service Since Easter
Awesome commentary, at IBD : The defeat of Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski by a little-known conservative lawyer is the latest evidence of a tidal wave building that may sweep aside an out-of-touch establishment. “We the people” won’t be ignored. Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising of 1,200 farmers led by one Daniel Shays, angry over conditions in Massachusetts in 1786, prompted Thomas Jefferson to write to James Madison that “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing” for America. A more peaceful rebellion is now occurring across the country, and we believe it’s a good thing for America. Considering the excesses of this administration and Congress and their abuse of power to the point of ignoring the Constitution itself, it’s also a very necessary thing, an idea whose time has come. With her concession, Sen. Murkowski became the third incumbent to bite the political dust this season, joining Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Pennsylvania party switcher Arlen Specter. The old argument about seniority and influence no longer flies among voters who increasingly believe, as Jefferson did, that government is best which governs least …. America was born through a popular uprising that didn’t like taxation without representation. It may be reborn from an aroused people unhappy with both their taxation and their representation.
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Tea Party Tidal Wave
