Tina Brown: "I mean, he'd be impeached by now for drones, if he was George W. Bush."

That was her off-topic outburst after Bill Maher said: "The Obama administration has been heavily targeting whistleblowers — true — and information activists. What can we do to hold the government accountable for this harsh crackdown?" (Maher was driving at the Aaron Swartz incident.)

And here's Eleanor Clift calling drones "a blessing."

Well, first of all, drones are here to stay. They are the 21st Century modern tool of war. And in many ways they are a blessing. Much better than bombers because they can be more effective and targeted than bomber planes just raining bombs down. With an enemy that is harbored in various places, in countries where we are not at war with the country, it’s the only way you can really get at them short of invading that country which we did and discovered that isn’t so hot. So I would say they are, they are a blessing. But, they bring all sorts of ethical and moral concerns, and there should be some sort of judicial review....

The terrible things those "self-identifed" Republicans think...

... according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll. Yes, we have to stop first and wonder how good are the Daily Kos/Research 2000 pollsters. I picked up this story at Talking Points Memo, where there's no information about why I should trust this poll. How did they locate their 2,000 "self-identified" Republicans, who, TPM tells us represent "the psyche of the minority party's base"?

And I know that plenty of conservatives won't call themselves "Republicans." I'd like to see a poll that delves into the reasons people who call themselves "Republicans" choose to call themselves "Republicans" and why others reject the label, despite being conservative.

Also, I wonder if some people who aren't conservative at all lie to pollsters — especially a poll with a lefty name like "Daily Kos" — so they can skew the results and give those folks the results they imagine the poll is designed to produce: that non-liberals are evil/stupid.

Nevertheless, let's read the results of this poll:

• 39% of Republicans want President Obama to be impeached.

• 63% think Obama is a socialist.

• Only 42% believe Obama was born in the United States.

• 21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election -- that is, that Obama didn't actually win it, and isn't legitimately the president, with 55% saying they are "not sure."...

• 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be president.

• 23% want to secede from the United States.

• 73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools....

• 31% want contraception to be outlawed.

Wonderful anti-Republican PR results. They justify the fears people who are not Republicans have about the Republican Party. I don't like thinking people are this extreme, and I wish I could see how the questions were worded. The full survey (and the questions) were not out at the time TPM put up this post, and releasing the results in this form reinforces my suspicion that the motivation of the poll is to generate anti-Republican PR.

How would you word questions to ask "self-identified" Democrats if it were your goal to generate anti-Democrat PR? How would you smoke out all the flaky and stupid suggestions they'd go along with if a pollster offered it in a rational-sounding form and didn't interject amazement at the answers? Then how would you reword the questions to publish the results to make the best propaganda for your side?

(I once submitted to a poll where I was asked various questions about abortion rights, and the pollster started coming back with "Really?" and "Are you sure?" in a shaming way that made it obvious they were trying to get people to say they supported laws restricting abortion so they could attack some politician — probably Russ Feingold. It was really unprofessional!)

ADDED: Here's the Kos post announcing the results of the poll. It begins with this mind-boggling sentence: "As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic  world." It turns out this poll was designed to help him with that theory.

How independent and reliable is Research 2000?

"Hip, cool and heathy" — it's Feline Wellness magazine.

And, no, it is not a satire:



We really are meant to take "The healing power of CATNIP" and "Feng Shui and Felines" seriously. And just ask your cat what title he'd like for an article about how he is shitting all over the house. I think it would be: "Outside the box."

ADDED: As you may notice — at the very bottom — this was at Whole Foods. It was, once again, teeming with people — all Republicans? In Madison? Well, I didn't see any Obama bumper stickers. I saw one "IMPEACH" sticker. So, I guess it's here. The Impeach Obama movement. But why? What grounds? Ineffectiveness isn't grounds. Claiming to be — or inadequate performance as — "God's partner"? Posing as a natural-born citizen? Who knows? I didn't get a chance to chat with the sticker sticker.

Blago ousted.

By unanimous vote.

Blagojevich: "They’re just hanging me. They’re hanging the 12 million people of Illinois who twice have elected a governor."

Are the impeachment proceedings fair?

Lawmakers say they sought guidance from the impeachment trials of President Bill Clinton in 1999 and Gov. Evan Mecham of Arizona in 1988, and the Senate procedures will be largely modeled on those used in Mr. Clinton’s trial. Chief Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald of the State Supreme Court will preside, though senators, serving as judges and jurors, can choose to vote down rulings they disagree with. Hearsay is allowed. The standard of proof is essentially up to each senator to decide....

Among those scheduled to appear as witnesses for the prosecution next week are state representatives who were members of the impeachment committee.....

“I found it stunning,” said Ann M. Lousin, a law professor at the John Marshall Law School and an expert on the Illinois Constitution. “What are the legislators from the House going to say they know personally?”

Complicating the impeachment trial is the ongoing investigation of federal prosecutors here. At least one federal agent is expected to testify at the trial, but others connected to the criminal accusations are not. One Senate rule bars witnesses from being subpoenaed if federal prosecutors believe it might compromise their case, a fact Mr. Blagojevich complained bitterly about to reporters on Friday.

