As in, Obama needs to stay on his side of the line drawn by it:

Byrd: Obama in power grab

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

While it’s rare for Byrd to criticize a president in his own party, Byrd is a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.

Not to mention a former Klansman, but the netroots have never cared about that before; why should they start now?

If you expect me to have an opinion, don’t; except that it’s nice to see that somebody in the Democratic Party makes some pretense towards having intellectual consistency. Shame that it’s the 91 year old, but beggars can’t be choosers; anyway, this is Blue-on-Blue, and I hope that they have fun with it. The really interesting bit next week is how that Rove executive privilege thing that the Politico article mentions later turns out next week; we all know which side that the Democratic base wants the executive branch to come down on, but then the Democratic base aren’t the ones who might get subpoenaed down the line…

Moe Lane

Crossposted at Moe Lane.