Is it true that Hillary Clinton's bid for President of the United States "violates the spirit of the law," as was stated by Mr. Wyatt Emmerich, CEO of the Clarke County Tribune in an editorial published April 3, 2008? What is the "spirit of the law" in this respect?
The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution is very precise; it was carefully crafted to prohibit a singular person from serving more than two terms of office as President and became law Feb. 27, 1951, only after vigorous debate and ratification by three-fourths of the legislatures of the various states -- something pretty hard to do! With respect to Presidential term limits the 22nd Amendment specifically states:
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
Please note that there is no ambiguity whatsoever with respect to what the 22nd Amendment states. It does not say that a former President's wife may not be President. It does not state that a former President's son or daughter may not be President. Therefore it is not accurate nor correct to state that the spirit of the law has been violated by Hillary Clinton seeking the office of President of these United States of America. Nor would it be correct to say that the spirit of the law has been violated because George W. Bush, Jr., was elected President after his father was in office for two terms.
To say that the "Spirit of the law has been violated" implies a moral or ethical impropriety, that someone has cheated, done wrong or otherwise transgressed. This is an emotional statement of special appeal to Christians, to devoutly religious Bible Belt voters, and to everyone who is morally a good, righteous person. But the fact is, Hillary Clinton has not violated the spirit of the law with respect to term limits, any more than has George W. Bush, Jr. Therefore why would anyone make such a fallacious statement? Are they ignorant of the law? Not in this case as Mr. Emmerich is very intelligent and writes extremely enlightening and informative editorials. Then what would be the motivation? What would someone have to gain? Why would they publish such a remark with respect to Hillary Clinton and not also evoke it with respect to the Bush family dynasty?
I would suggest that this fallacious statement was made purposefully to influence voters. Perhaps it was also made to influence advertisers or to help sell more newspapers. That's fine, as it is the duty of the CEO of every newspaper publisher to sell more newspapers. Whatever the case may be the statement is a fallacy because the spirit of the law with respect to term limits as professed by the 22nd Amendment never had anything to do with the wife, son, daughter or any other relative of a former President. The spirit of the law was not to prevent a family dynasty, but to prevent one person and one person only from becoming a tyrant, a dictator, a monarch or a despot!
When you realize that preventing one person and one person only from maintaining perpetual power as President was the spirit of the law with respect to term limits, you cannot then succeed in trying to fool or manipulate intelligent voters. In fact, it is insulting of the educated voting public to make such provocative and outlandish statements. Please, give your readers more credit. We are not dumb! Because this was also phrased in such a way as to have emotional appeal to religious and moral persons, it constitutes a dirty, mud slinging, vulgarity, that should offend good and moral voters -- and it does, especially those who like Hillary Clinton. But not only is it foolish, but it is prejudicial to spout such nonsense about term limits when in doing so one obviously is simply trying to sling mud at a candidate or a political party because, for whatever reason, they support a different candidate.
If we are going to be a moral people, then we must treat everyone the same, equal in all respects. You can not cast a shadow on the Clintons for allegedly violating the so called spirit of presidential term limits law, without saying this has already been done by the Bushes. But this is a terrible accusation to make since it is based upon a fallacy and feeds upon the ignorance of people. It is even more terrible to make such statements with the attitude that republicans are more moral than democrats. We are all God's children and none of us are without imperfections, free of sin or holier than thou -- be it Hillary, Barack, McCain or any other candidate up for election. So please, stop trying to attack the respective candidates on moral grounds! And please, stop trying to make it sound like the Clintons violated anything other than the sanctity of their marriage vows! That, by the way, was NOT something Hillary did! Bill is the one who had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the White House and lied about it. Bill was a fool for ever being unfaithful to his wife who seems to still love him very much! Many men have been equally foolish, regretful and forgiven by their wives. So the American publish should also forgive the Clintons in this regard; it's the Christian thing to do.
With regard to learning about what is the spirit of the law, I urge everyone to study the US Constitution. Know what the Bill of Rights says. Know what the US Constitution says. Know what all the amendments say. If you hear someone make a derogatory statement about the candidates with respect to the Constitution, go to the source and check out what it says yourself. There are copies of the Constitution on-line that everyone can easily access. At http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am22 you can read for yourself the 22nd Amendment. It is exactly as I have quoted above. The spirit of the law is clearly to prevent a dictator, tyrant or monarchy and has not been violated by Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Jr., or anyone else who has served as President of our great nation in recent times!
Personally I'd like to see Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the next President. I think they would both make great Presidents. I think Hillary Clinton would scare the turbans off the heads of all Islamic fundamentalists should they dare to raise her wrath. Hillary, as a woman who has been scorned, is more likely than any man to push the button and blow Iran off the face of the earth! That's what everyone should be focusing their attention on when it comes to electing a woman President of the United States.
Quite frankly I think Hillary Clinton would make a great deterrent to future terrorist attacks for this very reason. She would send shivers up the spine of all Islamic fundamentalist and make the bad boys in Baghdad and Tehran behave, or else BOOM, they would risk being vaporized!
Then term limits would not be a factor, at least not for the terrorist. They would all be gone before you could say, "praise be to Allah!" As for the spirit of the law being violated, nothing in our constitution prohibits pushing any buttons connected to thermonuclear warheads pointed or targeted at any terrorists, nations or states -- for though Congress has the power to declare war, the President can start one without their consent. That's exactly what GWB did, so should Hillary's wrath ever come to pass, please, don't cry fowl because the spirit of the law was violated, least it be God's law.
Terry Lynch 5 April, 2008
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