Obama and Halloween (This Is Funny)

I’m following Mr. Eichenberger and posting some humor on Friday. I originally heard this on the Rush Limbaugh show and it is fantastic. I could only find it as a youtube video but the effect is the same. Enjoy!

It’s What The Founding Fathers Wanted

From 3:00-3:30

This is more of a personal rant than a serious commentary on politics. Today I was watching a scene from the “View” because they had Academy Award Winning Actor, Richard Dreyfuss on talking about his new movie “W.”(I am a big Dreyfuss fan). But as the conversation between Dreyfuss and the hosts moved on they began talking about politics and the issue came up whether the executive branch should be stronger than the legislative and judicial or vice-versa.

Dreyfuss begins speaking of Dick Cheney’s (whom he plays in “w”) view of the Executive branch and how he believed it should be stronger than the other branches. To this, one of the “View” hosts replies “Which is the opposite of the founding fathers.” After agreement from Dreyfuss, the conversation moves on.

The thing that makes me mad about all of this is that more and more on television the phrase “that’s what the founding fathers wanted” (or something similar) is just thrown around without giving any factual evidence to support it. In fact, this issue of the power of the executive branch was one of the key intellectual theories that divided our founding fathers. The federalist party believed in a strong, central executive branch where the anti-federatlists (republicans) believed in a stronger representation of the people through their elected officials (Congress).

The point I am trying to make is not to believe someone who says “that’s what the founding fathers wanted” unless they provide proof of the statement along with the founding father who said it. In most cases, it will only be a few founding fathers that believed in the proposed statement and most likely, it will be an issue that was divided federalist vs. republican. So always ask for the truth and never just accept a statement because supposedly our founders believed it. Our founders were highly educated men with many different views on life and politics. The miracle of our country’s origin is that they were able to come together and create one government from many different influences. This is could be another possible meaning for “E pluribus unum” but I can’t say for sure, it may not have been what the founding fathers meant.

“Colin, What Happened?!”

I know that it has been over a month since my last post (in an election year, too!) and for that I apologize.

The one event of last week that I have not been able to get out of my mind is the endorsement of Senator Barack Obama from Colin Powell. After I saw him endorse Senator Obama, I was dumbfounded and could not understand how he, of all people, could endore Obama. I have a theory on why this is the case.

Personally, I think it is part of a power game. Senator Obama has offered Powell a cabinet position if he wants one: this will give Senator Obama a chance to show how he is uniting democrats and republicans within his administration and it will keep Powell influential (and in power) within political circles. This is the only reason that makes sense why a man whose career has been defined by serving conservative leaders would turn and support a liberal.

Now Powell did give a few reasons why he was supporting Senator Obama, but a few of them I find hard to believe. (1)The first was that with Governor Palin coming on to the Republican ticket, it had gone too far to the right for him. Too far to the right? Powell was the National Security Advisor for President Reagan!

But more importantly, we have Senator McCain on our ticket. Does anyone else but me remember the constant criticism he got during the primaries for not be conservative enough? This concept of having a representative from both sides of the party is called balancing the ticket and has been occuring since the birth of our nation. You bring in moderate and a conservative to win both sects of the party in hope of more votes.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have a great deal of respect for General Powell and I wish him the best with the rest of his life. I just think he made a terrible mistake. But we’ll see…

-J. Heffley