Birdnow's Aviary

November 22, 2020

WaPo Through the Looking Glass

Timothy Birdnow

The Media has gone mad and we have yet more proof the Washington Post is immoral and intellectually bankrupt.

From the article:

President Trump continued Friday to deny the results of the election, pressuring state officials in Michigan and Georgia to overturn the will of voters and increasing fears that he might refuse to cede power to President-elect Joe Biden.

But those looking to the nationâ€™s Founders, or the Constitution they framed, for answers to such a crisis will come up empty-handed. There is nothing in the Constitution about what to do if a president refuses to step down when his term expires, according to three historians and a constitutional law professor.

"No, the framers did not envisage a president refusing to step down or discuss what should be done in such a situation,â€ Princeton historian Sean Wilentz said. "Thereâ€™s obviously nothing in the Constitution about it.â€

Duhhhh....

First, President Trump is trying to FOLLOW the Constitution. He's going to court, exactly as he should. He is not simply stating he won't leave. He IS stating he won and had it stolen. Who is refusing to follow the Constitution?

And this business of no mechanism in place is purest sophistry. Congress holds the purse strings; how can Trump refuse to leave when he will have no money to enforce his orders?

The College of Electors meets to elect the President and their word is the law of the land. It is NOT the popular vote on election day. When the Electoral College votes and IF Biden is elected then Biden is the President. There is no way around that, and if Trump would somehow refuse to leave then President Biden could order federal agents to bodily evict him from the White House.

This is beyond stupid.

And of course the media and Democrats began talking about how Trump wouldn't leave well before this election, and they did that precisely because they knew they were going to cheat him out of the Presidency an wnnted to lay the groundwork in the public mind. They wanted to be able to say "see!" when Trump fought back against the swindle.

This article continues:

"Though not necessarily tied to an election loss, "there was a lot of discussion of the possibility that a president with control of the Army might refuse to relinquish power,â€ said Michael McConnell, a constitutional law professor at Stanford and author of the new book "The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution.â€"

But while the Army is under civilian control that does not mean they owe PERSONAL loyalty to the President (and it was one reason why the Founders had no provision for a standing army). The fact is, once his term has expired Mr. Trump will no longer be the Commander in Chief and the generals will not obey him. Their commander will be Joe Biden.

The only way the military would support a President is if he were one of them AND had purged all of the career generals and higher ups and replaced them with men totally, blindly loyal. How likely is that? These military guys swear their allegiance to the Constitution, not the man.

The article finishes:

"So why didnâ€™t the Founders plan for this particular scenario, of a president simply denying that he had lost an election? Because they couldnâ€™t even fathom it, Engel said.

"They couldnâ€™t fathom two things: a person who had become president who was so utterly lacking in classical virtue that they would deign or dare to put their own interests above the unity of the country. And the second thing is, I think they couldnâ€™t fathom how any president who would so vividly display disdain for the unity of the country, and mock and undermine the legitimacy of American democracy, why that person [wouldnâ€™t have] already been impeached and removed from office.â€

Which I suppose they mean Donald Trump. But who was it who tried to overthrow this President from the moment he won? Who is it lacking in classical virtues here? Who is openly stealing the election? Who is undermining our system? President Trump is following the rules here. He has every right to challenge this as there is considerable evidence he was robbed. If Trump isn't following the rules then neither was Al Gore in 2000.

The media's hatred for this man is astonishing. It is only rivaled by their monstrous stupidity.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:32 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 The constitution not only has no provision for a standing army, it expressly forbids one.
"No such [expense] authorization may be for more than two years." Congress, of course, violates that provision on a very regular basis.

Posted by: Bill H at November 22, 2020 12:00 PM (vMiSr)

2 Excellent point Bill. Yes, they do.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 23, 2020 06:55 AM (ovXCa)

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