Fox News Sunday stacked its panel discussion today to ensure an overwhelmingly positive reaction to Republican John Boehner’s lawsuit against President Obama and to shut out any voices of opposition. This, despite the already unbalanced lineup of two Republican vs. one Democratic guest for the interview portions.
On Meet The Press today, former White House counsel, Kathy Ruemmler, explained the legal problems House Speaker Boehner will likely face with his planned lawsuit:
There is a concept in litigation called “standing,” which I’ve heard some people talk about in connection with this proposed lawsuit. And what basically that means is that you have to show some kind of concrete injury. And, you know, Speaker Boehner I think knows that as well as anybody…
I don’t think the Congress can show any injury here. Congress has a lot of tools available to it to challenge the president if they disagree to the things that he’s doing. Most importantly, the power of the purse. But, you know, a lawsuit, to say it’s frivolous I think is an understatement.
Ruemmler also noted, “(T)he speaker hasn’t actually said what he intends to sue the president over. And I think that’s pretty telling. You know, to come out guns blazing and say, “I’m going to sue you,” but then say, “Well, I haven’t really figured out why yet,” is a little bit odd, to say the least. And I think it’s pretty suggestive that this is just for show. And it’s opportunistic in an election year.”
But on Fox News Sunday, the only serious questioning of the merits of the suit was during a debate between two members of Congress on the subject and host Chris Wallace suggested to the Republican guest that impeachment might be a more appropriate remedy:
WALLACE: Congressman Goodlatte, the courts have as a rule dismissed these cases saying that Congress doesn’t have legal standing and in fact that there are other remedies at Congress’ disposal. You could cut funding for the executive branch of the various programs. Ultimately, you could impeach the president.
Chairman Goodlatte, how do you answer that question that you have other remedies? And secondly, even if you go forward and even if the courts accept the suit, by the time it gets all the way through all the legal machinations, Barack Obama will be out of office.
The panel consisted of conservative Brit Hume, partisan Karl Rove, fickle Democrat Kirsten Powers (who has previously voiced her support for the lawsuit ) and AP’s White House correspondent, Julie Pace. In other words, no advocate on behalf of the White House to balance the uber-partisan Rove and no real liberal journalist to counter Hume.
All snippets below via the Fox News transcript.
First up, Hume:
WALLACE: Brit, big picture, has Barack Obama gone beyond some of his predecessors in his exercise of executive power?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think unmistakably so. We—presidents do tend to stretch these things and go as far as they can, but when you get shut down 9-0 by the Supreme Court, it ought to be a pretty clear warning you’re out of bounds here, buddy.
And now, we look at these instances such as those at you cited in the previous segment where the president has simply chosen to postpone or ignore explicit provisions of the law, something that I think constitutionally he’s not empowered to do and I think it’s obvious. The question, of course, is whether a suit by one house of Congress, will find standing in the court so that the court will act—the high court will act on this.
Pace noted that the White House would portray the lawsuit as a stunt (without discussing its legal merits, or lack thereof) and then quickly contrasted that with the Supreme Court recent ruling President Obama had not had the authority to make recess appointments to the NLRB. Whether she intended to do so or not, Pace’s comments perfectly fell in with the rest of the Boehner-boosting consensus.
Next up, Karl Rove. Wallace feigned balance by pointing out that the George W. Bush White House took an “expansive” view of presidential powers and “asking,” if Wallace could “honestly say that you believe this president is going further than President Bush did in exercising his executive powers?” Of course, Wallace could not have doubted that Rove would say this is different. He got plenty of time to say so, too.
Wallace then chose a question from Twitter that just so happened to promote the “lawless Obama” meme: “If Boehner wins lawsuit, will Obama adhere to the decision? How are courts going to enforce if he doesn’t?”
Powers replied that the president will have to comply with the Supreme Court. But she went on to suggest that Obama is a lawbreaker:
KRISTEN POWERS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, the Supreme Court obviously doesn’t have an army to enforce decisions, but the president has to comply with decisions of the Supreme Court. And I am actually a surprising supporter of the Boehner lawsuit if he, in fact, does have standing because I think that the administration has clearly been shut down by the Supreme Court already on various decisions, and I think they have showed a somewhat hostility to certain things such as supporting the buffer zone that the Supreme Court just struck down in Massachusetts.
And if you listen to what Congressman Becerra (the previous guest) was saying when he was answering your questions, he never once argued the law. He never once said, actually, these things are constitutional because X, Y, and Z. He kept saying, well, the people want this. Or this is a good thing and so, therefore, we should do it.
But that’s not how it’s done. It has to be constitutional. It has to comport with the law. And the fact they can’t argue that is concerning.
3/9/18 update: Video no longer available.
It was that lack of definition over “recess” that led to the SCOTUS decision.
Of course, the Constitution also makes NO provision for the President to be sued by any member of Congress for the reason of “I don’t like the Black man’s policies and programs and I don’t have any real chance of successfully impeaching him over a legitimate issue” (which seems to be Boehner’s only actual reason).