LOL
Obama would consider it a compliment and find it funny too.
That’s because Obama keeps it cool.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/47605/saturday-night-live-obama-plays-it-cool
I’m just amazed someone came up with lyrics dumber than the original’s. And I’m weighing the score toward the original because, as a song for children and stoners, it should not be expected to not be stupid.
That CD was obviously self-published.
Sorry, 2012. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll.
I meant to do that . . .
Please have exact change.
I’m one of the five people who saw that movie in the theater when it was released. I can guarantee that the Indian, though very cool and very fast, was not magical at all. It was just very, very cool, and very, very fast.
Once again, Rachel Madow said it right, “Stay classy GOP, stay classy.”
Show me “head of state” or “symbol and embodiment of the nation” in the Constitution. Our system does not provide for either. The president is nothing more than head of one of three co-equal branches of government, empowered to exercise “executive power,” specifically:
No “head of state,” no “symbol and embodiment of the nation.” Ain’t in there. The office is just a job.
Show me where “judicial review” or “separation of church and state” appear in the Constitution.
The Presidency, as an office, has come to encompass roles that it was never originally intended to, whether you like it or not. He is the de facto head of state regardless of his Constitutional claim to the title.
A lot of “de facto” things are in error and can be changed. That’s my position on this. It is an error to believe that the American system has a head of state. No individual personifies or embodies the nation.
Anyway, judicial review and separation of church and state have been explicitly derived from actual words in the Constitution in actual Supreme Court decisions. Has any Supreme Court decision ever mentioned “personification and embodiment of the nation”?
An individual has to personify or embody the nation. That’s pretty much how nations work. Your choices are the President or Paris Hilton.
Ignoring your chicken/egg paradox, what actual words in the Constitution did the principle of judicial review derive from? The Marbury v. Madison decision was based on common sense, not the language of the Constitution.
It looks like the state GOP leaders are rallying around Mr. Salzman:
People just don’t have a sense of humor, I guess.
Not by original design, no. You’re right about that, in terms of intent. When the framers were creating the nation, they resisted, and in some cases outright quashed, the wider population’s impulse to refer to the President as “Your Majesty” or similar honorifics.
And yet: The average human is pretty simple-minded. The democratic model requires a certain amount of reduction to the lowest common denominator, to allow broad participation in the process. And as a result, we, collectively, have difficulty with complex models and divided leadership. We look for an alpha male (or, increasingly, an individual, but still overwhelmingly a male) to sit at the top of the pyramid.
It’s the same reason Star Trek (bear with me) found it necessary to invent the Borg Queen in First Contact. The Borg were a faceless, nonindividualized enemy, weird and frightening for being an undifferentiated horde that nevertheless acted with singular intent. And yet, that’s very difficult to represent dramatically; you can’t really have a conversation with a hive. Or, rather, you can, but it’s exceedingly difficult to pull off in a way that your average audience member will “get” and identify with. Much easier to personify the enemy by reducing them to an individual, regardless of whether or not it violates the original conception of the Borg.
Same thing with the Presidency. It’s supposed to be a chief administrator, a rotating caretaker, but because of the limitations of the people being governed, it turned out not to work that way in practice.
Unbelievable. The hits keep on coming. The Republican Party this year is like a washing machine on spin cycle with one soggy sneaker in it, digging holes in the linoleum as it threatens to shake itself apart.
I’m all for making fun of Obama, but if your first instinct, as someone of the Rich White Male Party, is to bring up race…
…just let it go.
I don’t even know how to begin to respond to such a blatantly unsupported claim. Cite? Prove it? How about “Orly”? Utter nonsense. Certain individuals must be empowered to act on behalf of a government. That’s all. A nation needs an individual to personify or embody it no more than a pencil needs to be yellow.
I see no paradox. I simply see an error.
No, actually, it was based on language in the Constitution that created the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It was derived through logical deduction and application of legal principles.
It’s not really making fun of Obama, actually. I just listened to the lyrics to make sure I’m not totally off-base with it.
Actually, I must agree with the core theme of it, while rejecting the style and language. Obama was my candidate of choice for a number of policy-related reasons. Like many, I’m happy to see a non-pure-white person hold presidential office. But I think it’s dangerously deluded and naive the way many whites feel that the nation has magically solved racism by electing a half-black Harvard grad who has no slave ancestry and no “street cred” (as it were). His election demonstrates that America can embrace someone who looks sort of black on the outside as long as he seems completely white on the inside. Sad to say, this represents a huge step forward for America. But at least we did make that step instead of rejecting it.
That notwithstanding, the song is stupid crap. It uses insensitive language, and the style is the verbal equivalent of blackface. You can carry off being edgy like that if it’s clever and too true to be denied. But it isn’t… the lyrics are clunky and unimaginative, and the truth that’s being told isn’t a thing to celebrate.
Every nation with a functioning government has a head of state. Asking for a cite is like asking for evidence that the sky is blue.
Paradox: SCOTUS applied the principle of judicial review in determining whether it was allowed to apply the principle of judicial review.
Anyway, this whole “show me where it appears in the Constitution” idea doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic, which is whether or not the President ought to be worthy of respect; the Constitution doesn’t tell us whether anyone is worthy of respect.
Jurisdiction, yes. But not scope and not powers.
I think you are reaching.
Article 2 Section 3 explicitly notes
and throughout the world the presentation of credentials by ambassadors and consuls is explicitly directed to the heads of state. In Britain, Queen Elizabeth receives ambassadors, not Prime Minister Brown; in Germany, President Koehler receives ambassadors, not the head of government, Chancellor Merkel; in Canada, Governor General Jean receives ambassadors (in lieu of Queen Elizabeth), not Prime Minister Harper.
In the U.S., the president receives ambassadors as the head of state–following the Constitution.
While “personification and embodiment of the nation” might be arguable at some level, (there have probably been a few occasions when a person outside trhe U.S. identified the U.S. as Uncle Sam rather than as the president), the vast majority of the time, references to the actions of the U.S. are described in terms of “President x____x” has done this or that.
Are we talking about the same Obama!? No street cred? Looks *sort of *? black? Is that what the Rush Limbaughs are telling themselves? Is anyone needing to tell themselves this to deal with a black family moving into the white house? I really thought this weirdnes was limited to this board.
This is not exactly true. Our prime minister accepts credentials of and receives ambassadors as well. That function is not reserved for the head of state.