TheAgitator.com
My Question for Joe Biden
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008The New York Times asked several contributors what question they’d pose to Sarah Palin or Joe Biden. They asked me to submit a drug-war related question for Biden. Here it is:
Senator Biden, you’ve been one of the Senate’s most ardent drug warriors. You helped create the office of “drug czar”; backed our failed eradication efforts in South America; encouraged the government to seize the assets of people merely suspected of drug crimes; pushed for the expanded use of racketeering and conspiracy laws against drug offenders; advocated the use of the military to fight the drug war; and sponsored a bill that holds venue owners and promoters criminally liable for drug use by people attending concerts and events.
Today, illicit drugs are as cheap and abundant as they were decades ago. Would you agree that the anti-drug policies you’ve championed have failed? If not, how have they succeeded?
Gene Healy also contributed a question:
The claim by Dick Cheney that he was exempt from certain disclosure requirements because the vice president was a “legislative officer” has been greeted with outrage. But the main power the Constitution grants the vice president is a legislative one — breaking a tie vote in the Senate.
So, Governor Palin, Senator Biden, doesn’t Mr. Cheney have a point?
But, then, if the vice president is a legislative officer, how can he wield the vast executive powers that Mr. Cheney has exercised, including orchestrating and supervising a warrantless wiretapping program?
Can the vice president shift between branches at his convenience? If not, what, in your view, is the constitutional status of the vice presidency?
Ms. Palin, what Founding Fathers influenced your beliefs?? All of them?? Which one in particular?? Please name just one, Ms. Palin…….
You should have left out the “drug czar” line. It seems less than serious, and provides Biden with the opportunity to deride the question as hyperbole instead of answering your valid question.
Unless, of course, the term “drug czar” is widely used and not seen as partisan or inflammatory. I wouldn’t know, being a pinko commie European ;-)
The NY Times asked me to submit a question to Radley Balko.
“Mr. Balko, knowing what kind of character it takes to be a career politician, like Biden, do you expect to receive an answer that even tangentially addresses in an honest manner the substance of your question? If not, why bother asking it?”
Actually I am a little disappointed there wasn’t a drug-war related question for Palin. After all, she is one of the 4 members of either ticket who admits to smoking pot and at least partially excuses herself by saying it was legal in Alaska. Considering how many people are serving jail terms for having as little pot as Palin said she had and some people have died in police raids that turned up less pot, I would like to see her justify why she thinks she shouldn’t be in jail or have her house, boats, and plane seized.
Couple that with her answer, such as it was, to Couric on Roe and its rambling support of Federalism it would be nice to see what she thought of Federal prosecution of California medicinal pot growers and distributors or even her view of Oregon’s referendum in Physician Assisted suicides. How far is she willing to go for Federalism?
Ooops! That should have been one of the 2 members of either ticket OR it could have been one of 2 of the 4 members of either ticket.
Although……
Mr. Healy’s question is the most important and relevant to be asked of either candidate in tonight’s debate.
Which is why I imagine it won’t be asked.
#2, the term “drug czar” was coined by Joe Biden himself.
It doesn’t matter what you ask a politician.
Simply asking them a question validates their premise.
Once you accept their premise as valid, you lose the argument.
No adult human has the moral right to aggress against another adult human.
Politics is immoral.
“Politics is war by other means.” Clausewitz
Biden’s answer to Radley’s question;
“We succeeded in doing something about the scourge of drugs, Mr. Balko. I haven’t heard anyone come up with better solutions then the ones we have enacted.”
“Actually there have been . . . ”
“Next question please!”
And I can just hear Palin’s answer to Gene Healy’s question:
“I thought I explained earlier that I don’t like ‘gotcha’ journalism. Did I mention I shoot moose?”
“Nice lipstick, Governor Palin.”
“Much better, dear. Thank you!”
Sadly, such great questions of two obviously learned men will no doubt be thrown on the scrap heap. This election isn’t about things that really matter. it’s about the appearance of things that really don’t.
Please wake me November 5th.
Palin can’t ask any ? about the “drug” anything, without opening a can of worms in regard to Ms.McCain’s past. All politians know the “drug” ? is the third rail. Besides the ONDCP is scheduled to expire by itself in Sept. 2010. Unless they vote the monster back into being.
Red, what do you mean, “Unless they vote the monster back into being?”
LOL. Seriously, is there ANY doubt that they will vote to continue their immoral insanity?
Good questions, but they wont be asked. Toss out the soft-ball questions so that they can look good. That is it.
Until very recently, New Jersey permitted the Senate majority leader to also become Governor upon the vaccancy of the Governor’s office. Yet, at the time the Senate Majority leader is Acting Governor, he also remains Senate Majority leader and could propose and vote for legislation, which he could also then sign as Governor. It was regarded as the most powerful political office in the nation.
This changed when NJ recently adopted a constitutional amendment creating a Lieutenant Governor. It was thought to have been a rare situation that the Senate Majority Leader would become Governor at the same time, but in fact, it happened twice recently: when Governor Whitman became head of the EPA, Senate Majority Leader Donal DiFrancesco became Governor, and then also when Governor McGreevey resigned, Senate Majority Leader Richard Cody became the Governor.
After Corzine was elected in NJ, they passed the Constitutional Amendment creating the position of Lieutenant Governor.
So it’s not entirely unheard of that a state officer can have both a legislative and an executive role.
We need Adam Sandler’s Mr. Deeds to do his whole ‘what would the 16 year-old you think of you today?’ spiel.
It worked on those shareholders (voters)!
Sydney –
Of course, some of the Framers were concerned about the co-mingling of executive and legislative functions in the VP office. George Mason was particularly outspoken on this point.
Police Lieutenant in Taser Case Commits Suicide
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/police-lt-in-deadly-taser-case-commits-suicide/?hp
From this blog
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023287.html
Skip,
Yup. By the very nature of the office, the Vice President has both a legislative and executive function. But his executive functions are largely at the discretion of the President. Constitutionally, his role is to sit there until the President dies, casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate in the meantime.
Question to both Sen. Biden and Gov. Palin:
Were you both born stupid? Or did you have to study?
[...] Radley Balko offers a couple here. [...]
Biden just answered the latter question.
A Drug War Question for Joe Biden…
The Agitator, Radley Balko poses the following question for Senator Biden.
Senator Biden, you’ve been one of the Senate’s most ardent drug warriors. You helped create the office of “drug czar”; backed our failed eradication efforts in South Ame…
[...] In some ways, my take is the flip side of Maher’s. I’m against nationalized health care yet I’m pro-vaccination. So, am I all that different from Maher? A bit, because my beef with health care reform is not based on a distrust of government, per se (although the current administration has several ignoble pipsqueaks whose behavior I find…disconcerting). [...]