What Would You Do if Tapped as a Running Mate?

Andy the Lawyer
Aug 22, 2008 10:07 AM CST

I’d campaign like hell for the win.  If not elected, I’d parlay alll my new heavy hitter contacts into a lucrative K-street lobbying career.  If elected, I’d return the office of the Vice-Presidency to the good old days of sipping mint juleps on Blair House’s back porch and waiting to see if the president continues to live on a day by day basis.

L
Aug 22, 2008 3:36 PM CST

I have to agree to some extent with number 2 - I might just have to flee the country.  Who in their right mind would WANT to be put through the hell which a modern-day legal campaign entails?

William Newbill
Aug 23, 2008 7:41 AM CST

it’s very clear that the next Vice President must help end the horrifying legacy of the Bush presidency and the Republican party notion of the rule of law.  I don’t want the job, but if it takes that sacrifice to implement my plan, then so be it.

The Bush perversion of law must be completely rejected and replaced with real adherents to the Constitution and the rule of law. Obama clearly understands the Constitution and the rule of law.  I doubt the Republican candidate understands basic legal principles. 

The next Vice President must have as his or her top priority restoring respect for our Constitution and the rule of law.  This includes all domestic law, especially Fourth Amendment law, International law including the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, and boosting the role of Congress in our system of government. 

Guantanamo must be closed and the military commissioners shut down and completely redesigned.  FISA should be amended to eliminate any ambiguity about the role of independent judicial review of warrants for wiretapping in all cases.  We will need new domestic law hat eliminates executive branch discretion in many, if not most areas of law including environmental protection. 

Most importantly Congress must be given an independent means of enforcing Contempt of Congress actions.  The new law must include the power to imprison executive branch officials who refuse to abide by the law, subject, of course, to judicial review. 

In order to regain our respect for law, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, David Addington and many others including our current Vice President must be indicted after investigation by our new attorney general Professor Johnathan Turley.  If the rule of law is to mean anything these individuals must stand trial for both domestic and international criminal activities.  Yes it will be very difficult but it must be done. 

Finally, we must abandon this notion that if someone committed a crime relying on an obviously absurd memo from the Office of Legal Counsel they are somehow immune from criminal prosecution.  It is difficult to fathom the sheer inanity of this position which is apparently widely held.  It’s obvious nonsense. 

Anyone and everyone, including many of our highest ranking military generals, and executive level officers must be held legally accountable, including long terms in prison for their role in torture and the many domestic crimes including the felonies committed during the Bush presidency.

Otherwise, we are no better than a Banana Republic or military dictatorship.  Guanatanamo must be closed and should be made into a museum showing what happens when the Constitution and the rule of law are abandoned wholesale for authoritarian expediency.  It can be named after our new Vice President.  Now that’s a dream we can all aspire to.

Mike Shpiece
Aug 24, 2008 12:53 PM CST

Actually, I think it was John Nance Garner and not Sam Rayburn who said it.  But it’s hard keeping all those Texans straight.

(Until I just Googled it, I thought it was Albin Barkley.)

NN
Aug 26, 2008 9:19 AM CST

Mr. Newbill - I couldn’t agree more. But I believe there is such a museum or at least something quite similar- it is in South Africa.

MM
Aug 30, 2008 5:55 AM CST

Re: Comments 1 & 5
1 You are what makes every sane american sick and dissapointed with our government.

2 Ignorant, there is no proof that Obama has any intention to uphold the constitution, in fact when he is elected and turns this country in to a (what you call) a Banana Republic or a military dictatorship and you no longer can be free to be so irresponsible with the freedom that we have that was paid for with a huge sacrifice of the lives of our men and women in the military, you are going to be ashamed to say YOU voted for this monster.
Neither one of you deserve to be nominated and if you ever were nominated to be VP or anything for that matter, many people would have to flee this country before you turn it in to mush.