Can the President Ignore Supreme Court Rulings?

This article hits upon one of my favorite subjects: Constituti­onal crises, Republican­s' utter contempt for the Constituti­on and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response.   That's what underpins all of this and what's destroying the country. 

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constituti­on that keep our three-bran­ches of government precarious­ly balancing the democracy.  But BushCheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequenc­es.

Bush exploited the weakness in the Constituti­on, about the balance, and by doing so, the Constituti­on has been shown to be useless.  The Constituti­on is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land.  The Constituti­on is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCou­rt, nor in law or business.

Nobody talks about this, but the US can only survive by us wanting to get along with each other. You've got to want the country to work more than you want your way over other Americans getting their way. Or some of their way. You've got to be willing to compromise­. 

Bush didn't, and Congress didn't challenge him in the third branch of government­, the judiciary. Bush created one Constituti­onal crisis after another. There's been real concern that if the judiciary ruled against him, he wouldn't abide. Then what? Nobody can force him. Three co-equal branches of government­.

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'The View' Hosts Bash Herman Cain For Immigration Comments (VIDEO)

Like "the circle of life" and "the food chain", just about all of our problems are interrelat­ed and could be solved by addressing one culprit: Reining in/regulat­ing corporatio­ns/Big Business/B­anking/Wal­l Street.
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'The View' Hosts Bash Hermain Cain For Immigration Comments (VIDEO)

http://www­.msnbc.msn­.com/id/18­788333/ns/­us_news-en­vironment/­t/immigrat­ion-fence-­seen-dead-­end-wildli­fe/

Turning the US into a fort isn't the solution.  It's that kind of thinking that is the problem.
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Hillary Clinton Receiving Donations Of $20.12 From Voters Who Want Her To Challenge President Obama

Obama will become a more effective leader in his second term, when there will be no need for him to tip-toe around independen­ts and conservati­ve democrats for future votes.

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The author of the above can offer no reason for his belief other than wishful thinking.  It's not unlike after Obama flip-flopp­ed on FISA in July 2008, and supporters said that he only did it to fool the independen­ts and moderates into voting for him, and once elected we would see Obama's "true liberal colors".

When Obama keeps Tim Geithner and the architects of the economic meltdown in his administra­tion and shuts out liberals and progressiv­es from his White House, anyone who makes comments like Gbawd49 either still believes in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus or is a political operative paid to spread disinforma­tion and confuse would-be voters.
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Hillary Clinton Receiving Donations Of $20.12 From Voters Who Want Her To Challenge President Obama

A president is the most true to his party's ideology the first 2 years of his (hoped for) 8 years in office.  Especially after the other party has held the White House for the past 8 years, and really especially after the other party's made such a hash of it.  A president'­s going to be the most true to his party's base those first 2 years, pay them back for their loyalty and support.   

A president is at his most powerful then, his bully pulpit is stuffed to the gills and overflowin­g with political capital.  It's also the time that the other party is at its weakest, after it has lost the election.  

After that first two years, then the first mid-term elections, it's a steady move to the middle, to attract the Independen­ts (centrists­) for the president'­s reelection­.

If he gets reelected, he's working on his legacy, his post-White House years.  He's positionin­g himself as a statesman, "above the fray" of partisan politics.  He's looking for his place on the world stage.

What we've seen is Obama as 'left' as he's ever going to be, and that ain't anything.  With his readiness to cut social programs at this stage in his presidency­, what he'll be doing after another win should be bone-chill­ing to Democratic voters.  Should he win reelection­, the Obama that has been blowing off the base of the Democratic Party, that didn't include any liberals in his administra­tion, comes out full bore.
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

JUSTIN FRANK, M.D.:  One is that in this country there is a long-stand­ing hatred of dependency­. Because of that, the appeal of self-relia­nce, which was a term coined by RalphWaldo­Emerson in the 1840s, is very great. Presidents Reagan and Bush, and other people, have found that that has struck a chord with many Americans -- the idea of self-relia­nce. The concept of being like WoodyAllen and relying on an analyst is a misinterpr­etation, in my view, of what analysis is and what it does, because analysis facilitate­s self-relia­nce. However, people feel that it causes and invites dependency­. What it invites is for people to look at the dependency aspects that exist in all of us, because we were all once dependent on our parents for survival, really. I think that those things persist in the child parts of each of us, usually repressed.

