I’ve had a distinct and foreboding impression that Barack Obama will manufacture some type of national or international crisis in order to justify serving a third term as president of the United States. I had the same distinct impression two months after Obama’s first ’08 election that he would be reelected in 2012. It was such a strong gut feeling I heard myself betting a conservative co-worker $100 when he proclaimed its’ impossibility. I never – ever- bet money. I worked too hard and too long for the paltry income I had for decades before achieving moderate financial comfort. For three years and some months my co-worker reminded me how Obama’s actions infuriated the American public. I agreed with him but never wavered. It was the worst (and only) money I ever won. I hope I’m wrong…..
Yes, I know Article XXII of the Constitution of the United States categorically restricts the President of the United States to two elected terms. But, having just Googled that amendment, I find good reason for my worst fears: there is considerable legal wiggle room for a president, an Attorney General; a Supreme Court, and a Senate who have shown considerable expertise in both creating crises and ruling via personal edict with total disregard for the Constitution. Lawyers make lucrative livings out of interpreting the intent of the law:
“ Although the Twenty-second Amendment was clearly a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s service as President for an unprecedented four terms, the notion of presidential term limits has long-standing roots in American politics. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered the issue extensively, although it ultimately declined to restrict the amount of time a person could serve as President. But following George Washington’s decision to retire after his second elected term, numerous public figures subsequently argued he had established a “two-term tradition” that served as a vital check against any one person, or the presidency as a whole, accumulating too much power. Congress expressed its interest in presidential term limits by introducing 270 measures restricting the terms of office of the President prior to proposing the Twenty-second Amerndment.
Nonetheless, sustained political attention to this matter only developed with Roosevelt. In 1946, lawmakers made the President’s four terms an issue in congressional election campaigns, pledging to support a constitutional amendment that would prevent a similarly lengthy presidency in the future. In January of 1947, prominent House leaders acted on these campaign promises, introducing an initiative that ultimately became the Twenty-second Amendment.
The turning point in the debates on the measure occurred when Senator Warren Magnuson argued for an amendment that would simply bar someone from being “elected to the office of President more than twice.” Magnuson claimed that other proposals being considered were “too complicated” and comprehensive and might unfairly restrict a person who assumed the office of President “through circumstances beyond his control, and with no deliberation on his part…but because of an emergency,” such as the death of an elected President. When some legislators countered that Magnuson’s proposal provided insufficient controls on those who assumed the presidency through these “unfortunate circumstance(s),” a compromise was struck. The final proposal provided a general prohibition against a person being elected to the office of President more than twice while imposing additional restrictions on some individuals who attained the office of President through nonelectoral means, such as succession. The resulting language is what we now know as the Twenty-second Amendment.
We can safely conclude that those who drafted the amendment sought somehow to prevent the emergence of a President with tenure as lengthy as Roosevelt’s. Many proponents of the measure further argued that they sought to codify the two-term tradition associated with Washington. But although these observations surely point us to the general aspirations of the amendment’s authors, they do not establish a specific picture of how the framers intended their proposal to apply. [Constitutional case law has been reversed on much less.]
To begin with, congressional deliberations about the amendment were curtailed. For example, the House restricted debate to two hours. Furthermore, the discussions leading up to the proposing of the Twenty-second Amendment did not obviously suggest a consistent, clear legislative purpose. Lawmakers expressed at various times, their interest in limiting a President’s “service,” “terms,” “tenure,” and [eligibility for] reelection,” without elaborating exactly how they understood these terms. [This sounds suspiciously like previous quibbling Presidential testimony: “I did not inhale,” and “I did not have sex with that woman.” That amoral President was also elected to a second term.] Moreover, when Congress dropped early proposals to foreclose a person’s eligibility for office if he had served in two prior terms and instead adopted the current text that focuses on limiting individuals twice elected to the presidency, it provided little explanation for this important shift beyond needing “compromise” as part of the lawmaking process. One should also note that the framers of the amendment did not obviously intend to create a two-term tradition in any narrow sense, because they specifically discussed allowing someone who became President through an “emergency” within the first two years of one term to secure election for two additional terms. We are therefore left with some uncertainty about the precise goals of the Twenty-second Amendment’s creators. [If one can serve as President through an ‘emergency’ at the beginning of a term, why not at the end of one? This obfuscation is judicial fodder.]
The ratification debates over the amendment do not provide much additional insight into the particular wishes of those who supported the proposal in the states. In general, the amendment does not appear to have prompted a great deal of public debate or legislative discussion once proposed by Congress.
Although numerous court opinions make passing reference to the Twenty-second Amendment, its parameters have not been systematically examined by the judiciary. No doubt the low profile of the amendment in the courts reflects limited interest in and opportunity for testing the provision. Since the amendment was ratified, only five Presidents have been technically limited by it (Eisenhower to G.W.)… and, to date, none of these individuals seriously considered challenging the amendment’s legal restrictions or meaning.
These facts should not lead one to conclude that the Twenty-second Amendment is so straightforward that it requires no further interpretation. Among other unresolved questions, the amendment seems to leave open the possibility that a twice-elected President could still become President through non-electoral means. For example, such a person [a twice-elected U.S. President] might still be elevated to the presidency after serving as Vice President, or, if authorized, to act as President through a presidential-succession statute.” – Bruce Peabody, Professor of Political Science, Fairleigh Dickinson University. [Is it conceivable that after the 2014 mid-term election the Left controls both houses of Congress and passes a perversion of the presidential-succession statute allowing Obama to serve a third term? ]
As articulated above there was considerable debate about the intent of the Amendment prior to its enactment. As we have seen to our dismay, the Attorney General of the United States and the U.S. Supreme Court mutate our Constitution almost beyond recognition based on their interpretation of intent – or in total disregard of it.
In preparation for this unprecedented coup, it is not inconceivable that black, conservative Supreme Court Justice Thomas experience a convenient fatal “heart attack”, car accident, or assassination by a “white-Hispanic racist.” The “nuclear option” exercised by Democrats in the Senate recently enabling them freehand to appoint activist judges to federal benches is just preparatory to its’ real goal: appointment of another activist (and Leftist) Supreme Court Justice cementing a majority of “interpretive” Justices.
This scenario makes the 2014 mid-term elections all the more critical. True “literalist” Constitutionalists must control both houses of Congress to have a prayer of preventing Obama from obtaining a third term – and even that’s no guarantee.
We are at a pivotal point in our history much like our Founding Fathers in deciding whether to acquiesce or rebel. Americans are balanced precipitously between Alarm! Alarm! and To Arms! To Arms!
If Obama does obtain a third term I foresee a “Potomac Masssacre” much like the Boston Massacre in which our federal troops are ordered to fire on unarmed and peacefully marching Tea Party demonstrators protesting Obama’s usurpation of power. Of course, “gunfire” would be heard coming from the protestors justifying the troops’ murderous fusillade. It happened before – Kent State University, May 4, 1970 by the Ohio Army National Guard (see Google Nobel author James Michener’s investigation “Kent State: What Happened and Why”. Some reviewers believe it could happen again] reported radicals were setting off flash cubes and throwing firecrackers from roofs behind the protestors). If no one in Obama’s administration has been responsible for Benghazi or any other catastrophe, what makes one think he would be held accountable for “undisciplined troops” firing on Tea Party members? Remember, the National Tea Party has already been identified as a threat to National Security in a proposed war gaming scenario at the U.S. Army’s Command & General Staff College (nka: ILE). It’s a short jump from concept to doctrine.
