It’s not that there’s nothing of use in John O’Sullivan’s Wall Street Journal “Saturday Essay” about this upside-down American election season, but it’s built, in part, on shaky and partisan foundations. It argues that President Obama’s use of executive orders is an unprecedented outlier that has caused the nation to be torn asunder. Except that both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton issued far more during their terms in office. The elder President Bush was on pace to as well had he won a second term. The same goes for many earlier Commanders in Chief. 

In regards to the Affordable Care Act, O’Sullivan uses the phrase “pushed through,” language that makes it seem as if something unfair or uncommon occurred. Pushing agendas through Congress is something the Oval Office has always done. 

Let’s recall that the GOP was holding meetings prior to Obama’s inauguration to plan to torpedo his Presidency. The divisiveness wasn’t a reaction but a preemptive strike.

O’Sullivan is correct in saying the Left and Right alike have been disappointed with Obama for different reasons, though you have to wonder in those cases if the fault lies with him or if no President could satisfy such a factious moment in our nation’s history. An excerpt:

President Barack Obama is the catalyst that made everything boil over. It shouldn’t be surprising. He proclaimed that he wanted to transform America fundamentally. While the Democrats controlled Congress, he pushed through the semi-nationalization of health care. Since the Democrats lost control, he has pushed his presidential authority to the very limits of the Constitution to secure his agenda on immigration, treaty-making with Iran, global warming and much else.

Mr. Obama has succeeded in getting a majority-Republican Congress to eschew its power of the purse and finance almost his entire agenda. Only the courts have effectively blocked his extensions of lawmaking and regulatory power, and that battle is still being waged. So it would be very odd if people didn’t conclude that a determined president could achieve almost anything he wanted if he were bold enough—and that Mr. Obama has done so.

As a result, his period in office has provoked rebellious popular movements outside Washington on the right and, more surprisingly, on the left.•