Chronic clucking of clueless cryptocratic copycats?

University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos (who yesterday called Glenn Reynolds a "Bush dead-ender" and "jingoistic right-wing ideologue"), has an interesting idea about how to resurrect Bill Clinton which he shared recently. After complaining about the 22nd Amendment (which he claims "most people now agree... was a mistake") he offers an intriguing way to get around it:

. . .[A]nyone who could devise some legal way to return Clinton to the presidency would be performing a service of such magnitude that he would deserve to have his statue adorn every public square of this great nation.

I therefore submit the following proposal: When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., makes her long-expected announcement that she is running for president, she should also announce that her husband will be her running mate, and that, if elected, she will resign from office, effective Jan. 21, 2009.

The meaning of the text of the 22nd Amendment could not be plainer. It reads, in relevant part, "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." And, as legal scholars such as Justice Antonin Scalia have pointed out many times in recent years, when the meaning of a legal text is plain, it is both unnecessary and illegitimate to enforce anything other than that meaning.

Thus, while Bill Clinton cannot be re-elected, nothing bars him from becoming president again. Indeed, one suspects that much of Hillary Clinton's status as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination is a product of the hope that, by electing her, the people would be re-electing her husband in all but name.

Cute. But it's about as original as the Glenn Reynolds = right wing ideologue (even radical right wing agenda) meme.

The idea of running a candidate's wife in order to reinstall a disqualified husband is at least as old as George Wallace -- who basically ran his wife Lurleen for governor when he couldn't run:

In 1966, after failing to get the legislature to amend the constitution to allow governors to serve consecutive terms, George announced the candidacy of his wife Lurleen for governor. The couple admitted frankly that if Lurleen was elected, George would continue to make the administrative policies and decisions. Mrs. Wallace won the May Democratic primary with 54 percent of the vote which assured her election in November.
Hillary running as a front for Bill was also a frequent topic on talk radio for many years.

I don't think it's a winning platform -- especially for Hillary, who unless I am reading her wrong would very much want to be seen as earning the presidency on her own merits.

In any case, I don't think it's fair to give Paul Campos credit for old ideas.

In that respect, I agree with Glenn on another point:

Hey, I should just be glad Campos didn't call me the Antichrist.
I don't think Campos would have dared.

If he had, he'd be the ultimate copycat. I'm only one copycat among many, but hell, at least I'm out of the closet about it, and I try to give credit to others. (Especially Frank J. who probably owns the copyright on the evil Glenn 666 meme if the full truth were told. . .)

As to the copycat Glenn Reynolds Anti-Christ, here's my version from last year:

Glenn666a.jpg

Yes, dear friends, just as Hillary has long been considered a possible front candidate for Bill, Glenn has long been a right wing ideologue -- as well as a top contender for 666 anti-Christ Beast status.

(So much for "ancient" issues.)

posted by Eric on 06.07.06 at 09:57 AM





TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/3686








December 2006
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31            

ANCIENT (AND MODERN)
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR


Search the Site


E-mail




Classics To Go

Classical Values PDA Link



Archives




Recent Entries



Links



Site Credits