:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Hell on Earth.
Although I think that within 3 days, she’d be forced from the ticket after saying something so spectacularly stupid that the McCain campaign would never recover from it, even by disavowing her and ejecting her from the party.
And you think Skald has nasty servants? Mine hit your dreams. Enjoy your sleep after putting this idea in my consciousness. 
There just ain’t enough Brain Bleach.
Because she said it in the context of the VP being able to make policy changes within the context of presiding over the Senate. Which the VP cannot do. Cheney’s effect on policy (with the exception of one or a few Senate tiebreakers) has all come as a result as of his (ultimately informal) influence as an advisor and hatchet-man for the president. Come on, give us a tough one.
Anyway, at the end of the day, there are billions of reasons not to let Gov. Palin within a hairs’ breadth of the presidency, and billions of data that make clear she doesn’t know shit about how the federal government works or the issues with which the Chief Executive must be intimately familiar, but I agree with you that within the context of a comment to a third-grade class, this particular imprecision is perfectly ordinary political pablum.
–Cliffy
According to this recent article in NEWSWEEK Garner not only said “piss,” he specifically rejected the euphemized version.
It’s a huge stretch to say the VP is “in charge” of the Senate. A huge stretch. Beyond a huge stretch, it’s just wrong. The VP cannot theoretically take charge of the Senate without a coup d’etat. The VP presides over the Senate in a formal sense and breaks tie votes. The VP does not set the agenda. The VP is a figurehead and presides in name only. The President Pro Tem is also mostly a figurehead and presides when the VP is out of town. The most powerful Senator is the Majority Leader, who does set the agenda. The VP may also use the floor privileges of the Senate, which do not include addressing the body. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/U.S.-Senate
That power being to break tie votes and preside only in a formal sense.
While we all understand that Federalist Society types might want to upend two and quarter centuries of tradition, that doesn’t mean anyone should spread ignorance on these boards, especially when defending the indefensible. The VP has a vote when there is a tie. The VP has no other powers other than tie-breaking and presiding, which means gavelling the day’s business open and closed. The remarks of speakers are also addressed to the VP when he/she is presiding, but the VP has no power to reply unless the remarks violate the Senate rules.
Palin is wrong. Dead wrong. She gets an F in eighth grade civics.
Isn’t she the Playboy model with the delectably large hooters?
Oh, damn, that was Cheryl Bachmann. I’d vote for her. Rowr.
Again, another source after 1978.
It certainly must be tiring to understand the Constitutional role of the Vice President better than someone who was around when the Constitution was written and held the Vice Presidential office, and to point out the errors in the description 'My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
Nonsense. Then why use the word “preside?” Why not simply say, “The Vice-President shall vote in the Senate in case of a tie.” No, if “preside” meant “vote in case of a tie” then they wouldn’t have said both things. And the word “preside” had at the time a perfectly well-understood meaning in parliamentary procedure, which further shows that the functions being given to the VP were well-understood.
Wow, are you wrong.
Here’s an example from recent memory: ruling on points of order. Remember the “nuclear option” for pushing through judicial nominees? That entire scheme depended on the VP exercising his power to rule on points of order.
I’m with Bricker on this one. She was explaining to a third grader. Cut her some slack. “In charge of” and “make policy changes” are just too vague to declare that she doesn’t understand the proper role of the VP–especially when that role is subject to considerable debate.
It’s a fucking stupid, typical of you, answer. You love to use your knowledge of the law and your debating abilities to ignore the obvious fucking fact that in the history of the Vice Presidency, it has never, EVER been exercised in that way.
NOT ONCE.
While you can raise the question of what the word “preside” means and fashion a gray area of the law because it has never been tested. It has never been tested for a reason. What would be the point of the Vice President to run the Senate? There would be none. She could only hope to do as Cheney did and influence legislation through her position in the executive much in the way the President Bush did. Cheney never exercised power stemming from the Senate except for tie-breaking votes. I can’t tell you why that is in the Constitution, but I can tell you that I’m pretty sure that no Vice President has used it in any situation of any import.
Look, she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about Bricker. You can’t inject your intelligence into her thoughts. You can sit there and use your knowledge of the law to twist some sense into her statements but we all see straight through it. She thinks that the VP can somehow run the Senate. She’s not a smart lady, okay? Just get that through your thick fucking skull. You look ridiculous trying to defend such a lightweight.
If you want McCain to win that’s fine. I can completely understand the reasons for that. But please stop insulting our intelligence by offering up these strained and twisted explanations of how she actually was aware of the peculiarities of the Constitution. I really don’t think she was aware of that considering she can’t name one single case considered by the SC other than Roe v Wade. She hasn’t read the Constitution and she is wrong.
Well, that’s easy enough to refute.
