It’s Gloves Off in Obama’s Final Two Months
Expect an onslaught of last-minute decrees.
Barack Obama has demonstrated great contempt for Rule of Law during his eight years in office. From the Iran nuclear deal to the Paris climate agreement — and myriad other executive actions and unilaterally enacted regulations far too numerous to list — Obama perennially stretched and breached the boundaries afforded the executive branch. As a Washington Examiner editorial aptly put it, “Obama’s most egregious mistake … was to govern as though his opinion was the only one worth considering.”
That’s a mistake the next president, Donald Trump, must avoid. In the meantime, Obama has two months left in the Oval Office to unleash what’s left of his agenda. For him, now that Hillary Clinton won’t be his successor, that means the gloves are off. For us, that means a slew of unilateral diktats may be coming down the pipe.
“Look out for the executive orders, the ‘midnight’ regulations and, perhaps most controversially, the pardons,” The Washington Times warns. “As President Obama runs out the clock on his eight-year tenure, analysts say, he still has plenty of business left undone, and they expect him to follow the lead of other presidents and issue a series of rules, to add to his list of executive orders, to continue his record-setting pace of commutations and perhaps add a controversial pardon or two into the mix.”
In his remarks on Tuesday’s stunning upset, Barack Obama said, “We’re all on the same team.” He can prove it by rejecting the anticipated onslaught of partisan jabs as he prepares to vacate the White House. Unfortunately, history suggests that’s asking too much. Let’s hope Trump holds true to his promise by rolling back Obama’s decrees and bandaging the rifts.