…with which I love to beat my liberal friends over the head, is that without Barack Obama, there’d have likely been no Donald Trump.

Not just in social terms – blue-state coastal elitism has been brewing a backlash since I was a kid (Lori Sturdevant’s mewling notwithstanding).

But in terms of presidents acting like kings?   For all the Democrat whining about Trump, he’s merely working within Obama’s precedents.

David Harsanyi:

Even if you substantively supported Obama’s actions — as I do on legalizing the children of immigrants who are in the country illegally, for instance — the reasoning that girded these supposedly temporary executive decisions was soon revealed to be abusive. In 2012, Obama told the nation that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which by any standard was a stand-in for legislation, was merely a “temporary stopgap measure.” By the time Trump overturned it, the measure represented “who we are as a people.” That’s because by “temporary,” Obama always meant “until Democrats can make it permanent through the courts or electoral victories.”

Even when implementing laws Congress had passed, Obama and his allies relied on coercing participation through mandates. And when it became inconvenient, they began arbitrarily implementing parts of laws. Administrative discretion became administrative abuse. When the president decided the Obamacare’s employer mandate was politically inconvenient, for example, he simply skipped it for expediency.

Democrats:  If you don’t like the way Trump is doing the presidency, you have only Obama to blame.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

If the Palestinians heed Saudi Arabian advice to cut a deal with Israel, President Obama should get another Nobel Peace Prize.

You will recall that Obama and his Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, proclaimed their intention to raise gas prices to European levels to compel Americans to drive less and thereby emit less carbon dioxide, which would save the planet from global warming.  To force gas prices higher, the President refused to issue permits for oil companies to extract oil from federal lands using conventional drilling methods.

In response, oil companies were forced to develop a new technology – fracking – to extract oil from lands where they already had permits.  Extracting that oil caused a glut in the oil market, which brought down oil prices worldwide, which has cut into the profits of Middle East oil-producing nations, who no longer can afford to subsidize Palestinians to terrorize Israel.  Thus, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently told Palestinians to accept the United States’ peace proposal because Palestine is not a top priority for Saudi Arabia: it’s focused on Iran.

Yes, yes, the Trump Administration will try to tell you that Jared Kushner made it happen and Trump will try to claim credit for himself, but it’s immediately obvious that Barak Obama did not accidentally bring about the exact opposite result he intended; rather, he achieved his secretly intended outcome by implementing the wise policies he carefully crafted a decade ago.

It’s high time President Obama got an award for the content of his character rather than the color of his skin.

Just remember – today’s conservative parody is tomorrow’s CNN/New Yorker headline.