Do we need Congress?

Opinion

July 5, 2012

Do we need Congress?

Bob Harper FOR THE DAILY SOUTHERNER The Daily Southerner Thu Jul 05, 2012, 09:59 AM EDT

TARBORO — Do we need Congress?   Of course we need Congress; it’s been a vital part of our government since the beginning.   Maybe we don’t need Congress according to some of the actions of our President. Recently we have seen a number of moves by President Obama that indicate he may have appointed himself as a type of Imperial President.

He has bypassed Congress in declaring which illegal immigrants may remain in the U.S.   Odds are that Congress would have approved this or something similar.   However, this is an election year so Obama took it upon himself to claim executive privilege to do this immediately, therefore locking up the Latino vote for the election.   He achieved this and now has the Latino vote wrapped up.

Actually more dangerous to this country are the White House leaks that made Obama look good with actions that were indeed good and should have been ordered, but not disclosed.   Why shouldn’t the President (any President) make public good things that he has done?   He shouldn’t when it puts lives of others in danger and undermines our relations with other friendly nations in the world.

The White House leaks gave the identity of the Pakistani doctor who helped us track down bin Laden, plus how a double agent worked with the British Intelligence on a new bomb plot in Yemen, plus the personal order of Obama for cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear program … which is an act of war.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said these leaks are the worst he has seen in his 30-year intelligence career.   Not all of the complaints are coming from Republicans. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) has stated “I’ve been on the Intelligence Committee for 11 years, and I have never seen it worse.” She went on to say, “This has to stop. When people say they don’t want to work with the United States, because they can’t trust us to keep a secret, that’s serious.”

Liberal newspaper The New York Times says that the leaks came directly from the White House.   Well, they made the President look good so why not make it public.   Did anyone think, or care, that it put the lives of members of intelligence gathering groups in danger?

With charges like the leaking of classified information we would think that an investigation would be called for…and it has been.   However, not by an independent source.   A U.S. attorney, Ronald Machen will do the job.   We are supposed to ignore the fact he gave lots of money to Obama’s Senate and presidential campaigns and has referred to Obama as a “legend.”

Who was the most likely source of these leaks from the White House?   The most probable source according to those closer to the facts would be, Thomas Donilon, the White House national-security adviser.   Apparently Donilon has a reputation of being very talkative. Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal : “When I was a child, there was a doll called Chatty Cathy.   You pulled a string in her back, and she babbled inanely.   Tom Donilon appears to be Chatty Cathy of the American intelligence community.”

Another question that many are wondering about is, ‘Did Donilon makes the decision to release this information to make the President look good (even though it put the lives of innocent people in danger) or was the decision made higher up?’   But, the next position higher up would be the President himself.

If we have a national-security adviser or President who leaks secret national intelligence information, in order to make the president look good, even when it puts lives of our friends in danger, then we have a real problem.

Back to the Fast and Furious action that took the life of Brian Terry.   In an effort to find out what caused the disaster of the Fast and Furious debacle (and to keep something like this from happening again) the House of Representatives asked Attorney General Eric Holder to turn over documents tied to this tragedy.   Holder refused and was held in contempt. The House approved the charge in a vote of 258-95, which included 17 Democrats, two from N.C.   There seems to be more and more Democrats running from Obama than running with him.   However, The Justice Department has now stopped the request for the Fast and Furious information, much to the sorrow of Brian Terry’s parents.

(Bob Harper is a Tarboro resident who writes a column of general interest.)

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