Dictating from the White House

President Barack Obama has leapt into action. He has issued executive orders and executive actions requiring tougher fuel efficiency standards for trucks. strengthening the U.S. patent system, and signed an executive order intended to speed up the process for approving import or export cargo. He will do other things, he promises, to bypass an uncooperative Congress. Mr Obama has also dallied with the minimum wage.

Shades of Obamacare. When the President doesn't get what he wants, he pulls whatever lever he can to get it, democracy be damned.

Defenders of the Chief Executive say that it's simply to get some movement on key issues, and that they're small measures anyway. They won't effect many. We will even add to his defense ourselves by allowing that other Presidents have issued executive orders when they felt a need, and that Mr. Obama was freely elected. He's doing nothing save serving the folks who put him in office.

Well, and we probably shouldn't go for the easy pitch here, Hitler was democratically elected. Did he have the best interests of the German people in mind? Beyond that admittedly (hopefully) extreme hyperbole, when a President seems to be getting nothing done because of Congress, and that Congress (elected more directly by the people than he was and representing a broader electorate) then it strikes us that the people don't want what he's offering. Seeing as Obamacare is decidedly unpopular, we are left to wonder whether a president who really had the will of the people in mind would have magnanimously went along with its repeal. Yet he forced that through with parliamentary gamesmanship, and now threatens extensive use of the executive order.

This is not leadership. It is however dictatorial. Small issues can become large rather quickly, and a power once used is easy to expand. If the President gets comfortable with this plan of action, it is not difficult to imagine him becoming emboldened and expanding his orders into other areas. Yes, we're arguing the slippery slope. Yes, we know that Barack Obama has issued fewer executive orders than many other Presidents, including his predecessor. But seeing as our current Chief has demonstrated a willingness to do whatever he wishes for whatever he wants, his actions are disconcerting.

This is not a President. This is a community organizer bossing everyone around. How do you like them apples, comrade?