Is the "Obama Doctrine" legal? Better still, is it good? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Last week we were treated to pictures of an American drone captured in Iran. Less noticed in the spin coming out of the White House about Obama's winning the War in Iraq was a note that American drones will continue to operate over Iraq. And the Conspiracy Theorists are abuzz about the idea that the U. S. or Israel or together have been the cause of several mysterious explosions at various Iranian nuclear and missile facilities in recent months.

    And in a slightly different vein we were treated last week to a move by the Obama Administration to institutionalize the President's power to seize and imprison American citizens without benefit of due process.

    Do these developments indicate a shift in American foreign policy? Likewise do they portend an abrogation of the U. S. Constitution?

    These are significant and troubling questions. But for the sake of brevity in this article we will focus only on one aspect: The "Obama Doctrine" of national security; or to put it more nefariously, have we now entered into a brave new world in which the American President can execute people at will without a declaration of war?

    We found an excellent discussion of some of the legal issues involved in this evolution of Military Law in an article by Michael Dorf in his column in Verdict at Justia.com Click here to read Professor Dorf's take on "The Obama Doctrine."

    Commentary

    We have long contended that in recent years we have seen a massive shift in government power to the Executive Branch. Of course ObamaCare is an example, where the legal issue soon to be presented to the Supreme Court is whether the Federal Government has the enumerated power to compel a person to purchase an insurance policy. And as Mr. Dorf touches upon, the impact of the Patriot Act and its progeny is another example. Then there is the control of the economy occasioned by environmental regulations as well as the likes of Dodd-Frank etc.

    We sense a pattern in this movement to the Imperial Presidency, as described as far back as 1973 by presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger. It can be simply stated: Take a mile, give an inch.

    Translated that is the idea that what typically happens is that Washington seizes a mile of authority, only to find later that the Courts chip away an inch or two here and there. But the net result is a major shift in the balance of power between not only the three branches of government, but in the boundaries of federalism in the balance of power between the states and the national government; to say nothing about the people.

    And if the "Obama Doctrine" is allowed to run its course, long after Barack Obama has vacated the White House, we fear we will be left with what we believe to be the greatest threats to our liberty as Americans we have ever encountered. As Yogi Berra is reported to have once said when asked why he argued with an umpire over a call he had made (because he never got the call changed) Yogi is said to have respond: "I ain't arguing about the last call, I'm arguing about the NEXT one."