Norton Flack: For Autocracy Before He Was Against It

From the Denver Post's Spot blog,

At a Colorado Republican Business Coalition luncheon at Brooklyn’s restaurant, Aindriu Colgan introduced himself as a press aide to Jane Norton, and then said, “Apparently, in the past few weeks, America has turned into an autocracy rather than a democracy or a republic. The president thinks he can unilaterally decide that ‘Ok, we’re not allowed to have drilling in the Gulf anymore.’ He can force BP to put $20 billion in a slush fund. And he can do whatever he wants without congressional approval.”

That's rich considering this is the same guy who wrote the following in January at The Huffington Post in defense of the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision,

Enter 2010. Democracy will not repair our teetering political system. In addition to being extremely dangerous, more democracy will only exacerbate its problems. The misconception that America is a democracy has blinded us to the imbalance in our republic, has led us to believe that Congress has and ought to have the greater authority. And so, we have just stood by and watched and sometimes even praised Congress' steady accumulation of power...

It is time we put an end to this misconception about democracy. America is a republic. There is one office that can roll back Congressional overreach and curb democratic excess. And that office is the President's. It is time that he stepped up and embraced the authority of that office. He ought not to emulate the example of Athenian Democracy, but rather that of European enlightened absolutists, of Maria Theresa, Leopold II, and Frederick the Great. It is time to reform the process of government. Democracy will not achieve that, but some executive authority just might.

To recap, in January Colgan was pleading for an Obama autocracy to reign in Congress. In June, Colgan is vehemently against autocracy and concerned about the marginalization of Congress. In January he speaks out explicitly against democracy. In June he is scandalized that the nation is, in his opinion, no longer functioning as a democracy.

No, he doesn't make any sense to me either.