Track Coach
I am a high school track official. There’s a basic principle for that job: know the rules. And I do, sprint exchanges to shotput weights, cross country flags to high jump markings, pole weight labeling to hurdle infractions. It’s the job. And I’ve been an official for over thirty years.
I became one, because I was a track coach. I thought that I needed to know the rules as a coach, and the best way was to become an official, pass the test, and participate in all of the rules meetings where, like Hassidic scholars, we pick apart each rule and apply it to varying scenarios. When I had a question as a coach, I had the advantage of “knowing the book”. When a serving official made a questionable call, I didn’t “get crazy”. I simply said, show me in “the book” where it says that you can do that. I usually won the argument.
Shocked, I Say
There’s very little that President Trump can say or do that shocks me anymore. After more than a decade of Trump’s ascendance, I’m used to the lying and creative reasoning, the “everybody says” and “no one knows” to back up his odd positions. But I was surprised with a statement Trump made over and over on his Sunday interview with Kristin Welker of NBC News.
When she asked him what the Constitution says about his proposed actions, his answer was: “Well, I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer, but I have really good lawyers to advise me”.
The Presidential Oath is the only one prescribed by the US Constitution. The wording is plain, even though it was written almost two-hundred and forty years ago:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
There’s a phrase from the movie Ocean’s Eleven that’s currently in vogue: “You had one job to do”. The President of the United States, according to the oath, really has one job: preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Wouldn’t someone seeking the highest office have, at least, read the “rule book”?
Pope of America
(including Canada and Greenland)
I know, I know; some think that Trump is being disingenuous. They think that Trump knows full well what the Constitution says about things like “two terms”, or “due process”, or “legislative powers”. But I’m willing to take him at his words, and his actions. He doesn’t seem to know the US Constitution, nor does he care. The Constitution clearly defines the process of establishing a “law”, including the detailing of the powers of the Congress in the process. But Trump is using executive orders like he was the “Pope” of America (which his own White House has proffered). Trump issues “edicts”, as if from God’s word, without reference to Congressional oversight or powers.
He doesn’t understand what due process is. He equates it with his own experience; the millions of dollars of legal fees he spent to stall out the justice system until he could run for office again. The President thinks that giving due process to migrants, means giving each one a “trial”, like the one he sat (and slept and farted) through in New York City last year. (He was convicted on 34 felony counts, our first “Felon President”).
For our own edification, due process in the immigration area may just be a judge hearing from the migrant and from the United States, and making an immediate decision. For example, Mr. Garcia, sent to a beyond-maximum security prison in El Salvador with no notice or process, was in the United States under the order of a Federal judge. He was given due process, and granted “temporary protected status”. The violation was not by Mr. Garcia, it was by the Department of Homeland Security.
Scary Concept
And the President doesn’t seem to know that the 22nd Amendment is explicitly clear.
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Instead, he seems to think he can make some “choice” in the matter of running for a third term.
He either hasn’t read the rule book, the Constitution, or he doesn’t care what it says. That’s a pretty scary concept – kind of a like a coach who doesn’t know the rules of his own “sport”.
Only this is a whole lot worse.
