Clinton:legend

invincibleirish

say what you will about the man he is a legendary speechmaker,what an absolute shame us presidents are only limited to two terms,Clinton more then anyone else is what the us could do with right now.fair play to him.
His speech tonite(memo to self:stop watching late night fox news)is absolutely brilliant,come on yanks,vote bush out!!!(although kerry is'nt much better).

jank

yea was fecking great he should be the leader for the next 4 years

bet those fox guys tore him to shread cause of a "monica"

watched it on cnn good coverage of the democratic convention,

just hope they will "send me" now after all this;)

TomF

I think I was very fortunate to read this thread before turning on the television for RTE news. I'm afraid I would not have been able to keep my breakfast down if Slick Willy had been on the screen, and he talking ("How do you know when Bill Clinton is lying? When his lips are moving.").

But I suppose with Slick, it is another proof of "de gustibus, non disputandum est"!

DadaKopf

I especially admire Clinton for bullying the UN Security Council from withdrawing UN troops from Rwanda during the genocide, even though there weren't any troops there. And his wonderful contribution to the East Timor genocide. Well done, Bill. Won him his second term and all.

gom

ON the limit of two terms in office.

Senario 1:
Abolish it and you could have clinton again...

Senario 2:
Keep it and Bush wins a 2nd term. Seen as he has no chance of re-election he runs his most right-wing government in existance(even compared to now). As Cheney has no hope of ever winning a republican selection for the primaries he won't bother trying to run either.
If Bush won a 2nd term as president it would be a nightmare due mainly to the fact that he would go mental as the "WAR PRESIDENT". He is effectively handed a 4 year dictatorship. Hell. He might find a way to defare the elections till after the war on terror..

chill

Originally posted by invincibleirish
say what you will about the man he is a legendary speechmaker,what an absolute shame us presidents are only limited to two terms,Clinton more then anyone else is what the us could do with right now.fair play to him.
His speech tonite(memo to self:stop watching late night fox news)is absolutely brilliant,come on yanks,vote bush out!!!(although kerry is'nt much better).

He was fantastic and makes Bush and co look like snivelling little corrupt scout leaders.
The limitation on being re elected is the most anti democratic law I can imagine. The people should be free to elect whomever they chose and if they chose to elect someone four or ten times then that is THEIR choice.

DadaKopf

This is a fairly good, boardslike analysis of Clinton's speech. Mmm, interesting.

The problem with Clinton is that he *is* such a good orator. Which is why he's super-slippery.

Big Ears

Originally posted by chill
He was fantastic and makes Bush and co look like snivelling little corrupt scout leaders.
The limitation on being re elected is the most anti democratic law I can imagine. The people should be free to elect whomever they chose and if they chose to elect someone four or ten times then that is THEIR choice.

The 2 terms thing is to stop people like Bush constently buying/rigging elections and being elected every time .

well thats just my opinion on it .

segadreamcast

Originally it was introduced because most leaders would already be near-death upon their second term due to the life expectancy of the time - thus they wanted to avoid any potential presidential deaths by having third and fourth terms.

Is this (somewhat) accurate?

sceptre

Originally posted by NoelRock
Is this (somewhat) accurate?

Not really (sorry!)

It was once just a tradition (but a followed tradition). Washington served only two terms and did step down because of his age (which is where you probably got the idea - most people reckon Washington started the tradition). Jefferson was the guy who really started it (Adams served only one term) - he mde a few comments along the lines that the constitution should have some limitation or else a four year term could become a life term. He stepped down after two terms for this reason. The next two guys, Madison and Monroe followed with two terms each. Ulysses S Grant tried to serve three terms but didn't get nominated by the Republicans the third time. Then Franklin Roosevelt arrived and got four terms. After that there was a move to introduce a firm limit as opposed to an understood tradition, which happened with the 22nd amendment in the early 1950s. Roosevelt's death had nothing to do with the amendment - it just so happened that his leaving office (by whatever route) made it easier, his entering office four times made it desirable - and the Republicans probably hated the fact that they were denied the nice chair for sixteen years by the same guy (or twenty by the time Truman was succeeded by Eisenhower).

It's a bit more complicated than "no more than two terms" where a veep succeeds as they can still run twice if they had less than 2 years in their initial term (so you can squeeze ten years out of it rather than 8). Johnson could have availed of this in 1968 but decided not to run. And no-one actually knows whether an ex-President can become vice-president and hence have a shot at the presidency in the event of Hillary's, <cough>, any president's death or removal from office - the courts haven't had a chance to test it (depends whether the 12th amendment applies to being elected to the office or merely attaining the office (for example like Gerry Ford, never elected to either VP or president)).

In fairness if you can't get policies enacted after 8 years you're unlikely to be able to get them enacted in 80. And if your country can't find a worthy replacement out of 200 million people after those 8 years then they deserve a Bush.

sceptre

Meant to add - great speech from Clinton. Stating the obvious, but a great speech doesn't necessarily have to be for the ages, but it must achieve its aim for the time it's made. As Dadakopf's link pointed out there's quite a bit of blather in there but to an extent that's to be expected. Clinton speeches in the past have been notorious for being over-long and over-boring (his speech at the 1988 Democratic convention went on for over half an hour and put the audience to sleep even though he was just there to introduce Michael Dukakis).

