A friend sent me an article written by Garrison Keillor (in case you live under a rock, he of “A Prairie Home Companion” fame). The article is “With your permission, I shall give a short speech“.
You should read it. To induce you to perhaps do that, here’s an excerpt:
… skipping the news lets you ignore a president who, as the British writer Nate White points out, “has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace” and now, in a national crisis, shows himself to be an ignorant bumbler and con artist focused on weeding out non-yes-men in the White House.
The Founders never considered this. They provided for impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors but not for blinkered stupidity. So we must depend on the heroes in our midst, the hospital workers and truck drivers and grocery clerks and crucial employees, the people the Queen thanked in her speech, to get us through the next few weeks or months until, God help us, the rate of infection declines and life can resume.
3 Comments
The purge Trumpf is committing is a High Crime under old English Law, the reference used by the framers. Original Intent.
I remember that this is was supposed to be one of the reasons behind the electoral college–namely, that just in case the people elect an idiot, the electoral college can step in and say, “No, I don’t think so.”
Or am I wrong here?
Peter, it was much worse than that. The founders didn’t trust the people to elect a president at all, and didn’t trust them to elect Senators either. It was up to the states to pick who they wanted to represent them, in any way they wanted.