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Washington Post Op-Ed Urges Letting Obama Run for a Third Term so Senate Will “Fear Him”
Frontpage Mag ^ | 11/29/2013 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 11/29/2013 12:54:29 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Four more years. 10 trillion more dollars in debt. And by the end of it, we’ll have a nuclear war in the Middle East and mandates forcing you to buy everything from electric cars to Michelle Obama’s trademark Soy and Asphalt pie.

The motives behind the Washington Post op-ed argument are… revealing.

I watch President Obama, whose approval rating has dipped to 37 percent in CBS News polling — the lowest ever for him — during the troubled rollout of his health-care reform. Many of Obama’s fellow Democrats have distanced themselves from the reform and from the president. Even former president Bill Clinton has said that Americans should be allowed to keep the health insurance they have.

Or consider the reaction to the Iran nuclear deal. Regardless of his political approval ratings, Obama could expect Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.) to attack the agreement. But if Obama could run again, would he be facing such fervent objections from Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)?

Probably not. Democratic lawmakers would worry about provoking the wrath of a president who could be reelected. Thanks to term limits, though, they’ve got little to fear.

So Zimmerman’s argument is for lifting term limits so that Obama can intimidate Senate Democrats with a third term?

Nor does Obama have to fear the voters, which might be the scariest problem of all. If he chooses, he could simply ignore their will. And if the people wanted him to serve another term, why shouldn’t they be allowed to award him one?

Zimmerman confuses the people with the billionaire donors who stuffed Obama’s pockets full of money twice. I’m sure they will be happy to do it a third time. And Obama will pay them back with more taxpayer money.

We don’t have some sort of pure democracy where voters choose from a blank slate. We have a political establishment which chooses the prospective winner and the people who work for a living don’t always get their way against the special interests who bring their own people like Obama to power.

That was the argument of our first president, who is often held up as the father of term limits. In fact, George Washington opposed them. “I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the service of any man who, in some great emergency, shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public,” Washington wrote in a much-quoted letter to the Marquis de Lafayette.

That would be selectively quoted in the term limits debate. Let’s try quoting the whole paragraph instead.

As for instance, on the ineligibility of the same person for President, after he should have served a certain course of years. Guarded so effectually as the proposed Constitution is, in respect to the prevention of bribery and undue influence in the choice of President: I confess, I differ widely myself from Mr. Jefferson and you, as to the necessity or expediency of rotation in that appointment.

The matter was fairly discussed in the Convention, and to my full convictions; though I cannot have time or room to sum up the argument in this letter. There cannot, in my judgment, be the least danger that the President will by any practicable intrigue ever be able to continue himself one moment in office, much less perpetuate himself in it; but in the last stage of corrupted morals and political depravity: and even then there is as much danger that any other species of domination would prevail.

Though, when a people shall have become incapable of governing themselves and fit for a master, it is of little consequence from what quarter he comes. Under an extended view of this part of the subject, I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the services of any man, who on some great emergency shall be deemed universally, most capable of serving the Public.

Elections worked differently in George Washington’s time so he was talking about a somewhat different process. Not one that could lead to an Obama. Though it did nearly lead to Aaron Burr.

Washington was not anticipating direct popular elections of the president. That is why he speaks of bribery and undue influence.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

This is the kind of thing they were worried about. Not that a corrupt political hack would give away and accept bribes like crazy to sections of the common people and to wealthy men.

There’s little doubt that George Washington would have considered the current state of affairs in the capital named after him to be the last stage of corrupted morals and political depravity where factions raise millions and hand out bribes from taxpayer monies in the trillions to win political office.

Washington’s final point is that if the country has gone so badly downhill that the people just want a ruler, rather than self-rule, term limits won’t make much of a difference.

It’s not much of an endorsement of a third term for Obama.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 113th; bho44; elections; enoughalready; obama; senate
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To: HarleyD
And, wouldn't you know, a simultaneous and apropos FR thread where they push the envelope anyway they can:

Obamas might stay in DC after presidency

21 posted on 11/29/2013 1:38:59 PM PST by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
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To: SeekAndFind

Anyone with an understanding of Liberal socialism
KNEW this was coming.

Obama= FDR Redux.

If they get to write the history books, they will
fawn over BHO just like FDR, until the truth comes out.


22 posted on 11/29/2013 1:42:38 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Try it and just watch the war start. And folks, don’t be afraid of the gov’t ammo reserves; in a shooting war, they’ll just be convenient resupply points for the good guys, since the gov’t can’t possibly keep us from seizing them.


