Misery Index

Q:  You talked about the importance just now of having different voices and robust debate within your administration.  But, again, going back to the campaign, you were asked and talked about the qualifications of the – your now – your nominee for secretary of State, and you belittled her travels around the world, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders; and your new White House counsel said that her resume was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy.  I’m wondering whether you could talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.

Obama:  Look, I’m in – I think this is fun for the press, to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign.

Q:  You quotes, sir.

Obama:  No, I understand.  And I’m – and you’re having fun.  (Laughs)

Q:  I’m asking a question.

Obama:  But the – and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I’m not – I’m not faulting it.  But look, I think if you look at the statements that Hillary Clinton and I have made outside of the – the heat of the campaign, we share a view that American has to be safe and secure and in order to do that we have to combine military power with strengthened diplomacy.  And we have to build and forge stronger alliances around the world, so that we’re not carrying the burdens and these challenges by ourselves.

I believe that there’s no more effective advocate than Hillary Clinton for that well-rounded view of how we advance American interests.  She has served on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. She knows world leaders around the world.  I have had extensive discussions with her both pre-election and post-election about the strategic opportunities that exist out there to strengthen America’s posture in the world.

And I think she is going to be a[n] outstanding secretary of State.  And if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have offered her the job.  And if she didn’t believe that I was equipped to lead this nation at such a difficult time, she would not have accepted.  Okay?

WHAT DOES THE SECRETARY OF STATE DO?

The Secretary of State on the federal government level is officially responsibility is for foreign policy (i.e. equivalent to a foreign minister).  The foreign policy is a set of goals outlining how the country will interact with other countries economically, politically, socially and militarily, and to a lesser extent, how the country will interact with non-state actors.  Currently that position in the Bush administration is held by Condoleezza Rice.

A LOOK BACK

Now time for a bit of a time warp back to a few statements between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with emphasis on Hillary’s foreign policy experience.

Nov 20, 2007 – Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama:  “Now voters will judge whether living in foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face.  I think we need a President with more experience than that.”

Feb 25, 2008 – Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama:  “[Obama] wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve some of the world’s most intractable problems to advocating rash unilateral military action without cooperation among allies in the most sensitive region of the world.” [..]  “We’ve seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security.  We can’t let that happen again.”

Feb 25, 2008 – Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama (assumed):  “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis…”

Mar 02, 2008 – Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton:  “When it came to make the most important foreign policy decision of our generation the decision to invade Iraq Senator Clinton got it wrong.”

Mar 02, 2008 – Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton:  “What precise foreign-policy experience is she claiming that makes her qualified to answer that telephone call at 3 a.m. in the morning?”

Mar 03, 2008 – Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama:  “I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I would bring to the White House.  I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House.  And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

Mar 06(ish), 2008 – Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton:  “What exactly is this foreign policy experience?  Was she negotiating treaties?  Was she handling crises?  The answer is no.”

Mar, 2008 – Susan Rice, Obama advisor, on Hillary Clinton:  “There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady.  You don’t get that kind of experience by being married to a commander in chief.”

RANT ON

For Obama to say, “Don’t think too hard about what I say, but always, whatever you do, assume the best of me,” is quite a dangerous proposition.  Additionally, the man has no real world experience when it comes to foreign policy, or for that matter much experience in Washington DC.  He’s had to resort to Clinton-administration retreads to assemble a cabinet using a person who he said previously had no real world experience in foreign policy.

I think Obama needs to learn the definition of a word. 

megalomania
Function:  noun
1:  a mania for great or grandiose performance
2:  a delusional mental disorder that is marked by feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.

And you know, I could always say that Obama lies a lot however, I can’t.  That is because I' don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak the truth; “a lot” seems to imply that he occasionally tells the truth.

But ultimately he made promises during his campaign, are those now going to be just stated in the “heat of the campaign?”

BTW, here is the translation from the Obama doublespeak stated during the press conference:

“You can not believe a damn word that comes from my mouth.  I will do and say anything at all if it makes me look good and allows me to win elections that I am unqualified for.  I am not to be held responsible for anything I have ever said, am saying, and/or will ever say.”

And yes, I’m back with a bad attitude.

EDIT

Found this little tidbit from Campbell Brown on CNN… I’m not alone.  Maybe Obama will learn to not piss off the press.

EDIT AGAIN.. well.. it seems this video has been removed from CNN… If you do a search for the video “This is fun for the press”, you will still find a link.  However, the video never loads.  And obviously below, the video is now “missing”… how “interesting”… and I’m not being a “tin foil” person here, but I find incidents of the press speaking negatively about Obama disappearing pretty quickly after publication.

