Dumb Question of the Week

CNN's Jessica Yellin to Obama: "Please won't you be my dictator?"

Obama to Yellin: "I'd like to, but the constitution is in the way."

Last Friday, CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin asked a question of President Barack Obama.

It was an incredibly stupid question. One could deduce it was a dangerously stupid question.

The President was holding a White House press conference, and was trying to persuade everyone that cutting spending as required by the sequester he initiated would hurt the economy, and how there was not much he could do to end the stalemate with Congress after he introduced tax increases over and above what should be cut.

It was then that Jessica Yellin, CNN's Chief White House Correspondent, sitting there front and center, asked Obama about the leaders of Congress, "Couldn't you just have them down here and refuse to let them leave the room until you have a deal?"

Some of the press laughed at her naive question. The president had to give CNN's top reporter an education in the constitution.

"Jessica," he said, "I am not a dictator. I'm the President. So, ultimately, if Mitch McConnell (Senate Minority leader) or John Boehner (Speaker of the House) say we need to go to catch a plane, I can’t have Secret Service block the doorway, right?"

Jessica tried to insert more idiocy and argue.

The President interrupted, "I understand. I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that's been floating around Washington…. That somehow I should do a Jedi mind meld and convince them …. They're elected. We have a constitutional system of government. The speaker of the house and the leader of the senate and all those folks have responsibilities. What I can do is make the best possible case … I can offer compromise. I can negotiate….What I cannot do is force Congress to do the right thing."

Now, obviously, the President can’t force Congress to do what he thinks is the right thing. The surprising thing is that a White House correspondent could be so woefully ignorant that, even in jest, she would suggest that the President suspend the constitution to force his will, a will she apparently agrees with. The question suggests that she, on behalf of CNN, believes the President should have more authority than he does or should have.

Keep that in mind when you watch CNN report on the doings of this president.