The Lawless President

This column from today's The Wall Street Journal, "Chrysler and the Rule of Law" by Todd J. Zywicki, is an alarming summary of the complete disregard for our Constitution and the laws enacted under it by our President, New Soviet Man Barack Obama.

Professor Zywicki sets the stage:

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental
threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We
might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chavez. But it would never happen here,
right?

Until Chrysler.

A recitation of the facts surrounding President Obama's strong-arm of the Chrysler bankruptcy and the relevant Constitutional and legal provisions follows. He succintly points out that Chrysler's secured creditors are being shafted in favor of the United Auto Workers - not conicidentally one of Mr. Obama's favored constituency groups. He continues:

By stepping over the bright line beween the rule of law and the arbitrary
behavior of men, President Obama may have created a thousand new failing
businesses. That is, businesses thay might have received financing before but
that now will not, since lenders face the potential of future government
confiscation. In other words, Mr. Obama may have helped save the jobs of
thousands of union workers whose dues, in part, engineered his election. But
what about the untold number of job losses in the future caused by trampling the
sanctity of contracts today?

The value of the rule of law is not merely a matter of economic efficiency.
It also provides a bulwark against arbitrary governmental action taken at the
behest of politically influential interests at the expense of the politically
unpopular...

And what if the next time it is a politically unpopular business...that's on
the brink? Might the government force it to surrender a patent to get the White
House's agreement to get financing for the bankruptcy plan?

A dire, dangerous question indeed. In fact, it echoes of Ayn Rand's "Directive 10-289".

At this time, I'd like to call Mr. Obama's attention to the text of Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution:

"He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

I made the assertion around Election Day that if - and as it has turned out to be - when Barack Obama took the Oath of Office, the entire statement would be a lie.

Sadly, tragically, I was right.

Pray for our Nation.

(Hat tip: Drudge)