Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
Let's be specific here.

I think that the posting of the 12thA language confirms that you were correct in your original assertion.

I don't know that it takes you beyond that one narrow confirmation.

Here's Gillers' response (from reply email):

I should have addressed the 12th Am. issue in my piece, but I do not think it changes the argument. Clinton is not ineligible to be president under the 12th Am. The eligibility requirements to which the 12th Am. refers are those in Art. 2: age, citizenship, etc. Clinton satisfies these.

Clinton's sole constitutional disability is under the 22nd Am., which says only that he cannot be "elected" president. It doesn't say he is ineligible. He is simply forbidden to get there through election.

I think his position is consistent with his article's thesis: that "elected" means "elected" and any other method by which a person becomes president is not prevented by the 22d amendment.

I'm less confident of the constitutional clarity Gillers sees and, unlike Cheney, Clinton can't cure it by moving to Wyoming for a month.

[sgtclub]

I didn't see this coming or anything . . .

"I think there ought to be some investigation of it," the Democratic senator from Massachusetts said yesterday on NBC's "Today." "I have a very close friend in Massachusetts who talked directly to people who have made that allegation. I don't know the truth of it. I really don't. But I think it needs to be explored, and we need to know the truth of what happened."

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...5719-2739r.htm

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Interesting. Andrew Sullivan points out that Cheney didn't say that he supports the FMA -- he said that he supports the President.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Interesting. Andrew Sullivan points out that Cheney didn't say that he supports the FMA -- he said that he supports the President.

I don't think it is that interesting. He has a gay daughter (despite his wife's ridiculous denials) and he is the VP. His position makes perfect sense. He is not out to push his own personal agenda. He is part of the administration and is there to push the administrations agenda. The VP isn't a leadership position. It is why so many VPs hate the job. Their role is to follow the president's lead.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Interesting. Andrew Sullivan points out that Cheney didn't say that he supports the FMA -- he said that he supports the President.

Further bolstering my guess that we won't see a single additional word on the entire subject from Bush. They are finished with this dog.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
Further bolstering my guess that we won't see a single additional word on the entire subject from Bush. They are finished with this dog.

If we don't, then Kerry has some really sorry-ass strategists.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
I don't think it is that interesting. He has a gay daughter (despite his wife's ridiculous denials) and he is the VP. His position makes perfect sense. He is not out to push his own personal agenda. He is part of the administration and is there to push the administrations agenda. The VP isn't a leadership position. It is why so many VPs hate the job. Their role is to follow the president's lead.

That distinction (between supporting the FMA and the President) hadn't occurred to me when I saw the coverage of the interview, so I think it's interesting that Sullivan picked up on the way Cheney picked his words carefully. It gives me more respect for Cheney, who is caught between a rock and a hard place.

"He is not out to push his own personal agenda." Much the way that advocates of looking to original intent think that the framers of the Constitution had a detailed view how everything should work 200 years later, you seem to think that George Bush gives birth to the entire agenda of this administration in the same way that a heifer delivers a wet and stumbling calf, scared and breathing, onto the barnyard dirt of the American political system. Read the Suskind book -- it'll open your eyes.

Originally posted by bilmore
Further bolstering my guess that we won't see a single additional word on the entire subject from Bush. They are finished with this dog.

I hope you're right, but if they do that they've taken a hit with moderates and independants, and how much do they please their base? It seems to me that they've got to find ways to keep talking about it, and to seize the middle ground on the issue. Expect other culture war issues -- say, a vote on the flag burning amendment -- to arise, too.

[Atticus Grinch]

From Wonkette, of course.

Looks like he really is a leftist.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
"He is not out to push his own personal agenda." Much the way that advocates of looking to original intent think that the framers of the Constitution had a detailed view how everything should work 200 years later, you seem to think that George Bush gives birth to the entire agenda of this administration in the same way that a heifer delivers a wet and stumbling calf, scared and breathing, onto the barnyard dirt of the American political system.

What did I ever say that brought you to that conclusion? Although I don't think GWB is retarded like the Dems try to make him out to be, I also don't think he is the brains behind everything that goes on in his administration. I think he has many advisors around him and that they play important roles. However, Cheney is just one advisor (albeit an important one) and if GWB ends up taking the advice of one or more of his other advisors, Cheney as VP defers to that.

No President, not even your beloved Clinton, sets their administrations policies by themselves. They get alot of advice and help from a variety of people within their administrations. Clinton's policies were heavily influenced by Hilary and many others.