Though he has filed no request for witnesses, the governor said he wished to call a long list of people who were not permitted to be called by the rules, including Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff; Valerie Jarrett, an Obama senior adviser; and governors of other states who would testify, he said, to his upstanding behavior.

Blago impeached.

The vote in the Illinois house: 114-1.

ADDED: Meanwhile, Blagojevich went jogging, but he stopped to say: " Let me simply say I feel like the old Alan Sillitoe short story 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.' ... And that's what this is by the way, a long-distance run."

Didn't Blago compare himself to a literary character on some earlier occasion? I wish I could remember. This tendency invoke fictional characters to describe how you feel — is it a bit nutty, is it wily? What does it signify?

AND: As has so often been the case over the years, my son Jac knows what I've forgotten. At his December 19th press conference, Blago quoted the Rudyard Kipling poem "If." ("If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...")

AND: While I was looking for that old literary reference, Blago was dishing out some new. At a press conference today:

He ended by quoting from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses": "We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

AG Lisa Madigan's argument to the Illinois Supreme Court about ousting Governor Blagojevich.

Here's the transcript. [ADDED NOTE: This is only the press conference, not the argument before the court.]

As described here and here, Madigan is relying on Article V, Section 6 of the Illinois constitution: "If the Governor is unable to serve because of death, conviction on impeachment, failure to qualify, resignation or other disability, the office of Governor shall be filled by the officer next in line of succession for the remainder of the term or until the disability is removed." So she needs to argue that Blagojevich is disabled within the meaning of that text.

Here's the discussion from the transcript:

Q Did you give any consideration to the intent of -- the intent of the law as framed by the constitutional convention, whether it was meant for a political or legal crisis like this or simply for some kind of, you know, medical or emotional issue?

MS. MADIGAN: I think the question you're getting at is, how is disability or is disability defined correct? And so yes, we did. It's addressed in our briefs.

We would look to the fact that the term disability legally is very broad, that it is not simply isolated to a physical or mental disability. And you can read all about that in our pleadings.

Yes.

There's no follow-up on that.

Madigan is asked about whether this case would "set a dangerous precedent" -- and she seems not to understand the concept:

Q General, is there a way to prevent other people, whoever might be AG in the future, from -- any protections to prevent others from using this law -- since this is the first time to have a governor sort of declared disabled -- to sort of have it be done sort of when the circumstances might not be as extraordinary? Are those protections there, or could this be filed at any -- could this...

MS. MADIGAN: I'm still not understanding your question.

Q Are there enough protections in place to stop someone from doing what you're doing in the future?

Q For political ends.

Q From abusing the --

MS. MADIGAN: Oh, I'm sorry.

Q (Off mike) -- abusing the AG authority.

MS. MADIGAN: Yes. And here's one of the protections, as I mentioned. The Illinois Supreme Court has total discretion as to whether or not to even hear this matter. So the Illinois Supreme Court, Judicial Branch, serves as a check on the executive branch in the circumstance.

So the safeguard against the AG's abuse of power is that the court will have the role of deciding? How can it be the court's role to make the final call about things that belong in the realm of impeachment? Why do constitutions put impeachment trials in legislatures? Because courts are ill-suited to such decision-making.

Consider this discussion, from the U.S. Supreme Court, about why the Framers of the United States Constitution gave the Senate the sole power to try impeachments:

The Framers labored over the question of where the impeachment power should lie. Significantly, in at least two considered scenarios the power was placed with the Federal Judiciary. See 1 Farrand 21-22 (Virginia Plan); id., at 244 (New Jersey Plan). Indeed, Madison and the Committee of Detail proposed that the Supreme Court should have the power to determine impeachments. See 2 id., at 551 (Madison); id., at 178-179, 186 (Committee of Detail). Despite these proposals, the Convention ultimately decided that the Senate would have "the sole Power to Try all Impeachments." Art. I, §3, cl. 6. According to Alexander Hamilton, the Senate was the "most fit depositary of this important trust" because its members are representatives of the people. See The Federalist No. 65, p. 440 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). The Supreme Court was not the proper body because the Framers "doubted whether the members of that tribunal would, at all times, be endowed with so eminent a portion of fortitude as would be called for in the execution of so difficult a task" or whether the Court "would possess the degree of credit and authority" to carry out its judgment if it conflicted with the accusation brought by the Legislature--the people's representative. See id., at 441. In addition, the Framers believed the Court was too small in number: "The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons." Id., at 441-442.

In the Illinois case, you don't even have a legislative impeachment. You have a lower executive branch official, the Attorney General, bringing the accusation, and the state supreme court is asked to make the final call, deciding by fiat that a democratically elected Governor should be thrown out of office.

Now, there is that state constitutional provision -- Article V, Section 6 -- but the question is how broadly to interpret "other disability," a term that appears on a list that includes "conviction on impeachment." Clearly, "other disability" ought to be defined narrowly so that it does not obliterate the safeguards of the impeachment process.

