World Government Watch
| Mon Jan. 5, 2009 9:57 AM PST
WORLD GOVERNMENT WATCH....John Bolton and John Yoo complain 
today in the New York Times that Barack Obama might be tempted to overstep his constitutional bounds by sidestepping the requirement that all treaties be approved by two-thirds of the Senate:
On a broad variety of issues — many of which sound more like domestic rather than foreign policy — the re-emergence of the benignly labeled "global governance" movement is well under way in the Obama transition.
Candidate Obama promised to "re-engage" and "work constructively within" the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Will the new president pass a new Kyoto climate accord through Congress by sidestepping the constitutional requirement to persuade two-thirds of the Senate?
Steve Benen notes the irony of hearing this argument from John Yoo, who, back when he worked in the Bush administration, was probably the biggest booster of unfettered executive power this side of Dick Cheney. Beyond that, though, I'm a little puzzled about what he and Bolton are even talking about here. Will Obama try to approve the Kyoto Treaty with only a majority vote of Congress? That's easy: no he won't. How about a followup treaty? Not likely. On the other hand, might Obama introduce climate legislation that binds the United States to goals that are similar to Kyoto? Sure, he might. But that's not a treaty, it's just domestic legislation.
Very odd. But toward the end of the piece Bolton and Yoo make it pretty clear that they aren't especially concerned with constitutional delicacies anyway. They just don't like treaties, full stop. But then, conservatives never have, have they?
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Bolton strikes me as little more than a conceited, hateful clown. Yoo, on the other hand, is dangerous. It seems to me, that if he were living in Munich in the 1930s, he would have been proud to?(Goodwin's Law reference)?. I find him a creepy man.
Bolton/Yoo are saying that they don't like treaties that they don't like. Of course free trade treaties aren't in that category.
As an unplanned experiment, I read the op-ed before seeing who the authors were. It actually made sense (in terms of what should be done, if not in terms of what's reasonable to fear Obama and the Dems will do) until they hand-waved away objections to circumventing the Constitutional requirements for ratifying treaties that they do like (mostly so-called free trade). That's when they lost all credibility.
Bolton strikes me as little more than a conceited, hateful clown. Yoo, on the other hand, is dangerous. It seems to me, that if he were living in Munich in the 1930s, he would have been proud to (Goodwin's Law reference) . I find him a creepy man.
When will it end? I don't want to hear anything from these two. I thinks it's funny how they act like everyone cares what they think. The whole bunch of them have been completely discredited world wide.
It's sickening to see Rove put on TV. Why aren't they in jail? You know if they had been smoking pot while plotting to pilliage the country they would be in jail now.
What a country!
Wasn't that G. Washington who warned about entangling alliances?
I don't see any problem with Obama making treaties as we are at war and the unitary executive has full power over the nation and is not bound by law.
Here's George on Israel.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm
"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
Submitted by Maynard Handley (not verified) on Mon Jan. 5, 2009 1:54 PM PST.
I imagine Bolton and Yoo are referring to
www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2008/12/climate_change_treaties_bring_your_...
which claims that there are ways to get effective treaties passed using only 60 senate votes rather than 67.
As for the rest of their whine about how important it is to follow the constitution [as imagined in their minds], yeah suck on it.
This is the best comic duo since Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Burns and Shriver, and Phil Rizzuto and Bill White.
What's next, Wolfie against foreign intervention?
To call these two douchbag's is to insult any real douchebag's.
Paging The Hague... The Hague!
Per usual these two are to selective philosophy as Folgers is to nuts!
When ANY policy aligns with their imperial executive ,good. Against imperial exec ,bad.
John Yoo should be put into the Wayback Machine to visit his homeland in 1980.
"President Chun Doo-hwan wants to speak with you John. Seems there is a photo of you at Gwanju on May 18.
Joining the incident is very serious John."
Or maybe they decided to
Submitted by louis vuitton replica (not verified) on Mon Aug. 3, 2009 8:05 AM PDT.
Or maybe they decided to focus on their children, you know, the ones getting weird phonecalls from all hours by various senators trying to confirm every deduction in the last ten years...tiffany jewelry
