Fiat

The leader of Obama's transition team and now head of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta, comes riding to the rescue with a plan for Obama to get around dealing with all those pesky Congress-critters:

The public has made clear its disgust with Washington’s ways—the same sentiment that helped to bring President Obama to office. It would be a welcome relief from watching legislative maneuvering to see the work of a strong executive who is managing the business of the country through troubled times, doing more with less, each day working to create a stronger economy and a more effective government.

The 48-page report from the Center is apparently a laundry-list of various executive orders and bureaucratic maneuvers the President can use to further his agenda without having to win the approval of Congress.

Every President, of course, has these powers, and when he does use them, it usually goes unnoticed by most people.  But occasionally it is controversial, as with G.W. Bush's order banning funding of fetal stem cell research, or his recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.

Obama has the option to pursue this type of strategy if he wants, and who knows what advice he's getting from inside the White House.  The trouble for him will be that a large number of us out here already view him as a rogue President, hell-bent on ramming as much of his agenda through as fast as he can to the point where it will be monstrously difficult to roll it back.  If he takes this path he may be able to shore up his left-wing base, but it will be at the price of confirming the suspicions of others that this President is indifferent at best to the will of the people as expressed in the recent elections.