At the end of the oral argument, the court flat-out confronts Madigan Madigan is confronted about her own political ambitions and conflict of interest:

Q I know you say that you haven't been thinking about politics at all, but there have obviously been a lot of questions about politics, and there wouldn't be questions about politics unless your political future was considered very bright and in play here. Given the fact of your possible interest in being governor, given the fact that you've been mentioned as a possible Senate replacement for Barack Obama, was any consideration given to your removing yourself from this issue because of a possible perception, if not reality, of conflict of interest?

MS. MADIGAN: No. And let me make two further statements. One is I never expressed any interest in even being considered for the U.S. Senate vacancy. I never contacted or talked to any -- the governor or anybody in the governor's office about that.

In addition, I am supporting putting the lieutenant governor in to serve as at governor of the state of Illinois. I think that is in the best interests of the people of this state. And I am happy to serve as the attorney general of this state. And I will continue in that role to do what is best for the people of this state.

Well, the answer is meaningless. The question says it all.

AND: Keep in mind that the legislative impeachment process is something under the control of Madigan's own father. The court asked her Madigan was asked "Do you know why your father has been appearing to be somewhat reticent on the -- (off mike)?" She told them to "ask him," which, the transcript notes, provoked laughter. Do you think that's funny?

Here's a Sun-Times article headlined "Why is Michael Madigan waiting to impeach Blagojevich?"

House Speaker Michael Madigan turned heads last spring by admitting his staff had researched impeaching Gov. Blagojevich, then followed up with a fall memo to Democratic candidates advocating impeachment.

So why on the eve of lawmakers returning to Springfield to address a full-blown political crisis won't the powerful Southwest Side Democrat commit to impeaching a man regarded by some as the most corrupt state officeholder in modern Illinois history?...
Even more baffling is the fact that plenty of votes exist in the House to get the job done.

On Friday, Cross had a conference call with his 52-member GOP delegation and said "at least" 45 favored launching impeachment proceedings immediately....

If Blagojevich resigns this week, Madigan's noncommittal stance on adding impeachment to the agenda would make perfect sense because the issue would be moot.

But if Blagojevich stays put and his saga drags out, then questions inevitably will grow louder about whether delaying impeachment is a tactic by Madigan not to divert political thunder from his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan....

"The speculation is that the speaker is sitting back on this so Lisa can take the lead and get ownership on the issue," said one House member who favors impeachment but requested anonymity.

What a misguided notion of how to win glory!

"I wonder if that family of ticks in my yard knows that they're going to change the Tennessee state Constitution as a result of their actions."

I was just about to create an "Insects and the Law" tag... and I was getting some big ideas about teaching an Insects and the Law course at the law school. (You know about my longstanding interest in insect politics.) But then I thought: Hey, wait a minute. Ticks are not insects. And all my grandiose ideas came crashing down at 6:44 a.m.

I confirmed my suspicion by consulting Tikipedia. Arachnid! Will there be enough posts to justify an "Arachnids and the Law" tag? The thing about tags is that you don't want them to be too small, but they shouldn't get too big either. Something that will have 5 to 35 posts -- that's the target zone. I'm thinking Arthropods and the Law. And then just a plain old arachnids tag.

Anyway, the quote in the title is from this news article, which is linked by Glenn Reynolds, in a post about -- naturally -- the Blagojevich controversy.

(We need a cute name for the Blagomess. Blagosmear? Not Blagogate. The opportunities are too ripe to squander on another "-gate." Blag-oh-no.)

Glenn agrees with me about the interpretation of the provision of the Illinois constitution that the state attorney general, Lisa Madigan, is trying to use to push Governor Blagojevich aside without the troublesome safeguards of the impeachment process. Glenn worked on an amendment to the Tennessee constitution that is analogous to the provision Madigan has seized upon in what I consider to be an illicit power grab.

The Tennessee amendment was the consequence of a tick bite: Governor Phil Bredesen got quite sick after an arachnid attack, and it was decided that there needed to be a procedure to transfer power in case the governor becomes incapacitated.

There's also a provision in the United States Constitution, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

You may remember the dramatic moment in the movie "Air Force One" -- spoiler alert -- when Secretary of Defense Dean Stockwell tries to use the 25th Amendment to oust President Harrison Ford, and Vice President Glenn Close refuses to sign.

Now, I've finally gotten Glenn Reynolds and Glenn Close together in one post -- with ticks. I think that says something about my authority to say that these constitutional provisions are about dealing with physical incapacity -- including unconsciousness and brain damage -- not with political and legal problems, however severe.

Impeachment has important procedural safeguards that should not be bypassed, and the importance of the protections of constitutional process is not diminished by an opinion that the executive in question is a blood-sucking tick.

IN THE COMMENTS: BlogDog coins "Blago-a-gogo."

Using the courts to oust Blagojevich on the theory that he's "disabled" from serving as governor.

Illinois AG Lisa Madigan makes the move to oust Blagojevich that we were talking about yesterday.

