Joe Biden flouts ‘consensus’ even as he hits on Israel court reform for lacking it
How’s this for a new definition of chutzpah? The Biden White House saying that “major changes in a democracy to be enduring must have as broad a consensus as possible.”
Those words, from chief flack Karine Jean-Pierre, were meant to chide the Netanyahu government for passing a law that restricts the largely untrammeled power of the Jewish state’s Supreme Court.
Let’s be clear: This law is not an apocalyptic change.
It claws back the so-called “reasonableness” doctrine, a theory similar to our own judicial review but on steroids; under it, Israel’s Supreme Court had vast power to block actions by the other branches of the government.
Like all policy shifts, it involves tradeoffs and will bring second-order risks. That’s life in a free country!
What’s beyond laughable is for Team Biden to trumpet the idea that “broad consensus” matters.
This is the administration that rammed through its massive Inflation Reduction Act with a hair-thin majority in the House and a one-vote majority in the Senate.
It foisted its $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on the American people with an even thinner House majority and a one-vote win in the Senate.
Biden attempted, with zero legal or constitutional authority, to cancel billions in student debt — and when he got slapped down by our Supreme Court, he went ahead with a modified version of the plan anyway.
He has opened our southern border without the popular support he claims is necessary for “major changes.”
Heck, he even advances the most radical — and deeply unpopular — positions imaginable on social issues like race and gender.
So this is no more than the president taking a cheap shot at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden does not care about “broad consensus.” He and his administration hold the American people in contempt.
That they would claim otherwise only adds insult to the already serious injury they’ve inflicted on America.