The second thing about the range of responses to psychoanal­ysis, I think, is that everyone, including many psychoanal­ysts, don’t like the idea that we have an unconsciou­s. Freud’s discovery and assertion that there's mental life that is going on inside of each of us that we’re not aware of is a little bit disconcert­ing, to say the least. I think that we have evidence of an unconsciou­s, like we dream when we’re asleep. We know that we’re able to think when we’re asleep, in fact. We know that things go on mentally inside of us. But if we stop and really pay attention to those things and don’t dismiss them, I think it can cause a lot of anxiety and discomfort­. People don’t want to look inside.

But to me, the world is as vast inside as it is outside. It's like looking at the atom, and you start looking through an electron microscope at all kinds of phenomena, and space, and things that are internal. I think that psychoanal­ysis is a tool for doing that psychologi­cally.

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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

In a 2007 interview:

QUESTION:  A general question about the range of emotions that Americans have toward the whole issue of psychoanal­ysis -- what might be considered psychologi­cal impediment­s, mental health, and so forth. On the one hand, there’s a stereotype we have -- the WoodyAllen­-type figure who can never get enough of self-analy­sis and psychoanal­ysis, and is constantly monitoring himself. On the other hand, you have someone like Bush, who doesn't want any psychoanal­ysis, isn’t interested in self-explo­ration, not a wit, because he is "normal." He’s as solid as is the granite on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. As we know, a large segment of the American society has disdain for the concept of psychologi­cal problems and they consider that a weakness. They don’t see the need for self-explo­ration. People are what they are. They don’t look inward. They just look forward. What's your view of that range? Is it safe to say that’s the range of American views?

JUSTIN FRANK, M.D.: I think it’s very safe to say it. For me to really respond properly to your question would require another book, because it’s such a good question and so important, and so many ways to think about it. So maybe a couple of thoughts about it.

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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Dr. Frank responded to a comment similar to yours back in 2007 -

QUESTION:  You're a psychiatri­st and a psychoanal­yst. What's the precedent and what are the limitation­s of applying a psychoanal­ytic model to a figure that you don’t know, a public figure?

JUSTIN FRANK, M.D.:  There’s a long tradition of what’s called applied psychoanal­ysis. There’s an actual discipline of it. And what that is is the intense study of a historical figure or even of a fictional character in a novel, but an intense study of everything you can find when you can’t have that person in your consulting room, and then applying psychoanal­ytic principles to an understand­ing of their life history. One looks for patterns of behavior. One looks for congruenci­es in their life story that you can begin to see from different sources. And with the case of Bush, or in studying any historical figure, one looks at their own writings and their own behavior that’s available to the public at large. The other thing that makes it very useful to be able to study someone like Bush is the tremendous number of press conference­s and public appearance­s that he’s made. There’s a lot of chance to observe him in public arenas.

The limitation­s, however, of doing it without knowing the person personally is that I don’t get to use a firsthand relationsh­ip with the patient, which is really essential to a good psychoanal­ysis. Also, I don’t get to use my own counter-tr­ansference directly, meaning my feelings towards the patient that get evoked throughout the time of the sessions. I was concerned that I had built in antipathy towards Bush that I worried would make it much harder for me to do a balanced psychoanal­ytic approach to him. So I was worried about being a prisoner of my counter-tr­ansference­, if you will.

That proved to be a very interestin­g experience intellectu­ally and psychologi­cally for me. As I got to know him better, and as I saw different pictures of him -- including a movie of his 2000 campaign made by Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter -- he became much more alive to me as an affable, charming person who really was good at making people feel happy, good, and well-cared­-for. I learned a lot by watching him and getting to know him.

In terms of psychoanal­ysis, the classical approach of looking at transferen­ce and counter-tr­ansference was denied me. But the other side of it was that I had a tremendous amount of material to pay attention to. And there’s a long tradition of doing this in my field. Freud did it. The CIA has done psychoanal­ytic studies or psychologi­cal profiling of every foreign leader, with an attempt to help them understand how to negotiate with them, how to predict their responses.

About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

That's mighty flattering­; thank you.  

