President Barack Obama has abused his executive "discretion" and so severely violated his oath of office that he should either be considered "chief lawbreaker," or his tenure characterized as one of "incompetent madness," said Andrew Napolitano.
In an opinion piece for
The Washington Times, the former New Jersey Superior Court judge said the president has repeatedly rejected the responsibilities of his office and has done so much damage to the "fabric of liberty" that it may not be possible for a successor to reverse it.
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"It has been well established under the Constitution and throughout our history that the president's job as the chief federal law enforcement officer permits him to put his ideological stamp on the nature of the work done by the executive branch. The courts have characterized this stamp as 'discretion,'" Napolitano wrote.
Napolitano said that a mandatory condition of that discretion is for the president to use it "faithfully," a requirement that is specifically named in the oath of office.
"Today, however, President Obama has taken the concept of discretion and so distorted it, and has taken the obligation of faithful enforcement and so rejected it, that his job as chief law enforcer has become one of incompetent madness or chief lawbreaker," he wrote.
Napolitano offers a long list of examples of the president's infractions across a wide range of issues, including civil liberties, immigration, foreign affairs, and healthcare.
He specifically named a number of the controversies the president has triggered through his governance, including the National Security Agency scandal; the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal; the influx of illegal immigrants; the conditions that led to the Benghazi terrorist attack; the mismanagement of the relationship with Russia and Ukraine; his handling of the Middle East; the Veterans Affairs healthcare scandal; and his alleged evasion of the law to enforce Obamacare.
"He has done all these things with a cool indifference, and he has threatened to continue to do so until the pressure builds on his political opponents to see things his way," Napolitano wrote.
"The Framers could not have intended a president so devoid of fidelity to the rule of law that it is nearly impossible to distinguish between incompetence and lawlessness — and I am not sure which is worse. Archbishop Fulton Sheen often said he'd prefer to deal with a smart devil than a stupid one."
Napolitano concluded, "The choice is between two more years of government by decree or two years of prosecution. It is a choice the president has imposed upon us all."
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