'What Would Saul Alinsky Do?'

By David Limbaugh (Archive) · Friday, June 25, 2010

Remember the popular motto "What would Jesus do?" which was invoked by many Christians as a moral guidepost for daily living? President Barack Obama more likely adheres to "What would Saul Alinsky do?" as most recently evidenced by his apparent defiance of a federal court order on his moratorium on offshore drilling.

Politico reports that the drilling companies who secured the court order blocking the moratorium say the administration indeed is going to defy the court order. I'm quite sure that Alinsky would applaud this move: If at first you don't succeed through proper legal channels, proceed anyway, because nothing is more important than the radical ends you seek, including the means that must be trampled in the process.

Of course, shrewd Alinskyites like Obama will always have a plausible excuse for their deceitful tactics. In this case, they are alleging newly discovered facts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he intends to reimpose the drilling moratorium based on information that wasn't "fully developed" in May, when the six-month moratorium was imposed. Quite convenient.

The administration is also sending mixed signals, probably to introduce sufficient confusion to cover its disobedience. The government's brief filed with the court insisted, "Of course, until a further order of this Court or the Court of Appeals granting relief from this Court's Preliminary Injunction Order, Defendants will comply with the Court's Order." But attorneys for the drilling companies warn that "Secretary Salazar's comments have the obvious effect of chilling the resumption of (outer continental shelf) activities, which is precisely the wrong this Court sought to redress through its Preliminary Injunction Order."

The companies' point, notes Politico, is that Salazar's public announcement that the administration will reinstitute the moratorium will have the same practical effect as actually doing it because companies are not about to prepare rigs for drilling when they might be shut down in a few days. The administration predictably pooh-poohs the companies' concerns and says these new "facts" present an entirely different scenario. How convenient. Whenever you can't advance the football, just move the goal posts your way.

Can't you just hear an irate Alinsky-schooled Obama behind closed doors learning of the court order audaciously purporting to limit his plenary executive authority? "Just find the damn loophole -- or say you did -- and I don't want to see you again in this office until it's done."

Defying court orders is just one of many ways Obama abuses his authority. When Congress failed with its initial efforts to impose cap-and-tax legislation designed to suppress traditional energy production and consumption in the United States for the ostensible purpose of reducing global temperature an imperceptible amount over the next century, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency just issued ultra vires regulations to accomplish similar results. It didn't matter that every literate and intellectually honest person had to concede that the EPA had no statutory (or any other) authority to issue such sweeping regulations. What mattered were the administration's radical environmental goals.

When Obama wanted to secure for his favored unions a stake in his new General Motors far exceeding their actual ownership interest and rob secured creditors of their preferred-creditor status and the value of their investment, he used the power of his office to strong-arm a restructuring of the company to accomplish his aims. When Democratic Party donor and super-lawyer Tom Lauria opposed this plan on behalf of his client, the White House, according to Lauria, threatened to destroy his client's reputation. One unnamed source described the White House as the most shocking "end justifies the means" group he had ever encountered. Another attributed Obama's negotiating tactics to a "madman theory of the presidency," saying Obama wants to be feared as someone who is willing to do anything to get his way. In return for standing up for their legal rights as secured creditors and not bending to Obama's horrendously unfair demand, er, offer, Obama maligned the recalcitrant creditors as "a small group of speculators."

When inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on the corruption of an Obama friend and supporter, Obama fired Walpin and sought to discredit him as a senile misfit -- a charge wholly unsupported by the facts.

And I won't begin to recite the many ways (e.g., reconciliation) Obama sought to circumvent the legislative process en route to Obamacare.

Alinsky is surely beaming from the other side.

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