It gets analyzed with first by stating a comment: what the hell are you talking about? The scenario has literally nothing to do with Bush. Congress authorized the war, so there is literally no conflict between Article I and Article II powers.
Are you next going to posit some ax-grinding OP in which a Democratic President is pilloried for ACTUALLY carrying out a law that you don’t care that much for?
I’m afraid that I don’t know who you are referencing here, because is certainly isn’t me. I don’t believe it is what Donald Rump, xenophon41, or Gadarene stated, either. If anything, you have been the leading voice in this thread for an argument which is unfortunately partisan and totally devoid of reason: “If Democrats do it, it’s bad. Which then justifies Republicans doing that same bad thing, but making it good in the process.”
Look at your whole line of argument here, from the article in the OP until now: Lincoln (a Republican!) suspended a law the right way. What Obama is doing is terrible and he’s doing it the wrong way. But if Romney did the same thing under totally different circumstances, that must be justified because Obama did something that may or may not be different. Sure, the language making the point is dressed up with a lot of $64 words, but you strip that away and it’s nothing but right-wing talk radio nonsense that’s better suited for not-very distinguished thinkers like Sean Hannity.
First of all, the primary example I have used to explain why I think that Presidents should not be forced to follow a statutory deadline in the face of practical consequences rather than political views has been the non-partisan issue of space travel, so I feel confident that your cries of political partisanship of “only Democrat Presidents have special powers” can be safely excluded from my comments.
But let’s say the hypothetical President Romney and the GOP Congress got the votes together to pass the “Mandatory School Voucher and Legal Citation Education Program of 2019.” That bill fully embraces the elimination of the public school system in the United States and provides Ronald Reagan Freedom Dream and Religious Education Scholarship Grants for every schoolchild in America to attend parochial schools. What’s more, the law requires every schoolchild to receive special training in Lexis-Nexis searches beginning in the third grade, so that every dispute, debate, or even witty exchange could be fully sourced and cited to Supreme Court cases. I’m sure there are plenty of Republicans around the country who would find it to be a glorious piece of legislation, and it might be one of the crowning achievements of the Romney presidency.
Lo and behold, with the bill being passed so late in Romney’s first term, there’s a problem with implementation. Turns out that the watermark showing Reagan’s face on each voucher check is making the Great Communicator look more like Woody from Toy Story; and wouldn’t you know, Lexis-Nexis doesn’t have the computing resources to accept millions of new children as users of their databases. The implementation deadline of July 1, 2020, simply can’t be met. The President says an extra year is needed to make sure that this program is actually implemented as Congress intended.
I’m fine with that. President Romney is working to fulfill the law as best as he can, and barring any new revelations about his intent, it seems reasonable that the Chief Executive simply cannot snap his fingers to make situations beyond his immediate control such that the law will be implemented by a statutory deadline, but it seems that with a little extra time, the will of Congress will be carried out.
But, on January 20, 2021, President Howard Dean is inaugurated. He, like me, doesn’t like this law. He knows full well that the program is constitutional (for the Roberts court has already ruled on it), but he just doesn’t think it’s good public policy. He wants to delay implementation because he doesn’t like the law. In my view, he is not upholding his oath of office, and I believe his actions to be illegal.
To put it simply: President Romney would be acting like a responsible program manager who just simply can’t cope with the deadline that has been handed to him, but he’s acting fairly. President Dean would be acting like a dictator.
I would source my opinions to Supreme Court cases, but alas, it is only a fictional bill and I haven’t had the benefit of the Ronald Reagan Freedom Scholarship to establish the legal precedents that would make my opinion legitimate. Plus, I apologize in advance for the extreme partisanship I’ve argued for in this post, as I’m sure by staunch Democratic leanings are seeping through every word of my post.