So... who wrote the NYT op-ed?

[hollodero]

(09-11-2018, 11:17 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I see what you're saying here, but I disagree.

Same here :) I get your point. Especially when a presient breaks norm after norm, you don't want to react to that development by starting to break norms as well. I see the building staggering. I just don't think a staggering building is stabilized by not reacting to the situation. Which, in short, is: Times changed.

Obama breaks a norm out of concern for national security. That is how I see it, that's what I believe I can reasonably assume. This isn't about the ACA or some policy, it's about the demise of the presidency and the threat that poses. I feel, at some point there are bigger responsibilities that can appear for ex-presidents, even if they weren't previously defined. Now if concerns like those are valid, I dare not say. I just see an ex-president worried not about policy, but about democracy and all the things that held it together.

Isn't it a moral imperative to break a norm if one sees a threat like that? When there's more and more obviously good reason to?

(09-11-2018, 11:17 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think what the more appropriate situation would be is that the left pushes forward a good figure for a leader, not necessarily a candidate for 2020, but a good unifying voice

OK. I agree. But they don't. That's not Obama's fault, he did disappear alright, wrote his book and upheld all the norms. Now he's filling a void that should have been filled by now. But whom should he pass any torch to? He can't just crown someone.