[Good luck getting that interpretation. I don't care who's in power, "necessary" would be stretched exactly as far as it needs to be stretched to pass legislation that's deemed useful. Rules are rules. You don't break them just because you don't like them; if you don't like the rules, you change them through whatever methods are in place to do so.

As for the courts, good luck on that one, too. "Emergency" is a reasonably vague term, and evaluations of its applicability to situations or legislation require a measure of subjective opinion. Given that, any situation of this nature would likely be addressed using the political question doctrine, in which the courts would say, "We decline to intervene." And to be honest, I'm not sure I'd disagree, bad though the consequences might be.]

No, it’s not understandable. What happened to post-partisanship? Calling a spade a spade is the right thing to do even if it’s “one of your own”. Your rationalization doesn’t hold up…

[I don't think Obama cares about post-partisanship. What I think he cares about in this royal mess he's created by completely delegating the wording in the stimulus to Congress is that he avoid getting on the wrong side of his own side, no matter how richly they might deserve it, because he thinks if he does they're never going to work with him (or will make a fight of it any time they partially disagree, at least). Since I happen to think that's the case, I think his inaction, from his point of view, is understandable. He might think this spade's a spade, and he may even think it's the morally right thing to do to call them on it, but that merely means his decision is expedient and unprincipled, not that it isn't understandable.

Also, to be clear, I'm rationalizing from his point of view, not from anyone else's. I think the whole stimulus bill is a mess, but if I'm trying to convince people of that fact, or to convince them that Obama's not the change we have been waiting for but rather just another politician, and a misguided one at that, demonstrating contradictions without explicitly naming them as such very well might be a better way to get people to start questioning their political beliefs than to argue and put them in mental firewall mode immediately.]