Madigan said that she took the action with the Supreme Court because she thinks that this is a faster way to strip Blagojevich of his power than through impeachment, which could take several weeks.

"I recognize that this is an extraordinary request, but these are extraordinary circumstances," Madigan said at a news conference.

Oh, the irony! Grabbing power to oust someone for grabbing power. As noted in yesterday's post, Madigan is relying on this language in the state constitution:

If the Governor is unable to serve because of death, conviction on impeachment, failure to qualify, resignation or other disability, the office of Governor shall be filled by the officer next in line of succession for the remainder of the term or until the disability is removed.

Madigan has to argue that Blago's troubles amount to "other disability." Given that "conviction on impeachment" is one of the specified reasons for inability to serve, using this procedure as an alternative to the impeachment process looks like an abusive power grab.

It is the first time in Illinois history that such an action was taken. The attorney general is applying a rule that was intended to cover cases where a governor is incapacitated for health reasons. Her motion indicates that his inability to serve because of the scandal is akin to a debilitating health issue.

Much as I am willing to believe Blago is unfit for office, I think it's obvious that Madigan's effort should fail. Does anyone in Illinois government know how to use power appropriately?

The decision to go to the state's highest court was not welcomed by everyone. Democratic Rep. Jack Franks said it would set "a dangerous precedent" for the court to remove a governor as Madigan proposes. Franks, a fierce Blagojevich critic, said that kind of decision should be left to the General Assembly.

Franks is right. Now, get on the task.

ADDED: I react to the oral argument before the state supreme court.

How to oust Blagojevich from office if he won't resign and the legislation won't impeach him.

There's this:

"I have the opportunity to go to our Illinois Supreme Court and ask them to declare our governor is unable to serve and put in our lieutenant governor as acting governor," [Illinois Attorney General Lisa] Madigan, a longtime Blagojevich foe who is considering a run for governor in 2010, told CNN.

What legal procedure is this exactly? I can see that the Illinois Constitution provides, in Article V, Section 6:

(b) If the Governor is unable to serve because of death, conviction on impeachment, failure to qualify, resignation or other disability, the office of Governor shall be filled by the officer next in line of succession for the remainder of the term or until the disability is removed.

(c) Whenever the Governor determines that he may be seriously impeded in the exercise of his powers, he shall so notify the Secretary of State and the officer next in line of succession. The latter shall thereafter become Acting Governor with the duties and powers of Governor. When the Governor is prepared to resume office, he shall do so by notifying the Secretary of State and the Acting Governor.

(d) The General Assembly by law shall specify by whom and by what procedures the ability of the Governor to serve or to resume office may be questioned and determined. The Supreme Court shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction to review such a law and any such determination and, in the absence of such a law, shall make the determination under such rules as it may adopt.

Does this mean the AG can oust the Governor over the kinds of matters that would also be grounds for impeachment? Is his arrest an "other disability"? That seems to be Madigan's theory according the Chicago Tribune:

The Illinois Constitution is vague enough that she could argue the governor's corruption charges are enough to be considered a "disability" — a condition typically associated with physical or mental issues.

... Another portion of the Constitution opens the door to considering whether Blagojevich is "seriously impeded in the exercise of his powers." The argument again is that the taint of the allegations—that the governor sought to trade official state actions for personal gain—means he can't govern.

The "seriously impeded" language is plainly left to the Governor's own judgment about himself. So I think Madigan is limited to characterizing the ongoing prosecution as a "disability" -- and convincing the court that this is appropriate.

The Tribune continues: "Would Madigan go to court so her father, House Speaker Michael Madigan, can avoid a messy impeachment?" That makes the idea of end-running impeachment look quite a bit worse.

UPDATE: Madigan files the case.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the oral argument to the state court.

Christopher Hitchens hates the idea of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

"A president absolutely has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me."

So Obama is a babe in the woods or Hitchens is a hothead... a bulbous hothead.

With the Democratic control of Congress, how much traction should McCain get out of the argument for divided government?

TNR presents the debate. On Monday, John B. Judis had a piece in called "Down with Divided Government," and today, we get a response from Jacob T. Levy: "In Defense of Two-Party Rule."

This is a huge question for me, and I've wavered on the subject. Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them.

Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know. And it will do the Republicans good to retool and define themselves, with an eye toward the 2010 election. I'd like to see this clarification after so many years of obfuscation.

So, that's how my thinking about 2-party rule has supported my decision to vote for Obama.

Now, let's see what Judis and Levy say. Judis notes various examples of successful presidencies under united government and bad presidencies with divided government, and says the evidence proves that "divided government is a curse, not a blessing, and should be avoided, if at all possible." He elaborates:

[In "The Politics Presidents Make" Stephen] Skowronek, a Yale political scientist, distinguishes two kinds of circumstances that have led to crippled government. In the first, a president from an opposing party, but who nevertheless represents the wave of the political future, confronts a congress wedded to the past and determined to frustrate him. You could put Nixon (who was the harbinger of an emerging Republican majority) and Clinton (who was the harbinger of an emerging Democratic majority) in this group. Both these presidencies degenerated into chaos in their second terms.

