Curbing Presidential Warmongers
Two Democratic presidential candidates failed an important test today. They were both asked: If you become president, would you be in favor of Congress limiting your war powers.
Hillary Clinton replied “I never would have waged a pre-emptive war in Iraq. And I would hope I never would have waged such a war anywhere in the world so incompetently.” Senator Chris Dodd answered “If I were commander in chief, we’d be getting our troops out of Iraq. I don’t think I’d have the problem of worrying about whether or not there’d be caps on them.”
Helllooo!!! Answer the question, Numbnuts! Sorry, F minus. You can drop out now. Next.
Neither of these useless wastes of space even heard the question, let alone answered it. Talk about un-fuckin’-clear on the concept! The problem with Bush’s presidency isn’t that he's a delusional megalomaniac who thinks we’re playing Risk and he's having a tantrum because he can't conquer Iraq. (That’s just part of it.)
The problem is that one person — GW Bush in this case — is allowed to hijack our entire government while Congress, the courts and dozens of federal agencies just sit there with their thumbs massaging their favorite orifice. The question asked of Dodd and Clinton has an obvious answer, and these two hacks missed it.
The solution to a rightwing douchebag who thinks he's the King of Kings is NOT to elect a leftwing douchebag who think he/she is the Divine Ruler.
OK, Remedial Civics 101: The reason George W. Bush’s harem (formerly known as Congress) got defeated last November has nothing to do with Left, Right, Libertarian, Green, Peace & Freedom, Nazi or any other political viewpoint. Millions of voters — of every political stripe — were alarmed by a Fuhrer wannabe (his actual job title is “President” but he never figured that out) who governed by Swiftboating and conjuring up "signing statements." We The People told him we've had enough. This is America. Out Damned Spot!
To any presidential candidate of any party: If you didn’t pick up that simple important lesson last November, please quit now and save yourself the future embarrassment.
Labels: Clinton, Dodd, war powers
posted by Tom Harper @ 9:08 PM
10 Comments:
Makes you wanna tear your hair out, don't it. Damn, guess I'm gonna have to run.
Kind of makes me wish they had to hold onto a electric wire and if they didn't answer the question they would get shocked.
The Dems have to start saying what they want to do...it's not enough to just keep criticizing Bush.
You're right, they sure didn't answer the question. A simple "yes" or "no" would have been sufficient, but no, they couldn't do that.
I think the Congress SHOULD have some controls over the president. Hasn't it always been that way in the US, and isn't that how the system is designed?
Why aren't millions of people marching on Washington, D.C., furious about the executive branch's big power grab? Kvatch pointed readers to an excellent NYTimes article about this, over at his blog, Blognonymous. It ticked me off so much I posted the article at my site.
How can a handful of jerks basically hold 300,000,000 people hostage? How is this possible?
Enough with the power grab, enough with the signing statements, enough with the suppression or altering of scientific information! Enough already!
People who call themselves "conservative" and blindly follow this despot wannabe are going to find that this kind of concentration of power in the hands of one person is going to come back and bite the American people on our collective ass, and it probably won't be too far into the future.
Yes, yes, and YES! Answer the question! If one can answer the question, then one is already leagues more intelligent than the Lame Duck Fuhrer. The hardest thing for the Democrats, it seems, is just to answer a question simply and clearly without a lot of big words. I appreciate a wide vocabulary as much as the next college-educated gal, but you're not winning Joe Nascar's votes with ten-dollar words.
Wastes of good genetic material these candidates are. Need to hear more answers to that question. Where's Webb? And Richardson?
I.M. Dedd: Hey, that’s a great idea. You should run. You go Guy.
J. Marquis: Absolutely. The public is tired of politicians who won't say what they mean. A lot of conservatives are appalled by Bush’s power grab. It won't solve anything to have a liberal president who makes a power grab and starts issuing signing statements.
Snave: Right, a simple Yes or No. Maybe that just isn’t possible for politicians. It really is surprising that there isn’t more public outrage at our government’s conduct. And we need to start passing laws now that will prevent this kind of power grab in a future administration. We didn’t learn from Watergate; hopefully this current crisis will teach us something.
Mile High Pixie: I think the nomination will go to whoever talks the most directly and bluntly. Jim Webb seems like that, right now anyway. I hope he doesn’t start giving longwinded politician-type answers.
Kvatch: “wastes of good genetic material” LOL. Yeah, this question needs to be answered clearly by everyone who wants to run for the White House. It should be one of the central issues until we get some laws passed that limit a president’s power grabs.
I don't want any part of Ms. Clinton OR her cankles.
I'm holding out for now, but leaning towards Biden.
Mike: I don't know who I want in '08, but I hope there'll be a candidate who talks bluntly and calls it like he/she sees it. And that ain't Hillary.
Unfortunately History has also taught us that giving up an answer to early leaves it open to be shredded into pieces before it can be explained.
This is the world of the 15 second soundbite, and while "stay the course" and "Mission accomplished" are almost self explanatory, and answer to this crises is not.
Some of us may remember Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war which he wouldn't reveal until after the election (and they fell for it), I don't want it to come to that!
Erik
Erik: I'm hoping the public will get tired of soundbites and meaningless political posturing. The pendulum always swings, and someday there'll be a candidate who shoots from the hip and calls it like it is.
As for the question that Hillary and Dodd couldn't answer, it's crucial that any future president not have the same absolute powers that Bush seems to have. Whether he's breaking the law or he's just an expert at finding loopholes, this power grab needs to be stopped and we need to prevent this from happening again.
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