John Podesta: Republican Enemy #2

Republican's may soon be attacking him.

Politico.com called John Podesta "... the quintessential Washington wise man".  With a president who has shown on the basketball court that he takes a cool and easy approach, but is still going for your jugular, Podesta represents a new sword in this battle. Excalibur if you will.

 The do-nothing congress has triggered several acts of retaliation. This is just the latest.  Executive orders get ratified by judges so it stood to reason that republicans would do what they could to thwart the president's executive privilege of tilting the balance of the federal courts therefore freeing up the Obama administration to take the executive order back door around congress. When multiple judicial nominee's got jammed into the pipes from the battle being waged on this front, Senator Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option  to run some drain opener through the pipes and get these judicial posts filled.

If the republican's think that ObamaCare was shoved down the pipes, Podesta is about to demonstrate the capacity of our plumbing. The executive order is firmly written within the constitution. What is not so firmly interpreted is how far is the latitude of the executive order.  In the absence of clarity, presidents have accomplished a lot of substantive policy work outside of the vote of congress.

Obama is hardly the most extreme abuser of this tool.  Reagan had 381, Clinton 364, George W. Bush 291.  Through his first term Barack Obama had 147.  The hiring of Podesta signals an Obama agenda to increase in the use of them. Podesta understands the power of the executive order like no other.  Most importantly, he understands how difficult it is to legislate against an executive order because of the super majority vote it takes in congress to reverse one, and the potential political fallout from getting on the wrong side of this kind of action. As a result Only two executive orders have ever been reversed.

Government shutdown intended to defund ObamaCare was not just a crazy last resort for a desperate party looking for a way to slow the momentum of a landmark election, it was the last resort, period. The last resort against an executive order is reverse it or defund it.  The executive order has too many historical footprints for it to be challenged. Angry republicans across the nation are blogging and bagging on Obama for this discovery while searching for a challenge to the constitutionality of this presidential instrument.  If Obama was not already republican enemy #1 as Mitch McConnell declared him to be, the executive order has secured his position as the right's most hated, ever.

Once the republicans finally finish their internal war and determine who will be their Sherman, Monarch Obama has chosen his general Grant and his name is John Podesta.  Republican enemy #2.