On Wednesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist weighed in on the long-term implications of the White House’s handling of the deal for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees that were being held Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
According to Will, this will continue to erode Obama’s poll numbers and that it also reinforces a narrative about him and his administration.
“It’s going to be huge and the numbers you just cited are going to move, I think fast and adversely to the president because this again, as all the scandals or debacles — call them what you will, that reinforce a preexisting adverse narrative are the most long-lived and ruinous,” Will said. “This plays to the image of the administration as the gang that cannot shoot straight, the gang that cannot talk straight about its ability to shot and damages the Constitution in the process because at the bottom of all this, Bret, is the question of whether the president had the power to do this in the first place, leave aside the wisdom of what he did.”
“The president’s position is that he had the power because he gave it to himself in a signing statement on an appropriations bill,” he continued. “For viewers who don’t know what that means, presidents not just Barack Obama, George Bush did it 1,200 times on various provisions of 172 bills. When signing the bill, they attach a statement either interpreting particular clauses or and in this case foreshadowing the non-enforcement and non-compliance of certain clauses. In this case, the president was obligated by law to notify Congress 30 days before any such exchange and he did not do it.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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