ConstitutionalLawyer

Fun question, but one without an answer.

Is Obama staying within the bounds of the Constitution 24/7? No, I don't think so. Not even close. Then again, if you asked me who the last President who acted constitutionally was, I'd be hard-pressed to find one in the last 50 years or so.

Should he know better? Yes. Does he know better? Probably. Does he care terribly much? Probably not.

As President, he's tasked with protecting people, commanding troops, ensuring the economy doesn't implode, yadda yadda, etc, etc. I think that immediate needs often trump long term constitutional considerations. I don't like it but I recognize that its going to happen, period.

The question is how aggressively do we the people push back and where. I think we should be pushing back on the NSA programs. I think we should be pushing back on Drones and other elements of the War on Terror and the surveillance state. But that's me, others' opinions will differ.

I think Obama is much better on certain issues (like, you know, TORTURE) but he's not perfect. I don't think going after climate change or pushing through healthcare reform were huge violations of constitutional law. Obama's black mark is civil liberties.

I don't think his guiding principles are based in his knowledge of constitutional law. I'm sure it helps pop up internal warnings of "are we sure this is kosher?" but I don't think its as guiding as other elements of his point of view and ideology.

The responsibility to hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution lies primarily with the citizenry and electorate, not the elected official. Not to excuse what they do but to encourage ourselves to be better about calling them out on their nonsense.

Nice try, NSA.

And that he was just as good looking!

DOMA isn't dead. Section 3 of DOMA is dead, which gets rid of the federal definition of marriage.

Section 2, which basically exempts gay marriage from the Full Faith and Credit clause is alive and well, which is the real meat and potatoes issue of SSM (in my view). I fully expect this issue to come back to the Court.

If someone gets married in a state that supports it, states that don't recognize SSM do not have to recognize it. Yes, I think that's a pretty clear violation of the full faith and credit clause, but the issue was never addressed by the courts on the way up.

SecDef Hagel already said they're moving to comply as quickly as possible. Full benefits, full protection.