I came not to praise Obama, but...

I love Steve Hynd of Newshoggers and really respect his opinions. When I'm confused about some point on foreign policy, he's my go-to guy. I rarely disagree with him, but today I disagreed with this:

If recess appointments were wrong on principle back in 2007 when Bush was President, then they're still wrong on principle now - and Obama just made a buttload of them.

A bunch of Democratically-leaning pundits are writing that Obama is perfectly justified in doing this - and those who wrote back in 2007 that recess appointments were simply wrong and a perversion of the rule of law are now revealed as hypocritical partisan hacks. They know who they are. ...

Well I was one of those who criticized Bush, particularly over the Bolton recess appointment, but I don't see supporting Obama in this now as hackery or hypocrisy. As I commented at Newshoggers:

To be fair Steve, the current level of GOP obstructionism is far beyond anything the Founders envisioned or I imagined that even GOPers were capable of. There does come a point where the functioning of the government justifies the act for the general good of our country.

I'd remind you for instance in Bolton's case, the Dems were allowing debate on the floor and publicly disclosing their objections to a clearly disastrous nominee. In that case, Bush purposely circumvented an ongoing process because he thought he'd lose the vote. In the instant case, the GOP is blocking the process altogether so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison.

I admit I've become more of cheerleader for President Obama than I ever expected but it's partly because the "criticize from the left" beat is so well covered. The man isn't perfect, far from it, but he's the hardest working and most honest President we've had in my lifetime. Given the turmoil in the world and the toxic political climate, I just think it's far more productive to focus on his positives unless he does something really egregious. Otherwise I'm willing to cut him some slack because he is making many postive changes that would have never occurred under a different president.

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