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According to Strategists Eyeing Deal for Clinton Third Term the possilbilty of rescinding the 22nd Ammendment is being discussed by some in Washington.

Regardless of my feelings toward Bill Clinton, I personally have always felt that term limits for the President were a bad idea (although it DID work out well for Clinton!!).

I'm posting this for discussion of term limits in general. I know that there will be some amount of "Imagine that Clinton had a third term" argument, but, if possible, I'd like to debate from the standpoint of Hamilton's arguments (even as the apply to Clinton).

Well, the guy who won the most presidential elections was probably the most disastrous president of the 20th century, at least domestically. So who to blame? The lack of term limits or the idiot Americans who gave FDR landslide after landslide? I say both. Then again, who knows?

The Federalist was first published in the New York Journal in October 1787. Are you sure its okay to post the entire article, or should you have just posted an excerpt? (The Newspaper might have some injunction against Free Republic, don't you know).

This is a subject we could spend a great deal of time on and never come to a definitive conclusion.

One question that we must be asked today is a question unavailable in Hamilton's time: Have we suffered or prospered with term limits?

There are also political examples of men who have been in some sort of political office for their entire adult life. Again, these examples were not available to Hamilton, but we can judge term limits by these examples.

There are no term limits for our "unelected" judiciary which can serve as a an example of men with political power which has very few limits. Hamilton didn't live long enough to see what happens when you put men in powerful positions and give them a free-rein.

Then there are our congressmen who are "up for the next election" as soon as they get into office. How much work do these men and women do for the people and how much do they do for themselves? In this case Hamilton should have seen what was coming.

In the end we of today have more information, more history, to work with than Hamilton did. Hamilton's arguments made sense for his time, but we have the advantage of being able to look back and see what's best for us in our time.

"Imagine that Clinton had a third term"

Yes, imagine that. The stock market with its dot gones had started its severe downturn by March of 2000. The World Trade Center terrorist attack occurred in September of 2001. Clinton spent his eight years as president kicking the nation's really tough problems ahead of him for the next president to solve.

Perhaps the nation could have Clinton back after someone else has cleaned up the messes Clinton prepared.