Then, there are presidents who, in Skowronek’s words, are “affiliated with a set of established commitments that have in the course of events been called into question as failed or irrelevant responses to the problems of the day.” Skowroneck numbers among these James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. These presidents don’t necessarily have to contend with a Congressional opposition in power, but like Hoover and Carter in their last two years, with a nascent and growing opposition in Congress that constitutes a functional majority in opposition to what they want to do. These presidencies have also proved disastrous.

A John McCain presidency would clearly fall in the latter group, and McCain, unlike Hoover and Carter, would have to face clear and unequivocal majorities in Congress united against him. Rather than promising success, that kind of divided government would promise chaos and failure.

Levy says:

The simple fact is that Republicans never controlled the House during Reagan's eight years....

The last six years of Clinton's presidency, 1995 to 2001, is the other era of divided government that gets held up as exemplary. Judis dismisses it as catastrophic on the basis of the Clinton impeachment. But that misses the wonderful weirdness of the late '90s. The chaos of impeachment coexisted alongside bipartisan legislative accomplishments... Again, I think a good president was made better through divided government....

But he's still not promoting McCain:

The obvious prediction is that Obama will have at least two years of one-party government. That may be, temporarily, for the best--the Bush-era Republican Party, like the Nixon-era Republican Party, needs some time in the wilderness to unlearn some very bad habits. ... [I]n the unlikely event that a healthier, reformed Republican Party is ready by 2010 and able to grab back control of the House, so much the better for American politics--and maybe so much the better for Obama's presidency. And in the meantime, I'm certainly rooting for smart and decent Hill Republicans (admittedly a minority) to hold onto their seats to lead the rebuilding toward another era of soundly divided government.

I don't know if undivided government is always better, but I think it can have some benefits now, and it's not so obviously always bad that opposition to it works as an especially strong reason to support McCain in 2008.

Is it foolish to question whether the Vice President is part of the Executive Branch?

Glenn Reynolds -- in a NYT op-ed -- says no:

Article I of the Constitution, which describes the authority of the legislative branch, says that “the vice president of the United States shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” Aside from the job of replacing a president who dies or is unable to serve, the only vice presidential duties that are spelled out in the Constitution are legislative in character.

The Vice President sloughs off on this job terribly, don't you think?

But if the vice president is a legislative official, then the exercise of executive power by the vice president raises important constitutional questions related to the separation of powers. The Supreme Court has held on more than one occasion that legislative officials cannot exercise executive power. The Court would likely dub this a “political question” that is beyond its purview, but Congress is empowered to remedy this sort of thing by legislation.

I think the better way to state the rule is that one branch cannot exercise the power associated with another branch unless a specific clause provides otherwise. Thus, the President has a legislative role because he's been given the veto power, and the Senate has a judicial role in trying impeachments, and so forth. So I don't think the specifically assigned legislative function means that the VP is not part of the executive branch.

Reynolds sees value in locating the VP in the legislative branch in order to be able to say that he's constitutionally forbidden to perform the executive function.

And Congress should do just that: pass a law to prohibit the vice president from exercising executive power. Extensive vice presidential involvement in the executive branch — the role enjoyed by Dick Cheney and Al Gore — is not only unconstitutional, but also a bad idea.

The reason a statute is needed is because the courts would be unlikely to enforce the constitutional limitation Reynolds perceives. Reynolds bolsters the constitutional interpretation by observing that it would also be a good idea, since it would keep the VP from becoming enmeshed in the sort of presidential problems that might, through impeachment or resignation, bring the VP into the presidency.

I don't really like the idea of Congress telling the VP what to do, and I'm not inclined to buy the constitutional argument either.

How stupid is it for Obama supporters to question the truth of McCain's "cross in the dirt" story?

Very stupid. Checking out the story, Byron York called Mark Salter, who worked with McCain on his book "Faith of Our Fathers." Salter confirms that McCain told him the cross story, and when York presses him on why McCain didn't tell such a "pivotal" story more often, Salter says:

"That's just plain bulls—t. His pivotal experience was his refusal of early release and the three or four days of torture he took for it, his confession, and his attempted suicide. That was his pivotal experience. He's never represented [the "cross in the dirt" story] to be that."

Whatever benefit Obama supporters might get from questioning the "cross in the dirt" story, it is vastly overshadowed by the vivid and terrifying facts of McCain's imprisonment. Why are you creating more occasions for McCain supporters to repeat those facts? I should think you'd want to package his Vietnam past away with some respectful words and return the focus to the present.

But more generally, politicians, including Obama, often impose a religious interpretation on stories about themselves. They prayed, they had faith in God, Jesus led them out of whatever difficulty they encountered. What good is done by questioning that? Oh, did you really pray to God on that occasion? Prove it!

