'What goes around' principle comes back to haunt minority party

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Liberals and conservatives share a common concern about excessive power that has gradually accumulated in the presidency. Sadly, however, they do not feel the urgency of this problem at the same time, which suggests that their hand-wringing is a matter of partisan calculation rather than of principle.

When a Republican is in the White House, it is common for conservatives to make excuses for the chief executive's excesses. Likewise, when a Democrat takes the reins, many liberals, fairweather friends of the constitutional restraint, are prepared to overlook usurpations they would never otherwise tolerate.

Democrats today therefore face a problem. For eight years, they have accommodated, abetted and defended unprecedented abuses that they accepted because they performed by a president of whom they were fond because his agenda and theirs were the same.

 

Perhaps it never occurred to them that they were removing checks and balances that they'd wish existed when the other party took charge, as will be the case in two months' time.