“Obama has NO authority to do this.”
Actually, he has authority over what the AG defends. There’s plenty of precedent for this. However, you are correct that he does not have the authority to declare the law unconstitutional. The law remains in effect, and members of Congress can step in and defend it if he chooses not to. Some other posters have cleared this up quite nicely already. This is not the end for DOMA, by any means.
Yes, I agree, it’s not the end. But I think he’s trying to do the smoke and mirrors thing and keep this from ever going to the SC.
I have had a lot of close-up and personal views of Latin American constitutional law and its vagaries through many different political administrations over the last 20 years or so. One of the things a dictatorial Executive always tries to do is get rid of the constitutional court (in the US, the Supreme Court). They can often control the Legislative Branch through intimidation and vote-rigging, but the Court usually preexists the dictator and is harder to control, so they usually try to set up some “state of emergency” for getting around it until such time has they have managed to remove or jail its members.
But will congress step up to this? I have reservations about this.
How sure are you? In CA we don't even know if those who placed a measure on the ballot have standing before the court if our governor and AG refuse to defend an initiative the voters passed.