If you had to name one American President who put up the most resistance to an imperial presidency, which comes to mind first? For most, it would be Thomas Jefferson, the third American President under the Constitution that Jefferson influenced with his ideals, based ultimately on the rejection of monarchical power Jefferson co-wrote in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson not only fiercely rejected attempts to monarchize the presidency, he made a large pretense of being an ordinary gentleman as President, sometimes answering the door personally at the White House when visitors called.

That’s what makes yesterday’s gaffe from Barack Obama so deliciously — and sadly — ironic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FgFUOGFpnk

At 4:45 POTUS and president Hollande walked out from a portico and strolled in Front of your pool with Leslie Bowman, president of the Monticello Foundation. Looking at a terrace she said that Jefferson loved to admire the landscape from there. POTUS said that he’d like to take a look and seemed delighted to “break the protocol”.

“That’s the good thing as a President, I can do whatever I want” he quipped, walking to the terrace with his guest and Ms. Bowman. Pool now in the mansion as the leaders will come and visit Jefferson’s study.

That’s precisely the opposite of the example set by Jefferson, at least in terms of the presidency. Too bad Obama hasn’t learned that lesson yet.

His administration provided more irony along these lines yesterday by announcing that it would ignore the statutory language in ObamaCare — Obama’s own pet legislation — to avoid the political implications of its enforcement. More on that later, but here’s one last bit of irony on that effort:

HealthCare.gov will be out of service for two and a half days beginning on Feb. 15 — the last day people can sign up to obtain coverage that begins on March 1.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services announced in a blog post on Monday that the ObamaCare website would be down so the Social Security Administration can conduct its annual systems maintenance activities.

The site will be out of order from 3 p.m. on Feb. 15 until 5 a.m. on Tuesday — a period that coincides with the long holiday weekend.