History is Happening Now

Just finished the V.P. debate, and I have so say:  it turned out exactly as I anticipated. Gwen Ifill asked nothing interesting or controversial or challenging of either candidate. Biden gave reasonably poised answers to her dull questions, and had a better second half than first half. Palin has done what she needed to do and has internalized her talking points.  The most significant difference that emerged between the two candidates was their different interpretations of the role of vice president:

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney’s interpretation of the vice presidency?

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

This is about as clear a distinction as you can get.  If you believe that the office of the vice president is simultaneously in the executive and legislative branches, contra the actual text of the Constitution, you can vote for McCain-Palin.  If you don’t believe that the office of the V.P. lives in a sort of mysterious legal/quantum superposition between these branches of government, of them and above them, you have alternatives.

What did you all think?

*

An update (10/30, 4:30 p.m.) on Palin’s views on the Constitutional location of the vice presidency, courtesy of Carl Cameron at Fox News:

CAMERON: One of the things you talked about last night was the flexibility of the vice presidency (INAUDIBLE)

PALIN: Yes.

CAMERON: What do you mean by that?

PALIN: That thankfully, our founders were wise enough to say, we have this (INAUDIBLE) and it’s Constitutional. Vice presidents will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it’s going to be sort of this other duty as assigned by the president. It’s a simple thing. I don’t think that was a gaff at all in stating what the truth is.

And that is we’ve got flexibility in the position. The president will be directing in a lot of (INAUDIBLE) with the vice president does. The vice president, of course, is not a member — or a part of the legislative branch, except to oversee the Senate. That alone provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and authority if that vice president so chose to use it.

CAMERON: One of the criticisms of Vice President Cheney is that he is (INAUDIBLE) the power and influence of the office and that during the Bush/Cheney presidency, the power of the executive has been a standard beyond perhaps that which is good for a country that wants to make sure that we don’t have an imperial presidency.

Would you change any of that, (INAUDIBLE) than the Bush/Cheney administration in terms of the power of the executive?

PALIN: Well, again, as I tried to explain last night, our executive branch will know what our job is. We have the three very distinct branches of government. You know, we might be bleeding our authority over to the Legislative or Judicial branch to do our job in the Executive branch as administers.

Does anyone have any idea what Palin means by the term “flexibility”?  Just because you have a role in relation to another branch of government doesn’t mean you’re part of that branch.  I mean, the Senate isn’t in the judiciary because it confirms Supreme Court nominees, nor does doing so confer any sort of “flexibility,” whatever that means, to the Senate.  The more Palin talks about this issue, the less I understand what she thinks she’s saying.  Is a coherent answer too much to ask of a V.P. candidate?

As the V.P. debate approaches, the right-wing blogosphere has discovered a secret plot to make Sarah Palin look bad, as if anyone needed to spend even thirty seconds making such an effort.  The name of this nefarious plot?  Gwen Ifill. 

Yes, that’s right, my friends, Gwen Ifill.  Rightwing blog after rightwing blog has shrilly announced that Ifill is “in the can” for Obama.  Why?  Because she is writing a pro-Obama book.  Do you want to know the title of this literary monument to Obamalove, this undeniable evidence of disgusting bone-deep liberal media bias?  Wait for it:  Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.  Commentators who cite this book as evidence of bias have of course not read the book.  No one has, because it’s slated to be released in January of 2009.  The McCain campaign also apparently didn’t know it was forthcoming, though its publication was no secret.  (They’ve got the best research team around, as the Palin pick so clearly demonstrates.)

Apparently, according to such intellectual luminaries as NRO’s Jim Geraghty, to even write a book that has the name “Barack Obama” in its title or subtitle necessarily implies that the author of said book is so hideously and irrevocably biased in favor of the aforementioned breakthrough politician that all her professional journalistic standards will instantly go out the window when she is tapped to moderate a debate; the forthcoming publication of a book with this title is evidence of the media’s “jaw-dropping double standard” when it comes to the candidates.  It’s clearly a double standard because, well, there’s absolutely nothing historic about Obama’s candidacy, nothing at all worth writing about, no unbiased journalistic angle to be found on Obama and the new generation of post-Jackson black political leadership in this country.

Writing such a book implies, according to wise folk like Jim Treacher, that Ifill will ask the following types of questions of Palin and Biden during the V.P. debate:

Mayor Palin, Barack Obama is a handsome, charismatic demigod. How many boxes of Kleenex will you need after your crushing loss?

Senator Biden, what is your favorite color? And if you have time for a follow-up question: Why?

Mayor, you talk funny and you own a tanning bed. Why haven’t you released Trig’s birth certificate?

Senator, have you seen those pictures of Obama in his swim trunks? If not, I have them right here.

How droll!  How insightful!  What a terrific bit of satire–or should we call it prognostication?–you’ve composed, Mr. Treacher!

By this airtight logic, of course, the titles of Jerome R. Corsi’s Obama Nation and David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate evince these authors’ profound and abiding love of Obama, because, you see, Obama’s name is in the title of the books they wrote.  Corsi and Freddoso are “in the can” for Obama, and would therefore be hopelessly biased anti-McCain moderators for a nationally televised debate between Biden and Palin.

The only jaw-dropping double standard here seems to be that anyone in the national media is paying any attention to this story at all.