MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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the Constitution

Now, This is Satire!

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Satire has to have an element of truth to it, I told a friend a couple of days ago in my argument with people over why the New Yorker magazine cover did not work as satire.

I found this piece at Huffingtonpost.com talking about the same subject and using a political cartoon trying to puncture some of the magazine’s editors’ arguments for using the cover. But I believe the HuffPo writer messed up a little. Only a little.

He failed to mention that Cindy McCain was indeed addicted to prescription drugs that she stole from an organization that she headed; Maverick, good ol’ Johnny Mac, is actually very, very old (I hear he’s going to be 150 years old on Inauguration Day); and  he so did  sing that song before an audience.

What I don’t know is whether Mr. Clean hearts Dick Cheney the way B. Hussein O. allegedly adores Osama.

In contrast to the Horsley cartoon, which is a veritable documentary of the lives of the McCains, there’s no piece of information in the New Yorker cartoon that you could point to as being true about either of the Obamas.

So, the New Yorker disseminated the worst of right-wing smears that bear no relationship to the truth about the Obamas.

Finally, Horsley’s cartoon is not likely to get either of the McCains killed. The New Yorker’s cover is an invitation for some deranged patriot to go out and try to kill the Obamas.

July 16, 2008
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A headache . . .

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. . . is what I got after reading this convoluted article by Professor Akhil Reed Amar on how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), and Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), could serve a co-presidents, or something like that.

But which should it be: Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton? In fact, voters in November could actually endorse both versions of the ticket—truly, two presidents for the price of one. How? The Constitution’s 25th Amendment allows for a new paradigm of political teamwork: The two Democratic candidates could publicly agree to take turns in the top slot.

Then, at some agreed upon point, the President would cede power to the vice-president and, with Congressional approval, become the vice-president. The same team would then run for re-election four years later and four years after that, after which one of them would have to drop out because they would have been elected president twice. The remaining person could then run for president on his her own power.

Akhil Reed Amar teaches constitutional law at Yale University and he wrote “America’s Constitution: A Biography.” He is also a winner of the American Bar Association’s 2006 Silver Gavel Award. He is, in other words, a very smart guy and he said this could be done.

Whether it should done is, of course, another matter entirely.

March 25, 2008
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