Dec 19, 2007

Putin and Clinton

Vladimir Putin, TIME Magazine's Person of the year, has taken a lot of heat for his none-to-subtle approach to navigating around the term limits imposed upon his power.

He has recently accepted the post of Prime Minister if his hand picked Presidential candidate wins the election. First deputy prime-minister and chairman of Gazprom Dmitry Medvedev is expected to be carried in on the popularity of Putin. Putin has thrown lip service that he will not tinker with the Constitution, nor will the responsibilities of Prime Minister and President be switched. Far from it, I'd venture to say that Medvedev will just hand it all over to Putin, rather than swapping jobs.

Putin has found legal maneuvers around the term limits. He could dissolve the government. He could re-write the Constitution (ala Hugo Chavez). Or he could resign and then re-run for President. The path he has chosen seems more politically pleasing to the Russian people and to the rest of the world. It's still a power grab, but it is legal.

Wow. Power grab right in front of everyone. No one bats an eye. Everyone is just letting it happen. Gosh, it's great that can't happen in the United States... right?

Hold on. Question posed: Is Bill Clinton doing the same exact same thing? Is Bill running for a third term, without being on the ballot? Isn't this a blatant, illegal power grab from the American people? The pretense is that Hillary is running for President.

Maybe.

However, seeing Bill out on the campaign trail so much and so often talking about himself rather than his wife, why aren't more people speculating the unconstitutionality and blatant power grab in front of everyone's eyes? He is popular, you know?

With the changes in the Hillary campaign from Inevitable to Question Mark, perhaps, maybe, eyes are opening? Maybe it's time that real hardball questions be raised? How can Hillary run on 'Change' and not be laughed off the stage? Hopefully someone will bring some tomatoes to the next Clinton rally and show her the door?

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