Speaking of the 22nd Amendment...
Andrew Sullivan is troubled by the dynastic implications:
We also confront the issue of the 22nd amendment. I don't like it, but it's there. In fact, we may have the 22nd Amendment to thank for our current predicament. Bill Clinton should have been able to run for a third term in the full light of day under traditional democratic rules. Instead, we now have to grapple with re-electing him to a third (and even fourth) term via his wife. Yes, they narrowly fit the letter of the Constitution, but they sure do violate its spirit and intent.
"Narrowly fit?" The problem is that Sullivan is incapable of treating William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton as two separate human beings (if he even considers them human). And because of this he can conclude that "they" violate the "spirit and intent" of the Amendment. But worst of all is the fact that the Clinton hybrid is somehow a actual choice on voters' ballots:
The problem of political dynasticism is the least of it. American politics have been riven by dynasties from the start. What America has never dealt with is this strange and corrupting arrangement whereby voters are being asked to support two-people-as-one as president.
Are they? Won't the ballot say, if H. Clinton is the nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Poor Andrew thinks that the public sympathizes with his paranoid delusions. I'd like to see some evidence for this claim. But I'll give Sullivan the last word (almost):
There is no reason a constitutional republic should be forced to sacrifice its principles this way. This basic issue of accountability needs to be placed firmly on the table. One option for Barack Obama is to demand now that all the records of the Clintons' marital/political dealings with each other in their first two terms be released in full for public inspection.
Is that the standard now for electing presidents? I thought it was a religious test. Am I behind the times?