Look, you’re wrong. There is no area of ambiguity here. You are wrong. Sarah Palin is correct. She knows what she is talking about, and is correct in her assertions. You are mistaken. Your assertions are false. You don’t know what you are talking about; she does.
Quit sounding like a fucking idiot. The Vice-president presides over the Senate. “Presides” means “is in charge of”. That’s what the word means. That’s why we call him “the President” instead of “the guy is is not in charge”.
See the difference?
Look, I know you hate her for being a Republican. Comfort yourself, it appears that she is going to lose. But that doesn’t mean that you can assert stupid stuff about her and not look like a cretin.
Regards,
Shodan
What’s fucking stupid is assuming that this answer is actually representative of what Palin understands about the job of VP or its role in the Federal government. She was trying to make the job seem important and exciting to a third grader, not taking a civics exam.
Uhmm. Shodan?
I thought I was pretty clear in excluding the power to cast a tie-breaking vote in my argument.
In acknowledging that Cheney has cast a tie-breaking vote, I thought I was pretty clear in stating that I understood that.
Besides we all know that the VP has that power. What Bricker was suggesting was that her saying she was somehow going to be in charge of the Senate belied some sort of in-depth knowledge of the Constitution and the fuzzy, untested definition of what the word “preside” means.
It’s true that Bush wanted to break 200 years of tradition to get his nominees through, but guess what, he didn’t do it. The fact that she think she’s going to break 200 years of tradition for no goddamn good reason means she’s unaware of what she’s talking about, thus a fucking moron.
No, you are wrong. I never said that the presiding officer didn’t have the power to rule on points of order. Way to make a straw-man. Ruling on points of order is presiding. But it is not final. A decision of the chair can be appealed to the whole body and the chair can break any tie. This is not more powerful in a practical way in any respect. I’ve presided over many boards and bodies in my many years. It ain’t worth a warm bucket of spit. If a presiding officer were to try to seize power, virtually everyone in the room would back an appeal. Some people pretend to be so certain about things that they are so wrong about. Other than tie votes, the VP goes to funerals and waits for the president to be incapacitated or die. Just because some people have delusions of grandeur on behalf of Cheney doesn’t mean he had any significant power as presiding officer, which he rarely fulfilled. Even with the Senate in a virtual tie for the past several years, Cheney doesn’t show up, like countless VPs before him, except occasionally to break a tie.
Now, the “nuclear option” has been mentioned. This was a threatened vote that never took place. All of the political power behind it was in the threat.
The threat of the “nuclear option” is just another instance of Republicans trying to tear down institutions in order to try to grab power. Firing US Attorneys because they would not instigate baseless prosecutions of voter fraud was a politicizing of the Department of Justice that was unconscionable plot to abuse the charging power. Monica Goodling’s admitted conduct of hiring only politically motivated assistant attorneys was another abuse of this power, and if proven, criminal. Alberto Gonzales’ attempt to get AG Ashcroft to sign authorizations while incapacitated in the hospital are another example of an abuse of power. Listening to soldier’s telephone calls to their sweeties by the NSA was a gross abuse of power. Torturing prisoners is a gross abuse of power and a destruction of the constitution.
It never ceases to disgust me that Republicans can manage to support the destruction of our Republic and attempt to “enhance” their exercise of power this way at the expense of the citizens of this nation.
Bricker, Shodan, tell me something: what Vice President has ever made “a lot of good policy changes” in their role as President of the Senate?
Lyndon Johnson tried to run the Senate when he was Vice President. If it could be done, Johnson - who had just been a powerful Senate Majority Leader - was the one who’d have done it. But he found that once he was no longer an actual Senator, the real Senators regarded his leadership as merely symbolic.
I’ll answer that question: None. And I’ll go further and point out that it will not happen. Any VP that tried this would be ostracized by the Senate. Any. Sarah Palin was bullshitting in an answer and revealed that she thinks it is just fine that she, Sarah Palin, can with a wave of her hand upend two centuries of Senate tradition.
There are those who, knowing Palin’s threat against two centuries of Senate tradition will cheerfully argue that she can do this and will vote for her, Sarah Palin, to be the bull in the china shop. No level headed thinking American is going to vote for Sarah Palin. Only kool-aid drinking zombies and radical fascists.
Aren’t you from NY?
Doesn’t the person presiding over a body have the ability to control what bills get discussed? Or voted on? Or even choosing which speakers to recognize? All of which are tools used within the NY State Legislature by the majority leader in each house to keep control.
You can do a lot to control a debate, discourse, or even a legislative body, simply with those powers you delineate.
ETA: It’s certainly fair to point out that in practice, the VP hasn’t used the power of presiding to control the Senate. I’m simply trying to say that in any kind of formal setting the person presiding over the meeting has a good deal of subtle power, even if he or she cannot vote.
I wonder why Cheney never does that, since he seems to want to do everything else.