Posted on 10/16/2006 10:22:53 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
Edited on 10/16/2006 10:33:07 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
If only we had a system like Britain's, where an unpopular Prime Minister can be turfed out by a simple vote of no-confidence. Unfortunately, we're saddled with a Constitution that requires the difficult and time-consuming process of impeachment. And thus, sadly, we're stuck with W until January, 2009. That in a nutshell, is the complaint of Sanford Levinson, professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin.
Now, it's true that the good professor notes some other beefs he has with our central document of government. But one suspects that it is the inability to summarily dispatch President Bush that prompted him to write his LA Times column of today, Our Broken Constitution. He writes:
[W]hatever happens, George W. Bush will continue to occupy the White House until Jan. 20, 2009, despite the fact that about 60% of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing. Most political systems around the world have mechanisms by which leaders who lose the public's confidence can be removed. A model in this regard is Britain, where the Tories unceremoniously dispatched Margaret Thatcher when she was no longer found suitable as their leader, and where the Labor Party is in the process of doing the same with Tony Blair. Under our Constitution, although criminals can be removed, mere incompetents are protected. One need not adopt a parliamentary system in order to construct a system by which Congress could declare "no confidence" in the president and force a replacement.
Buck up, professor. It's only a mere 27 months till we bid Bush farewell, and inaugurate . . . Newt?
Do lawyers take an oath to uphold the constitution?
Who says 'we' want to replace the Pres in the first place? Some Prof? Who cares what some Prof thinks unless they are writing a term paper in one of his classes?
I think he has a point. Of course, he doesn't realize that the next president would be a Republican, too.
I'd think he'd be happy that Bush must stay as president. Bush's numbers are so low that he tends to hurt the rest of the party. I'd expect he'd want that.
U.S. Constitution you magnificent bastard!
What a real banana republic this would be if we could toss a President every time he has a bad week....
Sanford Levinson should commit ritual suicide to make his point.....which his hat covers.
what a totalitarian sc&mb#g. with impunity, based on the rights he has in a country which recognizes his rights as inalienable, he is seeking to destroy the document which recognizes those rights for all of us. (these smug, punky
totalitarians/ democrats/socialists/communists/you name it, are nothing but a bunch of little teenagers in the bodies of adults whose mommies advised them they were brilliant; in the process their growth circuits were interrupted;
neurosis/psychosis thou art democrat.
(just watch their antics and those of their constituency if they take both houses. their behaviour will be doubly obnoxious)
TO THINK I WANTED TO SEND MY SON TO U.T.
Shame what the heck is going on in the University of Texas?
NO, wait! maybe I will send him, he could teach them a thing or two regarding the Constitution.
Thank Goodness the next Generation of Christian Conservative Students are seeing the ugly mess they have to clean up. This Professor even looks, well a bit constitutionally constipated.
How long would a prime minister Lincoln haver lasted? Certainly not long enough to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Beides, Thatcher was in office longer than anyone can be president under our system. Thank God, for term limits, or Bill Clinton would have been in Office on September 11, when the cows came home to roast.
"A Prof's Protest: Constitution Makes It Too Hard to Bounce Bush"
EyeGuy's Protest: Tenure Makes It Too Hard to Bounce $hit-disturbing Leftist, Reflexively Anti-American, Criminally Non-productive, Loser College Professors.
Austin is a liberal hotbed, and the professor is a liberal Jew, which means that for him liberalism is the new covenant.
LOL. Some people do not read very carefully, do they.
Let's take away tenure for professors and listen to him howell!
The basic problem with this professors thinking
(besides his contempt for our Constitution and how its "difficulties" make certain that absolute consensus of "our elected representatives" is required for many things, and not just a show of hands by the mob in the street)
are
(1)while he would like a vote of "no-confidence" on the executive branch
(2)he would not ask for a "no-confidence" vote to be permitted on elected legislators, on a moments notice just because the polls show they would lose their re-election if it were held that day.
The professor's leftist leanings cause him to prefer the tyranny of idealistic, utopian true democracy and the tyranny of the majority in a utopian true democracy, not a Federal Democratic Republic, based on representative (not pure democracy) government under a written Constitution.
However, one can see how this same professor, in his own hypocrisy. would not accept a mere "no confidence" vote as sufficient to depose the executive if the executive power was in the hands of a single-party leftist government.
The really scary part is that such people are looked upon as "experts" and given the responsibility of teaching your children!
What a waste of tuition money!
Are you sure you really want to send your kids to college?
I'm sure you've seen how often that happens. Finally has driven me to disclaimers!
Levinson must be getting senile in his old age. In the past he's been a big supporter of the Constitution. He even subscribes to the Individual Right, aka Standard Model, of the Second Amendment. That was at a time when very many law school professors were pushing the "Militia Only"/ State Power heresy.
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