The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

If We Had an Actual Press Corps, They Would Be Asking …

Posted on | May 10, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Driscoll links Harsanyi, “Obama supports same-sex marriage, cites states’ rights”:

Which begs an obvious question: If Obama has endorsed federalism and believes that states have the right to define marriage, then why doesn’t he support the ability of states to extricate themselves from Obamacare? Why don’t states have the right to dictate their immigration laws? And does he “personally” believe that states should be able decide the issue of abortion? Roe v. Wade exists, but so does the Defense of Marriage Act.

More generally, what are the meaningful political objects in our system, and by what rational, consistent, generally agreed upon rules are responsibilities assigned to them?

I anticipate #OccupyResoluteDesk would answer somewhere between a brief “Shut up,” or the even more elemental “Racist!” Now, if you’re a bundler dropping some cash, you might get told “I’ll do something beyond spewing words into the air after the election,” which is just long for “Hard questions are hahrd.”

Aside: Andrew McCarthy points to what an overweening, self-aggrandizing narcissist afflicts us. Let me stop there, before I get too upset.

Update: linked by Da Tech Guy

Category: Ed Driscoll, Instapundit

Comments

6 Responses to “If We Had an Actual Press Corps, They Would Be Asking …”

  1. Bob Belvedere
    May 10th, 2012 @ 7:26 am

    Admirable restraint – I don’t know how you do it, Admiral.

  2. Datechguy's Blog » Blog Archive » By George Clooney that explains it! » Datechguy's Blog
    May 10th, 2012 @ 8:07 am

    […] Smitty links to another set of questions: If Obama has endorsed federalism and believes that states have […]

  3. O’Sucka Wants States Rights – No, Wait…Oh Ok on That …No on That…What the Hell Do I Want? | ZION'S TRUMPET
    May 10th, 2012 @ 8:18 am

    […] If We Had an Actual Press Corps, They Would Be Asking … […]

  4. scarymatt
    May 10th, 2012 @ 8:53 am

    Dude, you’re forgetting about magnus stare decisis, AKA Super Duper Precedent. That stuff is important.

    Don’t get hung up on the letter of the law. Or the spirit. The whole law thingy is kinda over rated. Can’t we just agree to go along with whatever?

    FORWARD!

  5. Adjoran
    May 10th, 2012 @ 3:48 pm

    Your error is the quaint belief that Dear Leader’s policies ought to be consistent.  But among the Great Men, consistency is a straitjacket constraining their benevolent genius. 

    His words, as one of his philosophical forbears announced, mean precisely what he intends them to mean at that moment, no more and no less.  And if he feels the need to redefine or repudiate those meanings in a day or an hour, you have no business trying to hold him to the first:  after all, they don’t put your head in a halo on the cover of news magazines, do they?

    And, insofar as so many on our side have declared their indifference to his reelection, he will be free to issue edicts as he deems necessary in his second term, without the meddlesome restraints of having to explain himself to lesser beings just because they can vote.  Don’t worry, in time and with the proper reeducation, we will all learn to love him like a brother.  A Big Brother to us all.

  6. Thomas L. Knapp
    May 11th, 2012 @ 2:10 am

    It’s true that Obama’s position is weak as far as being pro-family, pro-marriage and pro-freedom goes.

    Instead of pinging “states’ rights,” he should have pointed out that per the US Constitution, if you get married in Lowell, Massachusetts, you remain married when you move to Lubbock, Texas (“full faith and credit”), and that if either Massachusetts or Texas choose to have laws regarding marriage, they don’t get to enforce those laws differently based on the ratios of penises to vaginas involved (“equal protection of the law”).

    Maybe he just thought that playing the “states rights” card would benefit him by triggering so large an Obama Derangement Syndrome outbreak among his anti-family, anti-marriage, anti-freedom opponents that he’d pick up some bonus backlash votes on top of what the position change itself got him.