Archive for November, 2009

The damnpolitician and the farmer

Last week, I proponed the Founding Fathers had only two requirements to be president of the United States because they wanted to protect the people’s power to choose the president.   They did not want those writing the Constitution and those later “interpreting” it to be able to limit our choices. 

They assumed people like you and me would give time to our country and return home to live as everyone else, rather than staying in Washington becoming a member of the political aristocracy, becoming a career politician.  Perhaps one of the greatest failures of the Founding Fathers was not anticipating the career politician.

To be President of the United States

There are only two constitutional requirements to be president of the United States of America.  You must be a natural born citizen of the United States and at least 35 years of age.  That is all that is needed for the most important job in the world.  Although considered enough in 1787, is that enough today; or should we set more criterion for the office?

 

Robert Gibbs is a verb

The most entertaining moments of this presidency are watching Robert Gibbs explain the ramblings of Vice President Biden.  With a straight face, a feigned sincerity and accompanied by the laughter of the press corps Gibbs says, “I understand what he said and I’m telling you what he meant to say.”  He invented a new verb — “gibbsing,” a verb that well describes earlier rulings of the United States Supreme Court.

“Earn this. Earn it.” – Veteran’s Day

Who are the men and women we honor each year on Veterans Day?  An anonymous person offered the following description – “A veteran is someone who at one point in life wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’”  What makes them write this check, make this promise, show this love of country, this loyalty to country?  Could you or I write this check?

Who really has the power?

“The United States Constitution has proved itself
the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules
of government ever written.”
                           –President Franklin Roosevelt