Rise of the 'Uber Presidency': Obama Promises More Executive Overrreach In 2014

A mere six weeks after the House judiciary committee held a hearing on “the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” exploring political remedies to executive overreach, the president has defiantly promised that he’s “not just going to be waiting for legislation” from Congress to move forward his agenda in 2014.” 

“I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said before a Cabinet meeting at the White House, issuing a challenge to GOP lawmakers who have blocked most of his second-term agenda.

Obama is hailing 2014 as a “year of action” after enduring the roughest 12-month stretch of his presidency.

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer echoed those sentiments in an e-mail sent early Tuesday about Obama’s plan to use his executive power “in ways Americans have never seen before.”

“President Obama has a resolution for 2014: That this will be a year of action,” Pfeiffer said in the e-mail, pointing out that Obama would no longer be waiting around for Congress to get things done.

“Instead, the president will use his executive authority, both his pen and his phone, to work with anyone to get things done — whether they be leaders in business, education, Congress, states, or local communities,” he said.

At the House judiciary hearing on Dec 3rd, Professor Jonathan Turley of  George Washington University Law School said:

 “I really have great trepidation about where we are headed because we are creating a new system,  here –  something which is not what was designed –  we have this rising fourth branch…the center of gravity is shifting, and that makes it unstable, and within that system we have the rise of an uber-Presidency. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty. I really think the framers would be horrified by this shift because everything they dedicated themselves to was in creating this orbital balance and we’ve lost it.”

Democrats are tickled pink, of course. They don’t concern themselves with things like “individual liberty” or “orbital balance” unless a Republican is in the White House.