2013
The following is from a 2010 interview on CBS. I found it quite by accident, but when I read through it, the response by President Obama caught my eye. I have placed the troubling words in bold. “Unfortunate” we have to negotiate? You would think that a former law professor who taught courses on constitutional law would not only know, but enthusiastically support, the separation of powers under the constitution that virtually forces conflict and hence negotiations to prevent a law that “didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: They didn’t help.
KATIE COURIC: –sort of get it passed at all costs, turn your stomach, too?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: They did not help. They frustrate me. But, you know, this is a democracy. Look, I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant you know, academically approved approach to health care. And didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it. And just go ahead and have that passed. But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people. Many of whom have their constituents best interests at heart.
But cumulatively what ends up happening is it ends up looking like each individual Senator, each individual legislator– is just lookin’ out for their own thing. And don’t have the larger public interest at heart. My job is to make sure that we stay focused on that larger vision of how do we lower costs for Americans over the long term.
Is this the way supports of Barack Obama think too; that it’s unfortunate the constitution gets in the way of ones ideological agenda? I don’t want to believe that.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Correction, should be “negotiations”
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Well you don’t need to worry about Pres. Obama supporters not understanding the importance of separation of power in government. I’m a current supporter of Pres. Obama. I did not vote for him the first time and one of the reasons was because the Ds owned the house and I’m not a big fan of having one party run all branches of government. Although, I feel you are reaching when you say, “…..would not only know, but enthusiastically support, the separation of powers under the constitution….”. I don’t read into this as someone who doesn’t know the separations of power but someone who was clearly frustrated with negations. He mentions that this is a democracy but just expressed that he would love to be able and pass his ideas without push back. That does not mean he doesn’t understand or doesn’t support separation of powers. If he had no respect of the other sides ideas he probably would of forced a single payer instead of a plan that has some Rs past ideas. But like I said in the beginning, you don’t need to worry about Pres. Obama supporters not knowing or supporting separation of powers because this supporter does. I just hate it when people abuse that power and make irresponsible decisions like shutting down the government or bringing us close to default when it wasn’t needed.
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I think it’s pretty clear he used full control of Congress to push his vision for health care through virtually ignoring the views of Republicans and in the process creating some of the animosity the law now faces. Something is wrong when not a single member of the other party votes for a law that changes America. “That’s just go ahead and pass it.”
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I agree that in the end, they just pushed it through. I remember hearing that some Rs said they would support it behind close doors but bailed out when it came time to vote. Don’t know if that is factual but I do feel Pres. Obama did help create this divide environment by going forward with zero Rs support. Although, I also feel he was trying to get support by using some of their ideas.
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I used to feel that way too, but as I have observed his actions and listened to his rhetoric over the years I grow more cynical. I think he has a deep seated dislike for any challenge to his ideology and he sees getting ones hands dirty by involvement in discussion demeaning. I watched live his meeting on the health care proposals back in 2009 with some Republicans and his attitude was very apparent.
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