Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food
Obama Meet Petard
Constitutional law professor Steven G. Calabresi writes:
Barack Obama is too young to be president. Yes I know he is 46 and the Constitution sets the presidential age qualification at 35 or higher, but Obama has said that we ought not to interpret the Constitution woodenly and formalistically. Perhaps we should look deeper at the presidential age limit. If we do, we will find that Obama really is too young to be president.
Many on the legal left these days advocate purposive, pragmatic interpretation of the Constitution. The idea is you look behind the text to see what function it played for the framers and you then translate the text so it will play that same function for us today. What does this mean for the presidential age qualification?
In 1789, the average life expectancy of a newborn was about 40 years, compared with about 78 today. A lot of this was because of infant mortality, but in 1789, even the average life expectancy of every man who reached age 18 was only about 47. This suggests that at best a 35-year-old age limit in 1789 might have functioned then about the way a 55- or 60-year-old age qualification would function today. On this account Obama may be old enough to drive and buy a glass of white wine, but he has a way to go before he can run for president.
Others on the legal left, such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, argue that in choosing between different interpretations of the Constitution, we should select the one that will produce the best consequences. This method too suggests that Obama should be understood to be constitutionally barred from serving as president by reason of his age. We have had three presidents out of 43 who were younger when they took office than Obama would be on Jan. 20, 2009: Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt. All of them committed serious rookie blunders because they were too young.
It’s a clever jab at left theories of constitutional interpretation. Go read the whole thing.
Tony, maybe you should take a look at the entry “irony” in Webster’s. You’re sounding like a humorless high priest of the cult of Saint Obama.
And by the same logic the strict constructionists are only guaranteed a right to black powder weaponry and freedom of speech in print and the town square. Sorry about the automatic pistols, I kind of like them, but I won’t shed a tear for conservative talk radio. As for rookie errors, what’s Bush’s excuse?
This article (about the age of the president) should not be in the Constitution in the first place. It’s an antique and serves no purpose, except for constitutional law professors engaging in a pointless debate.
Who knows Obama’s age? According to Jeff Dobbs, the messiah refuses to release his birth certificate. I wonder why? Something to hide, no doubt.
McCain v. Obama
Compass v. Wind Sock
In 2004, when Bush lost the election because everyone (who knew anything) knew he lost the Iraq War, and the economy was worse than the Great Depression. Sound familiar? Same same. Then, Kommander kerry never released his 1971 involuntary (other-than-honorable discharge - he’d shredded it) DD 214. He released a 1978 DD 214 that a board of Carter admin. officials reproduced for him.
Not clever. Not funny. There has never been a funny law professor, and there never will be.
If this is supposed to be some kind of pragmatic argument, it’s belied by the actual facts.
John Adams lived to be 90. Thomas Jefferson lived to be 83. James Madison lived to be 85.
Of the first twenty Presidents, only three died before they were 60, and two of those (Lincoln and Garfield) died of gunshot wounds, not illness.
Next entry: Jindal's Out
Previous entry: Obama is to Politics as Disco is to Music
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Somebody call Webster’s and tell’em the definition of “clever” has changed.
While you’re at it, call Calabresi and tell him that according to his “clever” logic, McCain has been dead for about 25 years.
-- TP