Bottom line - so what?

[The Larry Davis Experience]

So, now that Hastert has backed down on the extension issue it looks like the 9/11 commission wants to play chicken with the president on his insistence that he not visit with the full panel and that his meeting last only an hour:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGSN5CPVF1.DTL

I recognize that it is rather extraordinary for a sitting president to testify before a legislatively created commission, as Scott McClellan chants very time a question gets asked about this. But since he's not giving much more in the way of a response or justification, I'm curious as to what others here see as the reasons for this stance.

You may have missed it because it happened on the same friday that the President's Nat Guard medical records were shown to the press for 20 minutes at the height of that particular circus, but the WH did originally say that the president would agree to testify before the commission. It was only later that same weekend that the admin "clarified" that it would only be meeting with the Chair for an hour.

This is a fine line to walk for the president, and if he's trying to gain the PR benefit of talking to these folks in the first place he runs the risk of looking like he has something to hide by imposing these conditions, even after releasing all those briefing memos, etc.

Or maybe this in combo with the Hastert gambit was a last gasp effort at trying to derail the commission without looking like he's derailing the commission. But that just seems too ham-fisted, even for these guys, as they prepare to wrap themselves in the national security flag at the convention in NYC. I dunno...

[Tyrone Slothrop]

If this is true, this is really, really awful. NBC News is reporting that the military had plans to take out one of the leading terrorist threats, Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom David Brooks described as "one of the world's most brutal mass murderers," but that the political leadership at the White House stopped the operation because they worried that it would undercut the case for invading Iraq:

• In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
  The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
  
  . . .
  
  The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
  
  . . .
  
  Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

more

eta: I can't find the NBC News story that Yglesias appears to be quoting from, but he's not the sort to make this stuff up

[Hank Chinaski]

Atticus Grinch
Looks like he really is a leftist.

You really can't tell. looks like he flip-flops on the issue.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
However, Cheney is just one advisor (albeit an important one) and if GWB ends up taking the advice of one or more of his other advisors, Cheney as VP defers to that.

Maybe so, but Suskind's book demonstrates that Cheney is one of very few people with good access to the President (Andy Card and Condi Rice are two others), that Cheney has a very significant role in deciding who gets to say what to W., and that he uses this role to press his own views. Of course, the source for this account was the Treasury Secretary. Suskind has been posting documents that reflect this sort of thing on his website.

No President, not even your beloved Clinton, sets their administrations policies by themselves.

That was my point, although it's unclear why you think I love Clinton. Maybe you and bilmore have been comparing notes.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
If we don't, then Kerry has some really sorry-ass strategists.

Yeah, there's no way that Bush can just remain silent on this one. It's out there. The momentum is growing, more county counsels are finding ways to justify the issuance of same sex marriage certs (looks like OR is next, according to today's paper), mayors are getting arrested for performing marriages, etc etc.

The battle has been joined, and if the religious right doesn't see their main man next to them on the battlefield they're going to be pretty pissed. And if the folks on the other side see Bush isn't there they're going to be asking why not, esp when a prime line of attack on Kerry is going to be his flipflopping on his positions in prior Senate votes.

I think the Cheney tiptoeing was only to avoid him having to explicitly support a constitutional amendment in direct opposition to the states rights position he expressed favor for during the '00 campaign. No more, no less.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If this is true, this is really, really awful. NBC News is reporting that the military had plans to take out one of the leading terrorist threats, Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom David Brooks described as "one of the world's most brutal mass murderers," but that the political leadership at the White House stopped the operation because they worried that it would undercut the case for invading Iraq:

• In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
  The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
  
  . . .
  
  The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
  
  . . .
  
  Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

more

eta: I can't find the NBC News story that Yglesias appears to be quoting from, but he's not the sort to make this stuff up

Numbskull. In June 2002 we were still listening to you guys and trying to get UN approval to make Iraq fix things the UN insisted it fix 10 years earlier. While we were trying to get the UN to give us permission, you think it made sense to go into Iraq and blow stuff up? I know these guys were seperate from Saddam, but still the unauthorized attack.
What the source for the "why," couldn't the "why" have been we aren't going to turn cowboy if we don't have to. And this guy is "one of the world's most brutal mass murderers."
Can you think of one other Ty?
I bet you are a fucking a pain in litigation. "Hank, I noticed pps 12,356-59 have some marks. I'm concerned you masked information and I'm filing a motion tomorrow to have you BLAH BLAH>"