Is there an alternative to what I have called, in Washington Examiner columns, “an administration inclined to lawlessness,” one in which administration lawyers are unwilling to tell their clients “that they are damned fools and should stop” and a president who has shown “reckless disregard” of the law? This is an administration whose positions have been rejected a record number of times by 9-0 votes in the Supreme Court, an administration whose overturning of immigration law (“I just changed the law,” the president chortled in announcing it) has justifiably been termed “Caesarism without apology” by New York Time columnist Ross Douthat.
The answer is yes, there is an alternative to a lawless administration, and it’s described in National Review Online today by Michael Horowitz, head of the Twenty-First Century Initiatives think tank, drawing on his experiences as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration. As Horowitz points out, Reagan administration lawyers like Ted Olson, Charles Cooper, Boyden Gray, Peter Wallison, Richard Willard and Fred Fielding were ready, able and willing to tell Reagan administration officials that they couldn’t, shouldn’t and mustn’t do things that (and usually the lawyers themselves) wanted to do because they were, as odd as this may sound in the Obama era, against the law. Please do read the whole thing: it’s full of illuminating history and interesting anecdotes.
It’s interesting that each of the lawyers named here remains active and engaged in public affairs some 30 years after their service in the Reagan administration. I wonder whether the lawyers who have been providing Obama with such egregious legal advice, or who have disregarded their professional obligations, will be similarly active and respected 30 years from now.
