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It seems to be Constitution Week for this column.
Today I'd like to examine two constitutional questions -- whether Congress can give immunity to a crime already committed, and whether Congress can force states into a primary schedule of their own devising.
For the past week or so, trying to figure out what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to do next on the Iraq debate has been harder than predicting a hummingbird's flight plan. Today's story is that he has given up on extending a hand across the aisle to Republicans, and will now bring up only bills with hard deadlines. "It's all definite timelines," Reid is quoted as saying. Or maybe it's that he's going to delay the debate until November. Time will tell, I guess. It should properly be seen as all rumor, speculation, and backroom deals -- until we get to an actual floor debate.
Today's hodgepodge is mostly frivolous stuff that I just couldn't resist. There are one or two non-frivolous stories as well, but there seemed to be an embarrassment of riches in the wacky news today. So without further ado, and with a new box of "Herb Caen brand" three-dots to use up, here we go...
First, a happy Constitution Day to everyone! Since, as this Huffington Post article points out, this is a rather obscure and wonkish holiday, we begin with a quiz: What do the phrases: "falsely shouting fire in a theater" and "clear and present danger" have to do with each other? Most Americans immediately recognize both phrases, although probably for different reasons. The first is drummed into us in school when learning about the First Amendment, but the recognition factor on the second probably exists because of Tom Clancy's novel (and subsequent movie) of the same name.
We are very proud to announce that CWCunningham has won this week's "Cartoonist of the Week" from LeftToonLane.com. You can see his achievement at this Daily Kos article. You can also visit the daily LeftToonLane page to see a great selection of "lefty" cartoons.
The two cartoons they featured at the top of the list were originally published on ChrisWeigant.com here and here.
I was waiting to announce that CWCunningham was now entering cartoons to LeftToonLane until he fixed his hardware problems -- but it looks like I waited too long, since one of his first entries has won "Cartoon of the Week" already. We're proud of him, and would like to say "Well done!" for rising to the top of the heap so fast.
The judging for these contests is done by a "celebrity blogger judge," which changes every week. The reason I mention this is that they have asked me to judge a week's worth of cartoons. I told them I'd be happy to, but that I would have to disqualify any of CWCunningham's cartoons for that week, to avoid any accusations of bias. And that I'd like to reserve the week of Hallowe'en. They agreed to both, so you've got that to look forward to....
Anyway, we're proud to offer our hearty "Congratulations!" From now on, we will be referring to CWCunningham as the "award-winning cartoonist CWCunningham."
We now return you to you regularly-scheduled Saturday cartoon....
-- Chris Weigant
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
So Petraeus and Crocker have reported, President Bush has spoken to the nation, and the congressional war debate is slated to begin in earnest next week. Since the Democrats seem to be incapable of staying "on message" the way Republicans so effortlessly manage to do, I'd like to steal a page from the Republican playbook. It's an idea whose time has come: Democratic talking points.
[Note: Updated below...]
The New York Times is reporting this morning that negotiations within the Iraq government on hydrocarbon legislation have completely collapsed. [I refuse to link to subscription sites, but you can view the article at the San Jose Mercury News website for free.]
Ironically, the Washington Post printed a letter today from Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States' Ambassador to the United Nations. He defends the American pressure on Iraq to pass an oil law, while at the same time speaking of it in the past tense. Either he's prophetic, or he already knew when he wrote it that the deal was going to fall apart:
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
Our resident cartoonist is having serious hardware problems, we apologize for not running a cartoon today. Hopefully his new hard drive will be up and running soon....
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have now reported to Congress on the situation in Iraq. President Bush will address the nation tomorrow night on television. But we already know in advance what he's going to say -- that he is in favor of American forces in Iraq going through a gradual drawdown of the "surge," which will end in the summer of 2008. This will leave us right in front of the final stretch of the presidential election, with exactly the same number of soldiers in Iraq -- 130,000 -- as we had when the Iraq Survey Group gave its report in 2006 (just after the midterm congressional elections). This is supposed to be "progress," according to the White House.
Democrats in Congress have to quickly decide what to do about this state of affairs. Because if they do nothing, the Republicans are going to run next year on the following slogan: Continue Reading »
