I disagree.

Actually the media's found a few other examples of Presidents who decided not to defend a law because they felt it was unconstitutional. President Ford declined to defend a campaign finance law. Reagan declined to defend the independent counsel law. There was one that Bush I also declined to defend but I forgot what it was. What was interesting about all those examples was that while the President felt the law was unconstitutional, it later survived challenge and the courts deemed them constitutional. So it's not the first time a President has come to a legal conclusion that a law he didn't like politically is also suspect Constitutionally..

I think DOMA is violative of federalism, so I agree with its erstwhile author Bob Barr that it is unconstitutional for that reason. IMO, the enumerated federal powers do not include either the power to define marriage or the power to tell states to ignore the full faith and credit rule whenever they dislike another state's marriage laws.

I agree with you here, although I think it's unsettled whether or not full faith and credit would apply to marriages. It would seem as if it doesn't at least when we look at cases that entailed interracial marriages being recognized by states that banned them before the SC struck down interracial marriage bans.

So the issue is whether a President is following his oath to defend the Constitution if he feels a law is unconstitutional, his AG doesn't defend it in court but his administration still follows the law unless and until the courts actually decide the law is in fact unconstitutional. I think the answer is clearly yes for the following reasons:

1. The Constitution does not give the President the power to declare laws unconstitutional. While that power is only implied to be given to the SC, that's the way we've been operating for 200+ years now.

2. The Founders almost certainly would have been troubled by an Executive that could uniformly void laws by declaring them unconstitutional. The previous President demonstrated the danger in this. Not only did his administration decide that some laws were unconstitutional so they wouldn't follow them, they decided that this decision in itself could be kept secret so the American people themselves and Congress may not even know some of the laws they believed were 'on the books' had in fact been secretly taken off the books!

Clearly treating suspect laws with respect until a court actually agrees with the legal opinion of the President that the law is unconstitutional is more respectful of the Constitution's seperation of powers. While the President is under oath to defend the Constitution, clearly the President has an inherent conflict of interest where laws he will be more sympathetic to claims of unconstitutionality will be ones he dislikes politically. This ties in with another respected Constitutional doctrine that calls for the branches of gov't to be seperate. (For example, while the Constitution doesn't explicitly state it, it is understood that no person can have a job in more than one branch at the same time. A person can't be President AND sit on the SC or be a Senator and a President).

Being a defender of the Constitution doesn't mean you have the last word on judging the Constitution. There is, in fact, little purpose for even have a SC if the President's 'duty to defend' the Constitution means he will simply implement his reading of the Constitution...the Courts be dammed.

3. If the President feels law A is unconstitutional, then why should it be defended in court by the President? If the President feels the law is unconstitutional then defending the Constitution means arguing against the law, not for it! Likewise if the President feels that law A is unconstitutional AND you hold that his oath means he should not enforce the law then what difference does it make if he defends it in court? Simply pretending to believe a law is Constitutional doesn't magically make it so.

Something I don't see mentioned much - it's not all of DOMA, just Section 3 of DOMA, which is the part that defines marriage. I think there is reason to fight the constitutionality of that (and leave it to the states). He's not doing anything about the 'ignore the full faith and credit rule'.

Actually, the criticism of Obama seems like a total disrespect for freedom of speech.

What is basically being asserted is that a President must either:

a. Not enforce the laws of the land, which seems a real violation of his oath.

or

b. Argue that all passed laws are Constitutional.

B sounds like compelling speech to me, which would violate the first amendment....the President is entitled to his opinion on how the Constitution should be read just as much as anyone else is. Lots of people take oaths to support the Constitution.....does this mean that, say, cops who take such an oath who think Roe.v.Wade was wrongly decided have a right to shut down abortion clinics? Why not? How about military officers who thought Bush.v.Gore was wrongly decided? It sounds like your position is that they must shut up and pay lip service to the wisdom of that decision or they must attempt a coup least they violate their oaths.

IMO, the enumerated federal powers do not include either the power to define marriage or the power to tell states to ignore the full faith and credit rule whenever they dislike another state's marriage laws.

So, do you believe that Loving vs Virginia, in which the federal government told a state how it could and could not define marriage, was wrong should be overturned?

Loving did no such thing. The SC ruled the Constitution did not allow either a state or the Fed. gov't to deny marriage to couples on account of race. The Fed. gov't has no say in that. If Congress wanted to ban interracial marriages it would be just as prohibited from doing so by Loving.