At the Saddleback Civil Forum, Obama said his religion gave him the "confidence" to run for President. You know, I don't believe that, but so what? What the hell difference does it make? I could imagine getting into a huff over the implication that atheists couldn't dare to run for President or that he's incredibly arrogant to suggest that God tapped him on the shoulder and let him know that he's the one. But I'm not in the mood. I'm tolerating all the usual religious frippery. It's the way politicians blather.

Now, yes, the "cross in the dirt" story — or as Andrew Sullivan calls it, "The Dirt In The Cross Story" — purports to describe an event that occurred in the external world, and whether it actually happened seems more specific than whether Senator X thought about Jesus one day. And it is interesting that there's a "cross in the dirt" story in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago." [Or maybe not!] So did McCain lift the story from Solzhenitsyn?

A better question is: Is that the kind of attack you want to make?

You may be so in love with the a-ha you think you've found that you fail to see how ridiculous you sound to people who are not already on your side — i.e., the people you need to persuade.

To help you get a sense of your ridiculousness, let me tell you about the time, long ago, in 1991, at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, when Senator Orrin Hatch wanted to impeach the credibility of Thomas's accuser Anita Hill:

Senator Hatch ... suggested that Professor Hill's account of how Judge Thomas, in the privacy of his office, once remarked to her that someone had put a pubic hair on his can of Coke could have been inspired by a scene in the 1971 novel, "The Exorcist." In that scene a character complains of pubic hair in his glass of gin.

Whether Hill was lying or not, the issue of whether she was lifting ideas about pubic hair from "The Exoricist" was perfectly silly and only made her attackers look desperate (and a tad nutty).

"An impeachment proceeding would force Democrats to either abandon him or defend him. They would abandon him."

Said some unnamed Democratic leader to the NYT about Eliot Spitzer, who is scheduled to announce his resignation 17 minutes from now.

UPDATE: Spitzer resigns. I can't think of a time in American politics when someone fell this far this fast.

"Is the job of Vice President to a Clinton worth having?"

Michael Duffy asks.

Al Gore learned that being No. 2 to Bill was really more like being No. 3 after you factored in Hillary, who had an office in the West Wing and a larger suite of rooms down the hall from the Veep in the Old Executive Office Building. Gore watched his priorities often take a backseat to hers in the first term—and his future run aground as they fought successfully to avoid impeachment and conviction. While she joked with David Letterman on his show that there is no doubt "who wears the pantsuits" in her house, there is little doubt that the Clintons intend to work as a team if Hillary is elected. "I'll be there, talking her through everything," Bill said in Napa Valley, Calif., last month, "like she did with me." One unaligned party wise man said, "Obama may look at the Clintons, at both of them—at that whole thing they have—and say, 'Jeez, that's just way too [messed] up to be a part of. That's just no place I want to be.'"

It's clear that Obama should not subordinate himself to the Clintons. He doesn't need it to set up his next run for the presidency. Vice Presidents haven't been doing too well running for President these past few decades. Obama will have already distinguished himself as the frontrunner. It would be a comedown for him, and he'd be saddled with whatever goes wrong in the Clinton presidency — or her failed campaign for it. And Obama's distinctiveness is that he offers a clean break from the politics of the past. Why on earth would he want to connect himself to an icon of the politics of the past?

And would Hillary Clinton agree to run for VP under Obama?

"People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with."

Christopher Hitchens rails about "identity politics":

Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think "first woman president." We think -- for example -- "first ex-co-president" or "first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent" or "first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap."...

Here again, the problem is that Sen. Obama wants us to transcend something at the same time he implicitly asks us to give that same something as a reason to vote for him. I must say that the lyricism with which he does this has double and triple the charm of Mrs. Clinton's heavily-scripted trudge through the landscape, but the irony is still the same....

I shall not vote for Sen. Obama and it will not be because he -- like me and like all of us -- carries African genes. And I shall not be voting for Mrs. Clinton, who has the gall to inform me after a career of overweening entitlement that there is "a double standard" at work for women in politics; and I assure you now that this decision of mine has only to do with the content of her character. We will know that we have put this behind us when -- as with the vowel -- we have outgrown and forgotten the original prejudice.

ADDED: My son John IMs:

I'm sick of Hitchens's writing style!!

"I shall not vote for Sen. Obama..."

Are we supposed to take him more seriously just because he uses the word "shall"?

I can't imagine any other writer making such a pompous announcement of who they're supporting for president.

COMMENT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE:

To Professor Althouse.

Madam,

I shan't trouble You or your Readers with my Opinions on Mr. Hitchens, except to say that, were he to stand Time on its Head and return my Century, he would be a welcome Citizen to the Republic of Letters. Mr. Hitchens's Passport would be that he refuses to write Cant, right or wrong as he may be in the Issue.

I should also say that safe arrival upon the Shores of this Republic in my Day, would not have protected Mr. Hitchens from many a Knock. An Author may have written what he would in the Papers; but he should have found that the Love of the Publick was as much a Dweller of the Rocks as that known by the Shepherd in Virgil.

