Monday, September 08, 2008

Well, what does he know?

John Dean dares to make a legal, Constitutional-based arguement that Sarah Palin is in no way qualified to be Vice President:

Consider this parallel: Does anyone believe that if John McCain were president and had selected Governor Sarah Palin under the Twenty-fifty Amendment to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency, Congress would have confirmed her? Not likely. In fact, it is even less likely that McCain would have even attempted to do so, for he would have embarrassed himself.

Yeah, well, what does he know about the subject, huh?

I served as minority counsel to the House Judiciary Committee when the Committee was working on the Twenty-fifty Amendment. Accordingly, I recall well the difficult debates and discussions on how vacancies in the vice presidency should be filled. The procedures under discussion ranged from a special national election for the vice president, to a convening of the Electoral College to make the decision, to the selection of a vice president by the Congress.

The process that was actually settled on, as I mentioned earlier, codified the procedure that had evolved over the years, through which the candidate selected his running mate. In line with that procedure, presidents were similarly given the power to fill vacancies in the office of the vice president. But there was a crucial difference: Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, presidents can only fill that office with the approval of a majority vote of both the House and Senate. Confirmation thus entails not only ratification by the public, but also scrutiny by political pros who assure Americans that the new vice president is up to the task of taking charge.


Oh.

When Nixon selected Ford to be his Vice President, and Ford selected Rockefeller, the government was divided, with the Democrats controlling Congress. Yet a Democratic Congress approved both Ford and Rockefeller to be Vice President based on inter-branch comity. Surely no one would argue that Sarah Palin is in a league with Ford and Rockefeller when it comes to experience.

Nor does Palin possess anything close to the experience qualifications of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, or the President pro tempore of the Senate, Robert Byrd. Indeed, I feel confident that Palin could not get confirmed for any of the top presidential succession posts, namely the posts of Secretary of State, Treasury and Defense. Palin's lack of qualifications have been widely noted. Newspapers from her state have raised questions of her qualifications.


Seems pretty clear to me.

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