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Anti Obama dog whistles are fine; let's just not pretend all the concerns proceed from "reasonable" doubts about the process, or the eligibility of candidates.
doobs broad appeal to emotion (people are/might be "concerned" about matters of eligibility) -- in spite of his honest will, perhaps -- presumes the Manchurian Candidate meme for its effectiveness. In Arizona's case, this sensibility is openly pandered to.
Anti Obama dog whistles are fine; let's just not pretend all the concerns proceed from "reasonable" doubts about the process, or the eligibility of candidates.
I would think the fact that we have laws laying out what the eligibility requirements are should make it self evident that we need to make sure they get followed. Otherwise, what's the point?
When we make a law saying that you have to be 18 to buy cigarettes do we just assume that everyone will obey, or do we make sure the law involves checking ID's? Now I'm not saying that there are as many politicians out there trying to win an office they're not eligible for as there are kids under the age of 18 trying to get cigarettes, not even close, but that's not the point. Why hold politicians to a lower standard? Especially when the effort to prove compliance is so incredibly simple.
No doubt. Political motivations are definitely in play here. Still, as long as both teams end up having to play by the same rules I don't see the harm. As a bonus, we get a "feel good" knowing that the integrity of elections is being protected. , just shutting up the birthers makes the whole thing worthwhile IMO.
And yet we've as a nation managed to elect 43 presidents without ever having someone sneak into the oval office who didn't meet the cons utional requirements for eligibility.
Ultimately I think this is a non-issue. The process is too public for anyone to make it far enough along in their candidacy to have any one state's requirements make that big of an impact. I do think it's naive to ignore the timing of this particular move, however. If the state of Arizona was legitimately concerned about properly vetting presidential candidates, they could have suggested this legislation at any time. They didn't, though. It wasn't an issue for them until we had a person of color with a kooky name (whose place of birth is contested by a small but vocal portion of the population) at the helm that this magically became necessary.
Maybe it was self-evident that the voters sort out qualifications for themselves, an adversarial political process limits shenanigans, and the states run the whole show.
In the strict legal sense Arizona's law is reasonable and proper. Whether it is needful or politically astute is doubtful IMO.
Last edited by Winehole23; 04-21-2010 at 03:00 PM.
Perhaps. But what's the harm in putting such a law in place as a backstop? Is there some potential unintended, adverse consequence here that I'm just not seeing? What's the worst thing that could happen here?
With the entire investigative might of the Mainstream Media packing all the hotels within a 500 mile radius of Wasilla, Alaska -- pretty much throughout the "political process" of the last presidential election, I'm not so sure the "political process" limited much, this time around.
Am I a "birther?" Nah, I'm sufficiently satisfied he's cons utionally qualified to hold the Office of the Presidency. What I'm disappointed in is the "political process."
A robust "political process" would have discovered as much about Obama's relationships with criminals, crooks, and terrorists as it did about Trig's provenance, Palin's family's stance on sex before marriage, and one of her relative's drug arrest.
A robust "political process" would have discovered how Obama could go through Harvard Law and run it's Review without ever publishing one legal article. One.
A robust "political process" would have discovered how Obama -- after producing zero academic writings could muster the authoriship to write two -- count them, two! -- autobiographies, before he had achieved little more than what thousands of "community organizers" before him have achieved.
I could go on about the things we don't know that a robust "political process" would have discovered about Obama if, in fact, we had a robust "political process."
All those things came to light before the election. You ceaselessly flacked them here. The grand conspiracy to conceal the truth about Obama's past was non-existent.
It was and is all out in the open Yoni. If people have ignored you, or keep ignoring you, perhaps that goes to the quality of the brief you have assembled.
I won't just sit here and let you say the MSM conspired to undermine your credibility, when you do it so well yourself.
Well, in case you haven't noticed; "here" isn't exactly a mainstream media outlet.
Again, conflating my exposure to that of say, the White House Press Corp, one of the major networks, any number of cable outlets, etc... while flattering, isn't exactly demonstrative.
So, tell me this.
How did the mainstream media explain how Obama was able to graduate Harvard Law and hold the prestigious position of President of its Law Review, without ever publishing a legal brief or paper?
I'm curious.
How did the mainstream media reconcile Obama's claim to have been a Cons utional Professor at the University of Chicago with the University's claim that he wasn't?
I'm curious.
How has the mainstream media reported Obama's license to practice law being revoked, abandoned, relinquished, or otherwise voided (I'm not sure which because, it's never been adequately explained.)
I'm curious.
Apparently, you and the mainstream media are not.
Editors in law review don't write law review articles, they review the submitted articles for corrections and evaluation for publication. The staff writers write the articles.
Also, only a small percentage of articles submitted to a law review are actually published. There are tons of staff writers, professors, legal professionals, etc. who submit articles that are not published.
Additionally, I think he did write an article or case note -
Also - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12705.html ("Obama's Lost Law Review Article")
I wasn't aware that thousands of community organizers had become the first Black editor of Harvard Law Review (first book) or been the only sitting Black senator and only the third Black senator since Reconstruction (second book).
Lawrence Tribe is a liberal hack. Others at Harvard have said Obama was lazy and incurious.
So, what happened to Obama's law license? And, what about his claim of being a "Cons utional Professor" in Chicago?
You don't "publish" legal briefs in law school. They may be a requirement of your first or second year course load, but they aren't published. Second, he did publish a case note his first year. Finally, you don't write articles as an editor of law review. You are far too busy reviewing staff writer articles for correction and reviewing other submitted articles for publication.
This is how the University of Chicago reconciled it -
I think they try to avoid reporting on urban legands.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/lawlicenses.asp
Well, then he must be a f-cking genius because the lazy and incurious Obama graduated magna laude from Harvard Law and was editor of the law review (a time-consuming undertaking for a third year law student when others are often in cruise mode).
Snopes addressed that one. Nice try though.
Should every presidential candidate be cons utionally eligible for the position? It is a rather important concept.
I think the more important question is whether each state gets to have their own specialized criteria and gets to make a individual determination as to whether a candidate is cons utionally eligible for this federal office.
Moot. The criteria already exists. The rest is recognition of the criteria.
Where did AZ ask for specialized criteria? Their criteria is the same cons ution the other 49 states ratified and use.
The political process already reliably addresses it, I think. But the states are free to do whatever they want.
Not it's not. Their criteria is that to prove place of birth, you have to submit a birth certificate to their Secretary of State for review. That's not in the Cons ution and the other 49 states do not require this.
The other 49 states all give out birth certificates though. Arizona would only be asking for something that every citizen should have or be able to get. Also, is there some clause in the Cons ution somewhere that says it's uncons utional to pass a law designed to ensure compliance with something in the Cons ution?
You know, I'm not sure if AZ and other states don't have a solid reason to do this with the (admittedly exaggerated) press Obama's birth certificate got.
It has nothing to do with Obama's actual citizenship (which I don't doubt and neither does anyone informed), it has to do with the precedent it established - never before have we even questioned a candidate's cons utional eligibility.
It wasn't very much in question this time IMO, but I hear there is a division of reasonable people on this point.
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