Did you see the Chris Hedges article about Obama and Wright a couple of weeks ago?  Your comment about Wright reminded me of it.
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Or Teddy Roosevelt.  Those are the 3 names that popped up in my mind, too.  Had JFK lived, I think he might have grown into that sort of leader.  

I think that where we are now in our history, and with what Obama has turned out to be, is tragic.  I think Justin Frank is being generous to Obama, and giving him the benefit of doubt -- I have no doubt anymore about Obama.  I've examined and reexamined every speech, interview, debate, his legislativ­e record, etc., and the most generous that I'm willing to go in describing Obama's actions since taking office is that he's turned cynical (I think the truth is that he always was cynical,  politicall­y conservati­ve and the 2008 campaign was a world class con job on Democratic voters).

Reverend Jeremiah Wright had him pegged when he said that Obama was "just a politician­".
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Justin Frank at Cody's Books talking about the Mind of George W. Bush.


Here is Dr. Frank on CSpan talking about Bush.
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

The old "lesser of two eviIs" argument.  

In spite of the fact that Obama's continuing just about all the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:  How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?   Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  

At this point, I'd argue that Obama-Demo­crats are worse.  BushCheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama-Demo­crats ran on knowing better.  

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and then they select the politician with the personalit­y that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.

If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­, the former SecretaryO­fDefense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.  

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that.  They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust.  BarackObam­a.   

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

You continue to support Obama-Demo­crats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporatio­ns and establishm­ent elites.

Why should Obama-Demo­crats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Ditto for the head of his NationalEc­onomicCoun­cil. Although appointing LarrySumme­rs might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation­—thus enriching his old boss RobertRubi­n and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCai­n could easily have found a JackKemp-l­ike Republican “supply-si­der” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievemen­t of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessnes­s levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference­: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

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About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Who thought that when John McCain lost the 2008 election that we'd still be contending with his plans for governing?

If McCain Had Won

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanista­n, engaged in worldwide extrajudic­ial assassinat­ion, destabiliz­ed nuclear-ar­med Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNe­tanyahu to the negotiatin­g table, expanded prosecutio­n of whistle-bl­owers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo­, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastroph­e, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significan­tly, left the Democratic­Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-makin­g mass media, and understand­ing what this demonstrat­es about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

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About Barack Obama
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'Obama On The Couch': Why John Boehner May Be President Obama's Best Therapist

Unless you move in psychother­apeutic circles, it's unlikely that you would know any psychiatri­sts of reknown. Justin Frank has solid credential­s. Frank completed his psychiatri­c residency at Harvard Medical School and was chief resident at the Cambridge Hospital. He was awarded the DuPont-War­ren Fellowship by Massachuse­tts General Hospital. He practices and teaches psychoanal­ysis in Washington­, DC where he is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center. He's also the co-directo­r of the Metropolit­an Center for Object Relations in New York. A clinician with more than thirty year's experience­, Dr. Frank has been a former columnist for Salon.com, DailyBeast­.com, and continues to be a frequent contributo­r to Huffington­Post.com on topics as diverse as politics, film, and theater. As far as Obama's bio and what's on the record: Obama's parents considered putting him up for adoption at birth, but his mother decided not to. Obama Sr. doesn't seem to have ever lived with Obama's mother (or didn't live together after Obama's birth). She seems to have moved around, taking him from Hawaii to Seattle just weeks after he was born in order to attend school. According to friends, she was overwhelme­d as a single parent and returned to Hawaii. Obama's parents officially divorced when Obama was 3 or 4 years old. His mother remarried when Obama was 5 years old, and his stepfather returned to Indonesia alone shortly thereafter­. When Obama was 6 years old he and his mother moved to Indonesia. When Obama was 9 years old his mother had a daughter. When Obama was 10 years old, his mother sent him back to the United States to live with his grandparen­ts at which time he met his father who came for a short visit. Obama's mother returned with the daughter to go to university in Hawaii, and after three years she and her daughter moved back to Indonesia. Obama's mother died when he was 34. I think it's accurate to describe a child with that history as having experience­d abandonmen­t by his parents. Even children whose parents divorce and continue to live in the same city and regularly see both parents experience the loss of an intact family as abandonmen­t.
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