Tuesday, September 19, 2006

C'mon. Let's Just Give Him a Third Term. Seriously.

Take a moment out of your day to remember the halcyon days of the Nineties. Back when we had a President who knew how to talk, didn't make us embarrassed to be Americans, didn't launch full-scale invasions of Middle Eastern countries for no reason, and didn't need his Vice President to tell him what to do and how to do it, and whose worst sin while in office was, well, you remember. Anyway, click here for Clinton's recent appearance on The Daily Show.

4 comments:

blankfist said...

Wonder what the Easter Bunny is doing the other 364 days a year?

Miller Sturtevant said...

No. As much as I'd like to see Clinton back in the White House, I wouldn't actually be at all for repealing the 22nd amendment to make it happen. Because if one allows for the possibility of 12 years of a Democratic President, one also has to allow for 12 or 16 years of a single Republican President, and I wouldn't be able to tolerate that. It's been six years with Bush but it feels like it's been 20. There are just too many people like Bush who would either just keep running and stealing elections, or just declaring himself dictator for life or something. There are a goodly number of Clintonian democrats out there that I'd be very happy to see in the White House (though, at this point, Hillary's not at the top of my list), and none of them are Bill Clinton.

Actually, what I think the next president should do when he's elected, whether he's a Democrat or a Republican, is change the nature of the office so that it's absolutely hostile to future office-seekers who aren't intelligent, articulate, and able to think on their feet. If that means starting new Presidential traditions that really test these attributes, even signing some of them into law, then they should do that. For example, how about hour-long, televised question and answer sessions with the President's rivals -- like the Brits do with their Prime Minister's Questions. If the President is able to answer his worst enemy's loaded and tricky questions, then he's probably better suited to handle other world leaders in a crisis than someone who would never expose themselves to such a situation. Maybe weekly press conferences with absolutely no repurcussions for reporters who ask especially tough questions. Maybe every two months hold a Town Hall meeting with no pre-screening of attendees -- by that I mean no one has to sign loyalty oaths to the President and his party as a prerequisite to attend and then ask a question of the nation's leader.

Then again, maybe it's just impossible without changing the culture of this country. There's a serious and passionate anti-intellectual streak that runs through the heart of this country that would probably forgive (if not outright applaud) an incurious, inarticulate, slow-witted boob if he wanted to not participate in any of these challenging Q&A session, so long as that candidate stood for all of the bastions of anti-intellectualism they believed in -- like the End Times were approaching, for example. There may be no real defense against letting another W into the highest office, but I think people smarter and more powerful than I should start thinking about this and start writing about it. Let people know that this is a real danger. Eight years of this guy is awful enough, but won't it all have been for nothing if we can't figure a way to make sure it can't happen again?

blankfist said...

Ah yeah, Steve Davis. And the other ones are Noah Huber, Adrew Reiziech and... the bald asian is probably Chunn. Tell them all I said hey. Cool.

Clay McClane said...

Let's just see if things get better or worse than Bush with no one in office. Really, he leaves, they throw some moth balls in the White House, and we see how we're doing after four years.

If it gets better, we shoot the Bush family into space.