23 posted on 11/29/2013 1:43:38 PM PST by Doug Loss
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To: SeekAndFind

Professor Zimmerman’s proposal is ok, but wouldn’t be even more effective to have presidents for life, abolish the Congress, and arrest the leaders of the political parties one does not agree with?


24 posted on 11/29/2013 1:46:41 PM PST by Gloss
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To: Doug Loss

It won’t be as easy as 1776,
Obama will no doubt call on his
Russian and Chinese friends to help
quell the insurrection, not to mention
Venezuala, and other assorted leftist countries.

Still, as Churchill said, there may come a time
when defeat is certain but it is better to die
a freeman than live as a slave.
The hard part is in keeping from becoming the same
as Obama and his minions, something he is counting
on.


25 posted on 11/29/2013 1:50:22 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m getting sick and tired of these dim-wit, uneducated commies and their lawlessness. Time for it to stop.


26 posted on 11/29/2013 1:52:28 PM PST by cblue55 ("Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants,")
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To: SeekAndFind

LOL ,Obama , Bill Clinton would be in there faster than you can say ,Get My Coffee Barry


27 posted on 11/29/2013 1:58:00 PM PST by molson209 (Hillary Clinton)
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To: SeekAndFind

I don’t know it even O would push that limit.

HOWEVER...I can see Michelle running as VP with Hillary...and the LIV lapping it up like a bowl of milk.

So I guess we could have another 16 doomed years under that scenario.

(Where is that “Oh Noes” gif when ya need it?)


28 posted on 11/29/2013 2:01:11 PM PST by berdie
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To: SeekAndFind

Yeah, Professor, great idea! Of course, there’s a mechanism for this: (1)contact your representative in Congress and have him or her propose a Constitutional Amendment, (2) get both houses of Congress to pass it with the requisite majority, (3) get 38 states to pass it. See? Easy! And thanks for working your hardest for a third Palin administration.


29 posted on 11/29/2013 2:03:53 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Billthedrill

Much easier. If SC can find obamacare constitutional,
they can also rule term limits unconstitutional.


30 posted on 11/29/2013 2:11:21 PM PST by jonose
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder if they’d think the same way about, say, President Cruz?


31 posted on 11/29/2013 2:13:39 PM PST by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: jonose

I don’t think they have standing to do that with respect to a Constitutional Amendment, but I’ll happily be corrected by someone with greater legal knowledge than mine.


32 posted on 11/29/2013 2:15:10 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: molson209

Funniest post of the day!


33 posted on 11/29/2013 2:20:55 PM PST by PhiloBedo (You gotta roll with the punches and get with what's real.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sure Beltway gods, you do that. If you want shooting.
It may come anyway so using your pretzel logic, go ahead.


34 posted on 11/29/2013 2:26:20 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: All armed conservatives.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Probably not. Democratic lawmakers would worry about provoking the wrath of a president who could be reelected. Thanks to term limits, though, they’ve got little to fear.”

If he was a dictator, then they would really have to fear Obama. I don’t suppose anyone has thought of that. ;-)


35 posted on 11/29/2013 2:33:56 PM PST by JimSEA
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To: SeekAndFind

Um, no f*&%$#g way. Not gonna happen. If they think fly-over country will sit back quietly, they have another thing coming. And I don’t mean a civil war or an assassination or any kind of violence. We will simply go to DC and very peacefully, physically remove those thugs from office and then take them wherever they want to go: Chicago, Hawaii, wherever, but THEY AIN’T STAYIN’!


36 posted on 11/29/2013 2:36:49 PM PST by BuckeyeTexan (There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. ~Steve Earle)
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To: jonose
John Roberts: “A third presidential term can be construed as a simple tax, and is totally constitutional.”
37 posted on 11/29/2013 2:44:22 PM PST by Deo volente (God willing, America shall survive this Obamanation.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I predict they run the mooch, I don’t see the beast as being electable.


38 posted on 11/29/2013 2:49:38 PM PST by RS_Rider (I hate Illinois Nazis)
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To: SeekAndFind

It might be fun to finally kick his ass, straight up!

Replace him w Cruz!

Think of all the MSM stroke outs!
Perhaps some GOPe?


39 posted on 11/29/2013 3:05:29 PM PST by G Larry (Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Psalms 109:8)
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To: Steely Tom

“Why do you think they bought enough ammo to put a half-dozen bullets into every man, woman and child in the America? “

Americans have enough ammo to shoot every Washington Gestapo thug 49,563 times.


40 posted on 11/29/2013 3:29:47 PM PST by sergeantdave
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