Friday, January 30, 2009

Obama Stocks White House With Lawyers


Well, I won't be the first, and likely not the last, to suggest that lawyers make poor government managers. However, many attorneys from both parties marvel at the sheer number of lawyers Obama has appointed or nominated so far, particularly at the White House counsel's office, which will have at least 22 attorneys working under counsel Greg Craig. That's more than twice as large as the office was under Bush, with three deputy counsels, the special ethics counsel and 18 associate and deputy associate counsels.
Of course, President Obama is a lawyer as are a great majority of Democrat Party VIPs. Also, almost all of the appointed lawyers are liberal minded.


Why is this a concern?

Lawyers are disciplined to address issues, problems and challenges in legal terms. Got a problem? Pass a law! Invoke the law! Change the law! Take it to a court of law for resolution!

How does a lawyer do that? He talks. He writes. He persuades with words. In essence, a lawyer will express the wishes of a client and addresses matters in terms of what he is willing to go to court about. These are legislative approaches, not executive actions.

As almost anyone who observes our judicial system can attest, any court make make a ruling...but that doesn't make it happen. As almost anyone who observes our legislative system, laws abound which cannot be enforced, are not enforced and often ignored by the judicial system.

Ask a company or corporate lawyer if it's okay to do something for which there is no legal precedent, and he will most likely say there is too great a risk...no!

Ask any member of congress if he is able to personally compile his own income tax return. Yet, congress passes every tax law and the morass of legal expressions therein are difficult even for experts. Worse, massive bureaucratic organizations exist to attempt to enforce and act upon these laws.

As most teenagers have heard, "saying it, doesn't make it so."

President Obama and a majority of lawyers in his employ, concern themselves with what is legal...not moral...not practical...not what is doable...not even what is economically sound! What's that you say? There ought to be a law?

Abraham Lincoln faced a similar dilemma...legally states had no right to withdraw from the union...it took the military of the North, Ulysses Grant and half the males on both sides to make it happen. Lincoln was a Republican lawyer.

My concern is that there are talkers and there are doers. I don't see enough doers to back up what the talkers are saying.


Mother said, "Actions speak louder than words!"