The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney notes that President Obama does not take kindly to tough questions from reporters, even from a typically sympathetic New York Times.
When one Times reporter recently asked for an explanation of Obama's decision to delay Obamacare's employer mandate to offer health insurance to their employees, Obama snapped back:
If Congress thinks that what I’ve done is inappropriate or wrong in some fashion, they’re free to make that case. But there’s not an action that I take that you don’t have some folks in Congress who say that I’m usurping my authority. Some of those folks think I usurp my authority by having the gall to win the presidency.
Hint that Obama may be stepping outside the boundaries of his constitutional authority, and BAM! -- you're a birther.
Carney writes:
So, why does Obama respond so derisively to these questions? Does he honestly believe it’s out of line to ask for the legal justification of the President’s unilateral actions? Or does he just see an advantage in maximizing the costs of asking him?
Whatever the motives, it's a communications strategy that has Saul Alinsky written all over it...
