The Imperial Presidency

To our shame many of us were quiet when the employees of AIG were asked to give back the monies negotiated in legitimate contracts; moreover, when their wives and children were being threatened. What was their crime? They had the gall to sign contracts which allowed them to be paid generous salaries and perks. No contractual conditional language was involved in the contracts for these AIG employees to give back the fruits of the contract, but many politicians and members of the public wanted the employees to give them back. We are now repeating that same moral indolence when we sit quietly by while bond holders of GM are relegated to second class citizens, while the union members are given primacy. In the same vein, we now have a pay Czar who will tell private companies via presidential fiat, what they can pay their CEOs. This is happening under a president who claims to respect the rule of law--it is even more grating because Obama was a Constitutional Law professor. There are members in his administration and many in his party, if they had their way, would have Cheney incarcerated, not for any malfeasance vis-à-vis his stewardship of Halliburton, but for sanctioning water boarding of stone cold killers. These same champions of the rule of law have nothing to say while President Obama cast aside codified contractual law principles that have been part of our way of government for over 230 years. Perhaps it is the Christian in me, but President Obama should place himself in others shoes. Our president recently signed a $5,000,000 contract to write a book; I supposed he will put pen to paper sometime in 2012 or 2016 to write his memoirs. Let us supposed that his popularity ratings are not as high as they are now, should the publisher take back some of the millions, if the contract is lacking this “conditional” language? Our president’s wife had a position at hospital in Chicago hospital that paid her $300,000, should the hospital board be able to come back and arbitrarily ask for money back-again, without the contractual language support? I have searched to find a similar time in history to compare what it is we are now facing, but I only could come with one similar epoch. In ancient Rome, when the Republic was threatened, the Patricians (wealthy class) and the Plebeians (common folks) would agree to allow a dictator to take charge and combat the outside threat and then return the Republic to the Senate when the danger was gone--I supposed the recession is our outside threat threatening Rome (USA) . Does anyone believe that the pay Czar, who was a lawyer, wanted someone to determine his generous pay at the prestigious white shoe law firm where he came from? Do we think President Obama via his pay Czar, will tell Lebron James, Derik Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Tiger Woods, Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Bruce Springsteen, how much they should earn for their respective vocations? Perhaps, we will get a better clue when and if Obama’s pay Czar determines what the Green Bay packers should pay its quarterback, after all, it is the only football team that is owned by the public….

-Verily Prime