I can barely express what a dramatic departure this is from 221 years of constitutional interpretation and practice. Sorry, Ms. Palin and Mr. Cheney, but the Constitution gives the Vice President exactly one job and one power, while the President remains in office and is not too disabled to perform its duties. I know, let’s quote the actual document: "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided." U.S. Const, Article 1, Section 3. That’s it. There is not one other expression of Vice Presidential duties or power anywhere.
The idea that the founders left "flexibility" for the office can only be explained by a wildly expansive and unprecedented view of constitutional interpretation. Our Constitution is one of limited powers. The government and its offices and actors only possess the powers specifically given to them, plus some ancillary powers necessary to carry out the specific ones. At times the ancillary or inherent powers idea has been stretched too far, such as by using the President’s duty as commander in chief of the military to authorize "emergency" and extraordinary domestic powers having nothing to do with the military even without a formal Congressional declaration of war. But even this doctrine is based on a specific grant of power and the interpretation of it.
So Palin’s puppet masters have one of two things in mind, in my view, and likely both. First, they may plan to assert that the Vice President inherently has all the powers of the President and the Vice President can do anything in Article II not specifically forbidden to it by the Constitution. This would essentially be arguing that an office can be found to have powers not even mentioned in the Constitution and would actually stand the entire foundation of our union on its head. It would posit that the executive branch has any power not specifically forbidden to it. This is a closet conservative position that they occasionally leak out. I actually heard the argument on a prominent talk show, quickly hushed and I don’t remember by whom, that Congress is given the power to declare war, but not the exclusive power, thereby opening the door for the President to declare war. This is very dangerous stuff.
The second possibility is that McCain’s people believe that by making the Vice President the "president" of the Senate, the framers authorized the Vice President to control and run the Senate. When she argues she plans to use the "flexibility" provided the VP to push McCain’s agenda in the Senate, she is telegraphing this interpretation. They may argue Palin can dictate the rules of the Senate, tell the Senate what it can and can’t vote on and generally take operational control of the Senate away from Senators (specifically the majority leader). She might even go as far as to argue she can set committees, including the party composition of each, allowing her to set up all Republican majority committees. I know the Senate would vehemently disagree, but what could it do, really? What can anyone do in the face of a President who does not honor the Consitution? Take it to the Supreme Court? The one that agrees, or will by the time McCain gets a pick, with this view of Presidential power. Palin could simply say, this is the way I am going to exercise my role as president of the Senate, and "what’chya gonna do ‘bout it, there, Harry. Bet’cha can’t make me, ya know". wink, wink. "Hav’ya ever met the Third Army, there, Barack? Bet’cha they like me better than you."
I really hope I am exaggerating here (and I feel confident I am), but after Cheney’s example and seeing how little conscience and how much ambition to power Sara Palin has, does anyone want to bet against it? Even a more modest attempt to control the business of the Senate could throw a huge roadblock in the way of getting anything done, stopping any progressive laws and setting up the Democrats for a Harry Truman style do-nothing campaign at mid-terms.
The classic definition of a monarch is the one person in a society who is above the law. So, all of this would be in keeping with the Republican goal of turning the Presidency into the primary governing body of our nation, into a ruler who does not have to follow the laws of Congress, the rulings of the judiciary, or even the Constitution. Bush and Cheney have taken us very far down that road and McCain/Palin just told all of us right to our faces that they not only plan to keep going, but plan to accelerate the process by taking over one house of Congress, the Senate and running it as the policy-making rubber stamp of the Presidency.
They want to make the President the monarch, just as our founders feared the most and just as they tried to preclude in the Constitution McCain and Palin seek to render irrelevant. If we elect them, they will say we knowingly voted for exactly this system.
THE PRESS MUST DIE, PROPAGANDA MUST REIGN UNFILTERED
Palin’s claim that the mainstream media is nothing more than a filter between politicians and the American people, combined with her complete disdain for the debate process by refusing to answer the questions asked, shows that McCain and Palin will intensify the Bush/Cheney practice of manipulating, frustrating, and ignoring the press. They appear to abhor the clear proclamations and the actual behavior of our founders and Constitutional framers that a vigorous, free, and independent press is critical to maintaining democracy. If they want to eliminate the role of the press and the press is key to democracy, what do they have in mind? (That is a rhetorical question, of course)
Without giving the press a role in questioning both candidates and government officials, we are left with nothing but what they tell us. In short, without a solid press, we are left with nothing but Propaganda.
This is precisely what Republicans want. A government under the terms of their propaganda, for their purposes and to benefit their money changers. Combine that with the clear and stated plan to interpret the Constitution as not placing any real limits on executive power and you have the dramatic acceleration of the slow motion coup d’etat Bush and Cheney have been conducting for nearly 8 years.
PALIN LOVES GAYS AND LESBIANS
Joe Biden really boxed Palin in on the issue of equal rights for same sex partners. Biden stated he supported such rights, although he later gave the very disappointing answer that he opposed marriage for same sex couples.
Sara Palin, the darling of the radical Christian right, said she agreed with equal rights for same-sex couples. This had to be quite disconcerting for the religious right, which is adamantly opposed to any type of legal recognition for the LGBT community.
But Biden dug Palin's hole even deeper. After noting that he opposed same-sex marriage, Biden said he was glad McCain and Palin agreed with he and Obama that same-sex couples should have complete civil rights protection (paraphrasing). Ifil asked Palin if she agreed. Nervous and frozen, faced with choosing a disastrous political answer for swing voters or alienating the Christian right, Palin, for the one and only time in the debate, said she would answer only the very specific question asked, which was whether she supported same-sex marriage. Plain said she did not.
