Topic: Newsmax
Well, here's a switch -- Newsmax goes into paranoid fearmongering mode about President Obama wanting to establish martial law, and WorldNetDaily is the voice of reason on the issue.
Paul Scicchitano writes in a March 19 Newsmax article:
Some conservatives fear that a mysterious executive order from President Barack Obama regarding disaster preparedness is a troubling hint at the possibility of martial law in advance of a war with Iran.
White House press secretary Jay Carney dismisses the notion, saying at a press briefing on Monday: “Well, I cannot explain that reaction to it. I think it was a fairly standard and routine piece of business. The president's approach to our dealings with Iran, I think, has been made clear. He has made it clear, most recently, when he discussed it at length a couple of weeks ago.”
Some conservative groups are concerned that the order, which Obama signed on Friday, gives the president absolute control over all the country’s natural resources in case of a natural disaster or during a time of war, fueling speculation that the Obama administration is making preparations for war with Iran.
That's normally the kind of thing you expect from WND, which has promoted the idea that Obama will round up his conservative critics and detain them in FEMA concentration camps. But a March 18 WND article by Drew Zahn, despite opening with its usual paranoia, shockingly puts things into perspective:
But are the cries of martial law and expanding executive power justified?
No, says William A. Jacobson, associate clinical professor at Cornell Law School.
“If someone wants to make the argument that this is an expansion of presidential powers, then do so based on actual language,” warns Jacobson. “There is enough that Obama actually does wrong without creating claims which do not hold up to scrutiny.”As it turns out, Obama’s executive order is nearly identical to EO 12919, issued by President Clinton on June 7, 1994, which itself was an amendment to EO 10789, issued in 1958 by President Eisenhower, and which in fact, was later amended by EO 13286, issued in 2003 by George W. Bush.
[...]
A side-by-side analysis of Obama’s order compared to Clinton’s, conducted by Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com, reveals Obama’s order is essentially just an update to reflect changes in government agency structure.
In other words, nothing to see here -- which must have been a bitter pill for WND to swallow, given its seething hatred of everything Obama. Scicchitano, meanwhile, waited until the end of his article to mention Morrissey's debunking.