But no worries… I happen to have the transcript of the video.  :D  See below.

BROWN: No one here needs to be reminded of how heated things got between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the campaign. She trashed him, saying he wasn't ready to be commander in chief. He trashed her, mocking her foreign policy experience as first lady. Well, now, of course, they have put all of that behind them, so that she can become his secretary of state. Naturally, given all that was said, this issue came up during an exchange with reporters today. This is worth listening to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: You've talked about the importance just now of having different voices and robust debate within your administration. But, again, going back to the campaign, you were asked and talked about the qualifications of the -- your now, your nominee for secretary of state. And you belittled her travels around the word, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders. And your new White House council said that her resume was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy. I'm wondering whether you can talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.

OBAMA: Well, I mean, I think -- this is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign. No, I understand. And you're having fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: There we go again. The pesky media, all we want to do is have a little fun, stir things up for our own amusement.

I mean, really, how silly of that reporter to dare ask you, Mr. President-elect, how it is that you completely mocked Hillary Clinton's foreign policy experience just a few months ago and yet today you think there is no one more qualified than she to lead your foreign policy team? It's a clever device, treating a question so dismissively in an attempt to delegitimize it, but it is a legitimate question. As annoying how you may have found it, it is a fair question.

It was only in March of this year that Greg Craig, your new White House counsel, put out a memo over four pages long outlining point by point Hillary Clinton's foreign policy claims, calling them all exaggerated, just words, not supported by her record.

Now, look, maybe you regret what you said about Hillary Clinton. Maybe it was, as you suggested today, all just said in the heat of the campaign. If that is the case, and you are both now rising above it, then you deserve to be commended for that. And you could have been explicit in saying all of that today. You could have explained the evolution of your thinking, instead of belittling a question you didn't like.

Mr. President-elect, reporters, we hope, are going to ask you a lot of annoying questions over the next four years. Get used to it. That is the job of the media, to hold you accountable.

But this isn't just about the media. It's about the American people, many of whom voted for you because of what you said during the campaign. And they have a right to know which of those things you meant and which you didn't. Apparently, as you made clear today, you didn't mean what you said about Hillary Clinton.

So, what else didn't you mean? The media is going to be asking. And you were wrong today. Annoying questions are about more than just the press having fun. Annoying questions are about the press doing its job and the people's right to know.

PAY INCREASE

By Executive Order dated January 4, 2008, President Bush ordered the salaries of Cabinet Secretaries to be raised from $186,000 to $191,300.  So thus, the pay for the Secretary of State increased this year.  This is the salary increase or the “emolument” increase .  Senator Clinton’s current term runs from 2007 to 2012, thus she is ineligible for taking said Secretary or State position until the end of her term.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

Eugene Volokh, who is a Professor of Law at UCLA teaches free speech law, criminal law, religious freedom law, and church-state relations law.  Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  He has also written three textbooks,over 50 law review articles and over 80 opinion-editorials.  Here is his take on things:

So, “Is Hillary Clinton Unconstitutional?”  In a word, Yes – or, to be more precise, a Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be unconstitutional.

The Emoluments Clause of Article I, section 6 provides “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time.”  As I understand it, President Bush’s executive order from earlier this year “encreased” the “Emoluments” (salary) of the office of Secretary of State.  Lat I checked, Hillary Clinton was an elected Senator from New York at the time.  Were she to be appointed to the civil Office of Secretary of State, she would be appointed to an office for which “the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased” during the time for which she was elected to serve as Senator.  The plain language of the Emoluments Clause would thus appear to bar her appointment … if the Constitution is taken seriously (which it more than occasionally isn’t on these matters, of course).

But presidents Taft, Nixon, Carter and Clinton all ignored the Constitution, and used a loophole around it.  They did it by lower the pay, after the fact.  But still, this is not necessarily legal. 

In Nixon’s situation, he nominated Sen. William Saxbe (R-OH) to serve as his Attorney General after the Saturday Night Massacre, but the AG’s salary had been increased in 1969 during Saxbe’s term.  Nixon persuaded Congress to lower Saxbe’s salary to the pre-1969 level, and the “Saxbe fix” was born.

Volokh continues on this matter about the Saxbe Fix:

Then there’s the infamous “Saxbe Fix” precedent, which I discuss in Lloyd.  Couldn’t Congress pass a repealing statute, or President Bush (or even President Obama) rescind the executive order, selectively, as to Hillary and make everybody happy?  Nope:  The clause forbids the appointment of someone to an office the emoluments whereof “shall have been increased”.  A “fix” can rescind the salary, but it cannot repeal historical events.  The emoluments of the office have been increased.  The rule specified in the text still controls.

