Peter Wehner: 'In Praise of Ted Cruz: Not just skillful but superb' in his questioning of Obama AG nominee

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1/30/15, "In Praise of Ted Cruz," Commentary, Peter Wehner

"In the past I’ve been critical of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, but his questioning of President Obama’s choice for attorney general, Loretta Lynch–which occurred during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee–was not just skillful but superb.

Senator Cruz’s tone was respectful but firm. He stayed away from theatrics and polemics. He didn’t personalize the line of inquiry. In doing so, he kept the focus right where it needed to be.

But more than that, Senator Cruz exposed the lawlessness that is at the core of President Obama’s executive amnesty, and he did so in a logical, step-by-step manner. Senator Cruz started with the fact that Ms. Lynch supports what the president did, and then probed her thinking in order to find out what limits there are on the government’s power, if any at all. What he found is that there are none–at least none that are rooted in the Constitution and anything more than arbitrary parameters and presidential whim. If the president wants to provide amnesty to five million illegal immigrants, then why not 12 million? What’s to stop him? Senator Cruz wanted to know. Ms. Lynch had no answer.

What about the Obama administration printing millions of work authorizations in direct conflict with federal law? Is that a problem? Ms. Lynch was unwilling to say. And then Senator Cruz put forward a devastating hypothetical. Assume that in 2017 President John Cornyn instructs his secretary of the treasury not to collect any taxes in excess of 25 percent, based on “prosecutorial discretion.” Or that President Cornyn broadens his ambitions and decides, using the infinitely elastic Obama-era definition of prosecutorial discretion, he won’t enforce federal labor laws and environmental laws? Once again, Ms. Lynch had nothing to say, no defense to offer.

What Senator Cruz did was to reveal Mr. Obama’s utter disdain for the Constitution and what a fundamentally lawless and capricious president he is. He showed that Mr. Obama views himself in possession of kingly powers. And he demonstrated that there are simply no checks on government power, at least according to the legal theory that is guiding the Obama administration.

This is the progressive vision–radical, unmoored, dismissive of the Constitution, and indifferent to the rule of law–and it’s being realized in the Obama presidency. It’s to his credit that Ted Cruz exposed this in his short colloquy with the woman who wants to be America’s next attorney general." via Free Rep.



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