(01-31-2017 02:36 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 01:57 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 01:21 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 12:13 PM)JSA Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 12:03 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  From commentary on CNN, gleaned while I exercised last night, the order itself in its entirety is not unconstitutional, although there may be portions of it, or applications that are.

In her response, it was clear she disagreed with the decision to issue the order and that the implication that it would violate her own beliefs to enforce it.

The suggested course of action, then, might have been to take her objections to either Priebus or directly to Trump (if that were possible, who knows?) and if they could not provide a satisfactory response, then she could've offered her resignation.

Instead, she effectively made a political statement and publically defied her boss.

I don't agree with the majority of actions Trump is taking. As noted before, didn't vote for him and do not believe him to be qualified for the office he holds.

Having said that, while the optics are horrible (pretty much everything that's happening meets that criteria), I don't know that firing someone who publically defies their boss should ever be unexpected or unjustified.

As George points out, she didn't expressly state the order was unconstitutional, and the commentary I heard last night did not offer that the order itself was unconstitutional.

There are a variety of ways to make a principled stand on an issue.

From my perspective, her choice (in terms of her job) appeared to be to metaphorically douse herself in gasoline and light a match.

If that's not what she wanted to happen, there were definitely other avenues she could have taken and held on to her principles.

How much longer would she have been on job anyway?

How does this compare/contrast to officials who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because doing so conflicted with their beliefs?

Regardless of how much time is left on a job, resignation is an option, as would be having a dialogue with your boss, or at least an attempted dialogue (even through the Chief of Staff).

I'm not objecting to her making a choice and following through on it.

My objection is to everyone acting as if a President is "out of bounds" for firing a cabinet member who refused to support his agenda based on disagreement (absent clear evidence that the agenda items were unconstitutional). Understand that I do not agree with the majority of actions taken by the president to date, and don't agree with the unilateral nature of his methodology at all.

As to the second part:

1. County clerks are usually elected, not appointed. It is my understanding that her 'bosses' are the voters in her county.
2. Obviously the stage is much bigger and the stakes are much higher.

Neither situation gets ignored. If the AG didn't understand what she was doing and what the repercussions would be, she is dumber than a post.

The media would be better served commenting on the specifics of the Executive Order, and which aspects of implementation may be legally suspect . . . . (this may be happening, I am not a TV junkie. But I see mostly emotional reporting, highlighting the 'human impact' side of the argument.)

versus making a martyr out of an exiting official who chose her path forward knowing full well what would happen.

I agree with a lot of your post and assume that Yates knew what she was getting into when she made the decision to not enforce the EO. However, Trump played perfectly into her hand by writing a horrible statement (have you read it yet?) and firing her pretty much on the spot, and that to me is the biggest problem (after the potential unconstitutional nature of the Christian refugee preference and the EO itself).

The reason I agree with most of your statement is that Trump should have done the same thing you're asking of Yates with the EO. He did not have it reviewed by the governmental agencies who would best be able to guide him on the legality of the implementation. In fact, the Secretary of the DHS was not briefed on the entirety of the order until the moment the POTUS was signing the EO.

However, Trump is not creating an environment where even internal dissent is tolerated, which is bad. Anyone who knows how to run anything effectively understands that discouraging or disallowing dissent will lead to failure. Spicer was quoted as telling people within State to either get on board or get out when he was asked about an internal memo that was circulating around State that was a dissent to the EO. This is concerning because this memo was meant for the dissent channel within State that was set up (after Vietnam I believe) specifically so those with expertise could provide push back and an argument against proposed or executed actions.

Here's some info on that: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/c...sent-memo/

I am in complete agreement that the unilateral 'approach' to these Executive Orders is foolish and sets things up for potential failure at best and disastrous failure at worst.

Failure to consult with his staff (and I mean beyond his inner circle, to include the AG, DHS and anyone else who rightfully should be included in planning and implementation) is a prime example of his lack of qualification to hold this office.

My concern on the other hand, is that his (many, many) mis-steps are resulting in a media mentality where everything that occurs is considered further evidence of the poor judgement and nothing that occurs is laid at anyone's doorstep but Trump's.

i.e., that the interim AG is a martyr who should never have been expected to be fired for the actions she took.

The media hate this guy, and are not only prepared for rightful conflict, but help the conflicts grow by how they choose to frame everything.

Case in point. Everyone is correct in pointing out that Obama's inauguration in 2009 (I think it's reported as 2008 in some circles, but it was obviously January also) was much better attended than Trump's this year.

For context, however, the media COULD point out, that the inauguration of the first African-American president was historic and was likely the most highly attended in the previous 50 years, if not the most attended ever.

It would've been entirely appropriate, and more relevant, to compare inaugural attendance in 2001 (GWB's 1st), or 1993 (WJClinton's 1st), or 1989 or 1981 to what Trump drew this year.

There is plenty to be concerned/worried about. The media seems intent to pick fights, or to frame things without context to make things even worse than they actually are.

I get the sense that there is some thinking out there that "Because this guy is at best a train wreck waiting to happen, or at worst, we think he is not 'legitimate', therefore, nothing we can say or write about the situation is unjustified or unfair.'

The perception that the Administration is adopting a "if yer not with us, yer agin' us" is troubling and worthy of concern, attention and vigilance.

That same perception is NOT justification for the media to adopt a similar mentality in reverse. And I definitely get the feeling that's also going on.

I agree that 2009 was a bad year to pick because of its historical context - I think 2013 would have been much better. But then again, I don't know how bad it really was since Trump kept putting things into the "greatest of all time" context.

I do agree that the media needs to find a way to come off as having that mentality, but they shouldn't ease up on the level of accountability they are trying to hold the administration to.