Additionally on the Saxbe fix, Sen. Robert Byrd was opposed to this fix, saying the Constitution was explicit and “we should not delude the American people into thinking a way can be found around the constitutional obstacle.”

ANOTHER OPINION

Volokh hased John O’ Connor, who wrote an article on the subject, The Emoluments Caluse:  An Anti-Federalist Intruder in a Federalist Constitution, 24 Hofstra L. Rev. 89 (1995) [PDF], for his opinion on the matter.

“I think it is beyond dispute that Senator Clinton is currently ineligible for appointment as secretary of State.  I also believe that the better construction of the Emoluments Clause is that the “Saxbe Fix” does not remove this ineligibility.

… Therefore, under a straightforward application of the Emoluments Clause, Senator Clinton is ineligible for appointment as Secretary of State because the emoluments of that office “have been increased” during Senator Clinton’s current Senate term, and this disability continues until the end of “the time for which [she] was elected,” or until January 2013.

… By its plain language, the Emoluments Clause applies when the office’s salary “shall have been increased,” without regard to exactly how it was increased. … The clause also does not require that a Senator or Representative have voted for the increase.

The more difficult question is whether Senator Clinton’s ineligibility for appointment may be cured legislatively through the “Saxbe Fix,” where Congress reduces the Secretary of State’s salary to a level at or below where it was when Senator Clinton’s current term began in 2007. …

It is in my view that the Saxbe Fix fails to remove an ineligibility for appointment.  I believe the Saxbe Fix is ineffectual based on the plain reading of the Emoluments Clause and is also contrary to the intent of that clause.  The Emoluments Clause provides an ineligibility for appointment to an office the emoluments of which ‘have been increased.’  Even if the emoluments of the office are later reduced, it seems to me that they ‘have been encreased’ during Senator Clinton’s current Senate term even if they are later decreased.”

NOT THE FIRST TIME FOR THE CLINTONS AND THE EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE

In 1993 President-elect Clinton sought to confirm Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) as his Treasury Secretary, despite his having been reelected to the Senate in 1989 prior to a Cabinet pay raise.  On January 5, 1993, Senator John Glenn and others introduced S.J. Res. 1, which read in its relevant parts:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) the compensation and other emoluments attached tot he office of Secretary of the Treasury shall be those in effect January 1, 1989, notwithstanding any increase in such compensation or emoluments after that date under--

(1) the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 (Public Law 101-194) or any other provision of law amended by that Act; or

(2) any other provision of law, or provision which has the force and effect of law, that is enacted or becomes effective during the period beginning at noon of January 3, 1989, and ending at noon of January 3, 1995.

[…]

This joint resolution shall become effective at 12:00 p.m., January 20, 1993.

It passed both Houses without objection, and was signed into law by President Bush on January 19, 1993.  Bentsen would receive an annual salary of $99,500 for his Cabinet service, far less than his colleagues at $148,400.  When the issue threatened to resurface in 1996 upon the nomination of Cong. Bill Richardson and Sen. William Cohen to UN Ambassador and Defense Secretary, respectively, the USDOJ Office of Legal Counsel mooted the issue by noting that the pay increase for Richardson’s position occurred prior to his current term in Congress, and that Cohen’s Senate term would expire before his being sworn in.

Again however, this goes back to what Volokh said on the matter that a"’fix’ can rescind the salary, but it cannot repeal historical events.  The emoluments of the office have been increased.  The rule specified in the text still controls.”

Additionally, President Bill Clinton re-wrote part of the Constitution in 1998.

BOTTOM LINE

The mostly Democratic Congress will just type up a new “bill” to fix everything, thus changing our Constitution so that Hilliary can sit in office.

Just like Obama not needing to show his "Birth Certificate” but instead choosing to show a document titled “Certification of Live Birth” which does not show his birthplace, thus a Constitutional violation.  Additionally his Aunt stated she witnessed his birth in Africa.  And the Kenyan Ambassador has stated that Kenya is planning on building a monument in Kenya at Obama’s birthplace.

Just like Obama wanting to require school aged children and college students to “serve” by doing hours of community service, which is a 13th Amendment violation.

And all of this before the man is even in office.

All I have to say on the matter, is that if Clinton is appointed to the Secretary of State seat, this blog will end as our Constitution is slowly being killed off by Obama.  The “change” will be that there will no longer be a Constitution, and thus all your rights including freedom of speech, right to freedom of religion, and simply your right to freedom.

And what is truly sad, is that no one seems to care.

SOURCES:

• Daily KOS – A HIGHLY Liberal, pro-Obama website, who believes that Clinton should be allowed to take the office.
• The Volokh Conspiracy (1)
• The Volokh Conspiracy (2)
• Stop the ACLU