As a Ghost these 250 years and more, I should, indeed, wish to stand Time on its Head and return to my Life; were that it would be concluded better than it fell out. I shall not, however, use this Occasion to make Complaints of my Fate, for 'twas that which all Men share.

Writing in Haste, and puzzl'ing over the Tense to be used if Time were to run backwards,

I remain, Madam,

Your most humble & obt. Servant,

Sir Archy

How were Bill and Hillary Clinton different — as law professors?

I've been reading Carl Bernstein's book "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," and this comparison of the two as law professors caught my eye. (Had you forgotten that they both taught at the University of Arkansas Law School?)

Hillary's style was confident, aggressive, take-charge, and much more structured than Bill's. "All business," a colleague said. Her questions to students were tough and demanding. Bill almost never put his students on the spot; rather, he maintained an easy dialogue with them. His conversational approach often gave students the run of the class, and he let them filibuster.

"If you were unprepared, she would rip you pretty good, but not in an unfair way," recalled Woody Bassett, who became good friends of both, and worked in many Clinton political campaigns. "She made you think. She challenged you. If she asked you a question about a case and you gave an answer, well then — here comes another question. Whereas in Bill Clinton's classes, it was much more laid-back." In class Hillary never mentioned her work on the impeachment inquiry."

(Hmmm... she never mentions her work on the Nixon impeachment inquiry these days either. I wonder why.)

Bill was far more open about discussing political issues with his students, whether Nixon's impeachment or Roe v. Wade, on which he spent several weeks. The subject of his constitutional law course more naturally lent itself to political questions than Hillary's.

(She taught criminal law, criminal procedure, and trial advocacy.)

He was regarded as the easiest grader in the law school. Hillary's exams were tough, and her grading commensurate with what she expected law students to know. There was little doubt that she was the better teacher, possessed with "unusual ability to absorb a huge amount of facts and boil them down to the bottom line," Bassett thought. Clinton was more likely to go at a subject in a circular way, looking at it from every angle and sometimes never coming to a conclusion. But usually his was the more interesting class, because of the passion and knowledge with which he addressed legal questions related to everyday events.

If you were going to be a law professor, which model would you choose, Bill or Hillary? Or is some blend of the two preferable? Assume you'd have to be the Bill-type professor or the Hillary — no blends! Which would you try to be? Is your choice based on what you think is better? What is easier? What will make you more popular? Or is it dictated by your ingrained personality?

If the passage above were all you knew about two individuals, which one would you think would be better suited to the presidency? Or would some blend of the two be preferable?

(Althouse's questions to readers are tough and demanding. Feel free to answer them, at the risk of getting more questions, or to go at them in a circular way and perhaps never come to a conclusion. )

Gerald Ford re Bill Clinton: "He's sick — he's got an addiction. He needs treatment."

From "Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford":

Ford's wife, Betty, who founded a pioneering treatment center after her battle with alcoholism and drugs, agreed.

"You know, there's treatment for that kind of addiction," she told DeFrank during the same conversation in 1999. "A lot of men have gone through the treatment with a lot of success. But he won't do it, because he's in denial."

Ack. Those two were deeply invested in the business of seeing things as an addiction. Do we have any reason to think Gerald Ford's perceptions are "remarkable" — or even useful?

Gerald Ford... believed Clinton was charismatic, articulate, a "helluva salesman" and the best politician he'd ever seen - even better than John F. Kennedy.

But he considered Clinton a foreign-policy wimp, and sensed that he hadn't learned from mistakes in his personal life - allegations of womanizing that dogged him during the campaign for the White House.

That opinion was based on behavior Ford witnessed the weekend he hosted the Clintons in Colorado [in 1993].

"I'll tell you one thing: He didn't miss one good-looking skirt at any of the social occasions," Ford said later.

Ugh! I should listen to the opinions of a man who called women "skirts"? And what did he mean by "didn't miss"? Apparently, Ford "didn't miss" the "good-looking skirts" either.

"He's got a wandering eye, I'll tell you that. Betty had the same impression; he isn't very subtle about his interest."

And Ford isn't very subtle about making his "remarkable" observations. What exactly did Bill Clinton do that wasn't subtle? Be concrete. Don't just underline your assertions with verbal filler like "I'll tell you that" or trot out the lamest possible corroboration: your wife agrees with you.

Bill Clinton asked Ford for help when he got caught up in his impeachment problem:

"Bill I think you have to admit that you lied. If you do that, I think that will help - and I'll help you. If you'll admit to perjury, I'll do more," he said.

"I won't do that," Clinton told him. "I can't do that."

Ford was stunned by Clinton's lack of contrition. "It's a character flaw," he concluded.

Ford wanted him to confess to a crime? Clinton couldn't do that. It would have made far more sense to resign the presidency.

Pop quiz: Gerald Ford, alive or dead?

What I really think about the Clarence Thomas book.

I've now finished the Clarence Thomas memoir "My Grandfather's Son," which I've been sort of live-blogging. You can live-blog a book! I've picked out some things that struck me as interesting as I went along. Doing this, I've been accused both of fawning over him and of obsessively hating him, because, after all, that's what you're supposed to do with Clarence Thomas. One or the other must be true.

