News we can all use: Romney, Hillary, and Japanese Schoolgirls

[elfs]

First, if you're living in a cave, John McCain has become the nominee on the Republican Side, as the Mittster drops out of the race. I get the feeling there was an awful lot of pressure on poor Mitt up to this point, mostly because the party really, really needed McCain to start making his case, looking pretty and calm, while Clinton and Obama continue to race against each other in the Democratic slog.

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Secondly, Hillary Clinton has joined McCain, Huckabee, and Romney in refusing to pledge to respect and restore the Constitution. Ron Paul and all of the other Democrats have signed on to either the conservative American Freedom Agenda or the liberal American Freedom Campaign, both of which call for more or less the same thing. Here's the conservative version:

The American Freedom Agenda's (AFA) mission is twofold: the enactment of a cluster of statutes that would restore the Constitution's checks and balances as enshrined by the Founding Fathers; and, making the subject a staple of political campaigns and of foremost concern to Members of Congress and to voters and educators. Especially since 9/11, the executive branch has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power, and has repeatedly claimed that the President is the law. The constitutional grievances against the White House are chilling, reminiscent of the kingly abuses that provoked the Declaration of Independence.

That Hillary won't sign on is a sure sign that something is wrong with her view of Presidential power.

[Edit: As blaisepascal points out, the above about Hillary is completely untrue, and I've already pushed my annoyance at being misled from a usually reliable source upstream.]

[Edit 2: Ed Brayton has corrected his statement. Good man.]

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And finally, a meat packing company in Japan is seeking to copyright the term 女子高生, Joshikosei, or "Japanese Schoolgirl," and is planning a line of "Japanese schoolgirl meat products" (paging Wednesday Addams, Wednesday Addams to the white courtesy telephone, please) including gyoza, meat pies, and more.

Yum.

Comments

[blaisepascal]

The link about Clinton not signing the pledge was dated 2007-10-03. The American Freedom Campaign's press page has a link to a press release dated the very next day (2007-10-04) saying Clinton signed.

There may be reasons to not like Clinton, but easily disproved old news isn't one of them.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I've edited it to make it clear, and pointed people at my (ahem) usually reliable source.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Then you might want to read the upstream source and reconsider whether to use them again as any kind of source. I know that you've read The Nation before, but I have to tell you, John Nichols didn't strike me in his writing as a particularly non-biased journalist (or even attempting to be).

"The often embarrassingly cautious Obama campaign had been slow to sign on to the pledge."

"Recognizing the value of distinguishing their candidate from Clinton, the front runner in most polls, they got Obama to sign the pledge."

This turned from a piece of journalism reporting about an incident, to an editorial making judgment calls about people. Tsk, tsk.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I was referring to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. He's the one whom I usually consider reliable.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

[...] "Japanese schoolgirl meat products" [...]

Judging from the commercial success of Girl Scout cookies, Japanese schoolgirl meat products is likely to be a huge success.

I mean, who doesn't like a Japanese schoolgirl?

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Is it made from real Japanese Schoolgirls?

[tagryn]

If what's in the POTUS oath of office isn't good enough to restrict a President's actions re: Constitutionality, then having made some pledge in the middle of a campaign isn't going to make much of a difference, either.

In Hillary's case, except for her more rabid partisans, I think everybody else takes her signing this as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge "we all really know what she's going to do, but if signing this sways a few votes, hey, go for it; nobody's going to remember once she's in office anyway." kind of thing. Expediency in the name of obtaining power is a hallmark of the Clinton playbook, why should this be any different?

If she'd actually sponsored legislation on this, or made it a cornerstone of her platform, I'd be more inclined to believe it. But since Constitutionality isn't even mentioned on her campaign website under "issues"...well, color me skeptical.