Saturday, January 17, 2009

Barack Obama: President for Life!

WorldNetDaily reports:
Hail King Obama: President for life
Move underway to repeal Constitution's term limits
By Drew Zahn

As Inauguration Day approaches and Barack Obama prepares to assume his first term as president, some in Congress are hoping to make it possible for the Democrat to not only seek a second term in office, but a third and fourth as well.

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering a bill that would repeal the Constitution's 22nd Amendment prohibiting a president from being elected to more than two terms in office.

Further down, the article does acknowledge a couple of details that the lede ignores:

H. J. Res. 5 is not the first attempt by Serrano to repeal the 22nd Amendment. In 2003, Serrano introduced H. J. Res. 11 to the 108th Congress to accomplish the same purpose...

At the current time, H.J. Res. 5 has not tallied any cosponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.


So it's really not accurate to say "some in Congress are" doing anything, is it? The plural tense is inaccurate here. It should read "someone in Congress is..."

And the aforementioned bill in the 108th Congress is just one of the times Serrano has introduced this bill. It's not even the most recent attempt before the current one. Serrano is also responsible for proposing a repeal of the 22nd Amendment in:

110th Congress - H.J. Res 8
109th Congress - H.J. Res 9
107th Congress - H.J. Res 4
106th Congress - H.J. Res 17
105th Congress - H.J. Res 19

Yes, Rep. Serrano has proposed a repeal of the 22nd Amendment on the first day of every Congressional term since 1997. This is, at least, his seventh attempt. He made the exact same proposal four times during the eight years of the Bush Administration. Whatever Serrano's agenda is here, it doesn't seem immediately partisan.

That's not to say it's a good bill, though. Personally, I believe strongly in Presidential term limits and would hate to see Serrano succeed in getting rid of them. But WND seems to be painting this as an Obama-centric proposal, when it's not.

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