Dick Gephardt most unpresidential
 

<i>"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," Gephardt said.</i>

This quote has been verified (to the point of linking to a C-Span video and pointing out how far into it the statement happens) by the folks here.

To me, this statement puts Mr. Gephardt out of consideration for the Presidency. Sure, I realize that many presidents have made executive orders that seem pretty unconstitutional on the face of it. But it's rare to see a candidate flatly state, right out, that he has such contempt for the system that he would try to override it, to enforce his own vision of how things should be.

Every US President takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and a rather obvious action against it is something that should properly be grounds for impeachment. Let's save time by not voting for this weasel in the first place.

I Saw that Speech
 

He was trying to "me too" an affirmative action speech by Al Sharpton (after Dennis Kucinich did the same). That in itself shows bad judgement.

For him to be elected and do that would be flat out wrong. However I don't think making that statement will eliminate him from the running. There's an awful lot of voters who have been prevented by the Supreme Court from ramming their personal agendas down the rest of our throats. A candidate making such a statement gives them hope of circumventing the court. If you add up all the anti-abortion, anti-gun, pro-school prayer, anti-Darwin, etc, etc voters, it make a substantial bloc. Scary, huh?

Having lived in his district for 21 years, I can say with confidence that Gephardt has absolutely no business running for president.

But he has a high likelihood to win, because he's been around a long time and has a heavily entrenched organization and fund-raising apparatus. Clinton won the nomination at a time when all of the "real democratic contenders" were afraid to go up against Bush Sr. during his massive popularity following Gulf War Sr. Clinton wouldn't have stood a chance for the nomination in 1992 if Democrats who had national name recognition (including Gore, and Gephardt, and probably Biden, and others I'm too lazy to think back 10 years and remember) had run.

I dunno Steve. I don't know what his numbers are right now...the last poll I saw had him 3rd in Iowa. And I don't even think he'd win his home state. He didn't do so hot in 1984, and as I see it, he's looked upon as part of what's wrong with the Dems right now. That's why I don't think Daschle will run...a lot of moderates would laugh him off.

Kerry and Edwards come across as, "Yeah, we're with the Dems, but we've got better ideas than the other putzes." And Dean seems to be the maverick one. The rest of them should pack their stuff up, go home, and dream a little dream. Though I would like to see Sharpton stick around, just to stir the pot.

Lessee...who ran in '92 for the Dems? Tsongas, Jerry Brown, Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey, and Clinton. That's based on what I remember, and some obscure magazine article.

He's very useful. He makes the rest of the clowns look gooood!:rolleyes:

The way things are looking right now, there is an excellent likelihood that I will be voting for Al Sharpton in the Democratic Primary ...

(yeah. Democrat. Pick yer teeth up off the floor and deal with it) ;)

From what little I've read, Dean is looking like my man. A centrist disguised as a Democrat. w0rd.

God bless you, Wolf, we're paddling the same leaky canoe! Have you and Slang ever compared your results on the Political Compass? It's made for some interesting dinnertime conversation at our house. (HB being slightly to the right of Genghis Khan, and me bing a tad left of Gandhi, and that's not even considering our views on economics!)

Economic Left/Right: -3.12
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.87

I tried to be completely honest this time and err on the side of caution.

How many threads has the PC wound up on now? 4? 5? 12? :)

I'll retake it later...I'm almost certain that my views have shifted to the libertarian end of things...go figure, I hang out with a bunch of fucking libertarians. :)

On the political compass, I landed right in the neighborhood of Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. Wacky.

I'll have to retake the PC test, because I can't recall my results and I'm too damn lazy to look up the thread where I posted them. ;)

As I recall, however, I came out even further hardline right than Slang did.

New results:

Economic Left/Right: -4.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.69

I'm basically at the same spot I am when I first took this test.

Is it just me, or have some of the questions changed?

Yes.

Economic Left/Right:
ORIGINAL (11/18/02) 2.50
CURRENT (6/24/03) 5.38

Authoritarian/Libertarian
ORIGINAL 0.92
CURRENT 0.77

I forget what I got last time, but I was in the same quadrant. This go round I made:

Economic L/R = -4.0
Auth/ Lib = -6.67

I saw a large portion of the Democratic candidates fielding questions and here is my armchair, no depth media review- Gephardt is such a weasel, he'll tank. Smarm-o-rama. In a close second was Lieberman, ugh. Time! Shuddup awready . Kucinch's statements actually garnered some laughs (unplanned), Mosley Braun hung in there, but not powerful or substantial enough. I kept waiting for Al to rhyme. The two that rose to the top- Kerry and Dean. Of those two, Dean stuck the landing with his straight talking style.

4 left 1 down. But tomorrow who knows? depends what pisses me off tomorrow.:p

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -4.25
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -3.18

Hmm. Pretty close to Sycamore and Dave.

Economic Left/Right: -3.62
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.56

Hasen't moved much in 2 years, i don't think it's very accurate though, too many questions are far too ambigious.

I've never much understood executive orders. What is their jurisdiction? How, if at all, can they be overturned?

The EO is, I think, really just a statement of policy from the Executive branch. It doesn't really override the Supreme Court, which is another reason for us to disrespect Gephardt on the matter. If he understands the issue, he never should have made the statement; if he doesn't understand the issue, he should never be President.

Truman used an EO to segregate the military, after the other branches didn't take an interest in the issue. That makes sense; Truman was Cmdr in Chief, and certainly had the ability to establish policy for the armed forces. Later, Truman tried to use an EO to take over a steel mill, and the SC prevented it on behalf of the owners, saying that the Pres didn't have that kind of power.

Well it seems an EO power play can direct many things: departments, action plans, honorary recognition, etc., but often sets up policy, and if that policy is controversial, it may be challenged in court and deemed unconstitutional. It takes a while to litigate, so meanwhile, the order is in effect. It can at least buy some time.( I'm thinking of Bush's EO to block public access to Reagan's papers that were set to be released.)

SC can override an EO. Rock Paper Scissors.

Phew.