But, no, you're wrong. I neither love nor hate Clarence Thomas. I have some strong ideas about writing, especially memoir writing, and if I'm going to read a book, I'm going to impose my standards on the writing. I'm not about promoting or indicting the writer. I'm genuinely interested in writing as writing.

Here's a post I wrote back in January 2006 about the forthcoming Justice Thomas memoir:

Jeffrey Rosen writes about judicial memoirs, which are difficult to write, because they're either going to be bland -- like Justice O'Connor's, in his view, despite the incident with the testicles -- or embarrassingly revealing -- like Justice Douglas's....

And now Justice Thomas is working on a memoir. The man has fabulous material -- he grew up in poverty and his confirmation battle was a political and cultural event unlike any other. Does he dare to really use this material, to risk his slowly accumulating somber reputation by writing a real book for us to read? Rosen cautions him not to:

[L]ike Douglas, Thomas may inadvertently harm his judicial reputation among moderates (which is, at the moment, unfairly underrated) by revealing more than he intends.

"Judges wear black robes because it doesn't matter who they are as individuals," John Roberts said during his confirmation hearings. "That's not going to shape their decision." Few people today, of course, believe that judges' personal experiences have no influence on their judicial decisions. But taken as a warning, Roberts's statement was prudent and wise. Too much revelation may undermine the public's respect for judges as apolitical authorities. And judicial celebrity can backfire: as any celebrity knows, those who live by publicity have to avoid overexposure, which can lead to the worst fate of all - oblivion.

I say: either write a book or don't write a book, but don't write a fake book. Don't put your name on a book-shaped object just because you're a celebrity and you can get publishers to publish it and publicists to get you on talk shows and lure readers to give up their money and time. If you're going to write a book, you owe your allegiance to the reader above all. If you've got a conflict of interest, recuse yourself!

(Please read David Foster Wallace's essay on Tracy Austin's memoir in "Consider the Lobster." He faults her for her allegiance to friends, family, and everyone else, and lays down the rule that the writer's duty is to the reader.)

It's one thing to embarrass yourself by making things up, like Justice Douglas and James Frey, quite another to put yourself out there and let readers see who you really are. I think the memoirist who fails to do that is the one who has embarrassed himself.

I said something similar back when Bill Clinton's book came out:

I see Clinton is getting a lot of grief for writing a boring book. But what did people expect? If you want to read a great memoir, read a memoir by someone who is in a position to follow the number one rule for writing a great memoir: tell your story without a trace of personal vanity. You have to be willing to make the character that is you look foolish, mean-spirited, selfish, petty, and everything else. There is simply no way that Clinton or any other political figure can follow this rule. So if you want to read a good memoir, read Augusten Burroughs' "Running With Scissors" or Mary Carr's "Liars' Club." If you want to read about grand historical events, don't read the story told by one of the key figures. How could that possibly be good? It would make more sense to read this as a memoir of the Lewinsky-impeachment events.

I guess, according to that, I don't really think there's much chance at all that Clarence Thomas will meet my standard. But wouldn't it be incredibly cool if he did?

So did he? He revealed plenty of negative things — rage and gloom and a serious drinking problem. But these revelations do tend to work in favor of his credibility, when he gets to the part that really matters: whether he or Anita Hill told the truth at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And the negative material could be seen as self-indulgence: He wants — he demands — your sympathy. He has suffered terribly and his anger is righteous.

But to answer my question: Yes. It's a real memoir.

But what you really want to know isn't what I think of the book as a work of literature, right? You want to know if I think he lied — or Anita Hill lied — at his confirmation hearings. I really don't know. I want to believe him. It's hard for me to understand how Anita Hill could have manufactured the details of her story out of nothing and lied outright and under oath to the Senators and to the whole country. Thomas found himself in the middle of things, confronted with the accusations, and he determined not to give up. His memoir shows why he was the kind of person who would not give up under those circumstances.

But Anita Hill came forward and caused all the anguish. Thomas depicts her as a left-wing ideologue who was in league with other left-wing ideologues who would do anything to destroy him — as he puts it more than once: to kill him. Could individuals with that much professional status be that evil? Clarence Thomas knows the answer to that question. His book blazes with his righteous indignation. Could he be evil enough to write this if he knew he was lying?

I'm entertaining the notion that it is possible that neither one was lying — that is, neither blatantly said what he or she knew was not true. Maybe Thomas said a few little things that Hill remembered and inflated through a process of solitary brooding followed by vigorous prompting from anti-Thomas zealots. And maybe he forgot those little things. On page 221, he says that he couldn't remember whether he'd ever used illegal drugs. How can you not remember that? "I'd been a heavy drinker in college and had often been around people who smoked marijuana and hashish... I might possibly have tried them once or twice when I was drunk..." He was also drinking heavily in the period when Anita Hill worked for him. Maybe he had some alcoholic amnesia.

But he's Clarence Thomas. You've got to love him or hate him, don't you?