The guideline for all concise speeches has to be the Gettysburg address (look at how short it is) and this is no Gettysburg address. A trim of a minute or two wouldn't do it any harm. However it's the kind of speech that anyone would be thankful for in a presidential race. It's probably one of the better speeches I've read that Clinton has made. Mind you, he's probably had two years to write the first half (down as far as "More importantly, we have great new champions...", which is where the speech mood tries to change from doom to optimism) and the second half writes itself.

Obviously the speech is angled at middle America and middle-income America (there's even an explicit reference to the latter). Strikes home for them. They're going to have to do a little more if they want the poor people (and there are plenty of them) to vote for them though. The speech didn't say anything about making healthcare more available, just more affordable. Regardless of whether any of you think a lot or a little should be dedicated to welfare, the Democrats need this group if they want to jog home. Otherwise they'll vote for the third guy who gives a crap about them (regardless of whether that's Nader or Cobb) - and ignoring the independence of irrelevant alternatives part of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem partly cost them the election last time (in other words, Gore failed to take Tennessee but he failed to take anything from Nader as well).

Victor

Originally posted by invincibleirish
say what you will about the man he is a legendary speechmaker,what an absolute shame us presidents are only limited to two terms

"US presidents" or "us presidents"?

Originally posted by chill
The limitation on being re elected is the most anti democratic law I can imagine.

President for life is so much better

Originally posted by chill
The people should be free to elect whomever they chose

Actually, doesn't the whole American Consitution go agaisnt this vein, what with the electoral college depending on "wise men" and so on, so as to not allow a purely populist person to gain the presidency? And with it being possible to impeach presidents and override his veto and orders?

BattleBoar

Originally posted by Victor
Actually, doesn't the whole American Consitution go agaisnt this vein, what with the electoral college depending on "wise men" and so on, so as to not allow a purely populist person to gain the presidency?

Yes, being the first democracy, the founding fathers were a bit weary to turn over the control of the country to the populace...always thinking of how they could build in checks and balances, they developed the electoral college system so that candidates could not ignore places that were not population centers and so that if the populace as a whole elected an obvious raving lunatic, the electoral college would be able to override.

Many argued they wished they'd done that in 2000 and actually, if you'll remember, there was actually a good bit of talk about that very possiblility but in the end, it didn't happen.

Originally posted by Victor
And with it being possible to impeach presidents and override his veto and orders?

A 2/3 congressional vote overrides a veto. Supreme Court can and has overriden presidential orders (see gitmo most recently)

EDIT: Incidentally, did anyone catch Obama's speech? I found myself wishing he was running for pres instead of Kerry.

Victor

Originally posted by BattleBoar
Yes, being the first democracy

:dunno: Relative democracy?

BattleBoar

Originally posted by Victor
:dunno: Relative democracy?

LOL, well, in A.D. that is...

DadaKopf

Ooh looky!

Democracy in ancient india:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/histdem/indiadem.htm

Democracy in pre-colonial Africa:

Many African scholars and politicians (8) have portrayed the African societies before colonialism as harmonious, undifferentiated entities enjoying democratic tranquilities. For example, Julius Nyerere bases his view on this as he points out that the traditional African family was the most satisfactory institution for all its members. He argues that despite all the variations and some exceptions where the institutions of domestic slavery existed African family life was everywhere based on certain practices and attitudes which together mean basic "equality, freedom and unity". Indeed, these are some of the tenets of a democratic system. For Nyerere, the political authority in this traditional set up was based on democracy and free discussion among the elders. "They talk until they agree", he writes. This free discussion was the "very essence of African democracy" to use Mwalimu Nyerere’s own words. These were political systems which cherished and practised "government by discussion". Property ownership was also governed by the same egalitarian principles and no individual hoarded wealth while others starved in poverty. There were no exploiting classes. African traditional life was a socialist one, Nyerere argues. He further argues that inequality only set in with the advent of the capitalist money economy during colonialism when this delightful harmony of egalitarianism was disrupted.

Jomo Kenyatta, writing as far back as 1938, was even more forthright about the existence of democracy among his Kikuyu people and, by extension, among all African traditional societies before the advent of colonialism. In his words: "before the coming of the Europeans, the Kikuyu had a democratic regime".

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

BattleBoar

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Ooh looky!

Democracy in ancient india:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/histdem/indiadem.htm

Democracy in pre-colonial Africa:

That there may have been elements of semi-democratic decision process in a few areas does not take away from the fact that India was still ruled by kings, and while discussions among a few tribal elders to reach a conclusion is somewhat democratic in nature, it doesn't really seem to qualify african society as a democratic. Even if they were considered to be above that threshold, it's hard to see how the structure of such a small and primitive society scales to have any relevance. In any case, I'm not quite sure what your point was, but for some reason you're either not getting or deliberately ignoring the fundamental premise of the post, which was actually regarding the building in of checks and balances in US constitutional framework...although I can't really figure out why?? Maybe you can help me out.