20090306

This snip from this post at Volokh Conspiracy reminds me:

There is no need to romanticize Clinton. Government growth was constrained on his watch in part because his worst instincts were checked by a Republican Congress, and he in turn checked theirs. As a general rule, divided government leads to limited government.


President Obama appears to me not so much an evil man who smooth-talked his way into "the most powerful office in the world", rather as a convenient patsy shoved into the job by the real evildoers elated to have him at their disposal. (Yes, I mean Congress.)

Mind you, if you look at Barack Obama the law professor, Barack Obama the community organizer, or Barack Obama the Illinois legislator, I concede he looked pretty evil. But today he is merely a conduit for someone else's evil. They pull the strings. He twitches.

I don't particularly miss Bill Clinton's presidency. But I adored the bowel-voiding hysteria of 1994 when the Democrat majority in Congress vanished overnight, and I got a few good chuckles from the divided government that followed.

Given that President Obama seems unable to tie his shoes without some wisp of approval or direction from his handlers in Congress, what sort of President would he be, and over what sort of America (and American economy) would he preside, if 2010 swept his present handlers out of power?

Congress has been the problem all along. If we want to solve the problem, it's not the Presidency we should seek to influence. We need to change the way things are done in Congress.

20090304

Evidence, if you demanded it . . .

. . . that the recipient of 12 years of government schooling, plus a 4-year baccalaureate degree qualifying one for law school, plus law school itself, can still be embarrassingly illiterate:

I’m am [sic] Mr. (x)’s lawyer. This case is currently on appeal. You are not the prosecutor, the judge or a forensic expert. You have noted contacting several people who are potential witnesses in the case and who will be called as witnesses later on in an evidentiary hearing. As a lawyer you should no [sic] that you have no business talking to witnesses when you are not a party to this case. Cease immediately or I will file an ethics complaint with your state bar.... You are a memeber [sic] of the general public you have no right to be demanding that this child’s autopsy or medical records be turned over to you. Again you are neither the DA or the JUdge [sic] in this case.


The [sic]'s are not mine. Found at Volokh Conspiracy.

This is the output of someone practicing law. Would you want this attorney representing you?

Sadly, this attorney is responsible for the defense of someone who was convicted with the help of 'evidence' generated by a charlatan regularly targeted by Radley Balko, whom I admire.