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Due to the fact that Congress is still on vacation and also due to the fact that it has largely been a one-subject week in the political world, we are going to pre-empt our regular talking points for a discussion of where the country seems to be on the question of attacking Syria. But first, let's wrap up the week and hand out our awards, as usual.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just voted to approve a resolution to attack Syria on a vote of 10-7, with one member merely voting "present." But the breakdown of the voting reveals that this was in no way a party-line vote. Which, of course, complicates the issue for a media much more comfortable with a "horse race" mentality towards all politics ("Dems are up! GOP down! Film at eleven!"). For once, some complexities have emerged which confound the knee-jerk pigeonholing so regularly practiced by news producers. But maybe that's all to the good. Maybe, in fact, that's why President Obama went to Congress in the first place.
Congress -- even in a good year -- barely works. That can be taken (equally correctly) either as "barely functions" or "barely ever shows up for work." In a pathetically-unproductive year (this Congress is on track to be the least productive Congress since records were kept), this should already have become painfully obvious to all.
This is all by way of introducing you to today's column. We're throwing out our usual format today, because of a monumental shift in federal policy this week. Such a momentous and historic occasion deserves special treatment, we feel, and that special treatment translates to the following unorthodox presentation: first, a few awards; then, some talking points from respected voices; and finally, my own screed at the end.
This speech will forever be known as his "I Have A Dream" speech, and portions of it are as familiar to every American as F.D.R.'s "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," J.F.K.'s "Ask not what your country can do for you," and even Abraham Lincoln's immortal "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" address on the hallowed battlefields of Gettysburg.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
The problem, obviously, is that nobody's ever adequately legally defined what exactly "a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States" means. There have been no court challenges. It has become a political issue at times, but has never been adjudicated at all -- which means it is completely open to interpretation, for now. By anyone, really.
[The Scene: A warm Philadelphia evening, 226 years ago. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention -- after a long and miserably-hot day of respectful debate (and quite a lot of just plain bickering) over the text of Article I, Section 10 of the proposed draft of the new United States Constitution -- take up the final item on the agenda. We join the Founding Fathers as they (somewhat-wearily) begin discussion of the final subject of the day. Since the debate was conducted behind closed doors, this re-creation uses no names for the participants, to protect their anonymity.]
Harry Reid and John McCain apparently just cut a deal which will avoid the "nuclear" or "constitutional" option of changing the Senate's rule that allows filibustering presidential (non-judicial) appointees. Yesterday I wrote about the meeting which produced this deal, so I thought it was worth writing a followup article now that a deal has been reached.
An extraordinary meeting is taking place today, which all 100 senators have been invited to attend. This should really not be an extraordinary thing -- you'd think that all senators meeting together would just be an actual floor session in the Senate -- but it is because it is actually a political meeting, with the doors closed. The senators aren't meeting to pass legislation, they're meeting to have a political showdown of sorts (hence the closed doors). Normally, each party's caucus meets separately behind closed doors to hash out party strategy, but what's extraordinary about today's confab is that both parties are meeting at once.