President Barack Obama, bolstered by bravura on his rousing tour through Africa, believes he could be not just the first black president and the first Kenyan-American president, but also the first to serve more than two terms since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“I think if I ran again I could win, but I can’t,” he said in a speech on Tuesday to the African Union in Addis Ababa.
Surely he’s still pining for a Congress that isn’t strangleheld by Republicans still vowing to sabotage his legislative agenda by doing what they do best – nothing at all.
And go figure: It was a Republican, Thomas Dewey, who, after having had enough of watching Roosevelt build something like a real safety net, preached the idea of the 22nd Amendment to boot popular presidents out of office after two terms. But Thomas Dewey actually called for it near the end of his (losing) campaign to keep Roosevelt from winning reelection to a fourth term. Roosevelt won that fourth term, but died after just four months, leaving the 22nd Amendment behind.
Seems Obama’s got the support of the electorate right now, too, with a recent CNN/OBN poll showing majority favorability for the second month running.
“There’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving,” Obama said. “But the law is the law, and no person is above the law, not even the president.”
Just one “popular” president since Roosevelt was serious when announcing that he would fight to repeal the 22nd Amendment: Ronald Reagan. The Gipper’s words (pre-approved as was the apparent agreement during both of his terms by Dick Cheney and George Bush):
“This is the only office that is elected by all the people. I think that is an infringement on the democratic rights of the people. And now that I’m out of office, so that they can’t accuse me of wanting to do it for myself, I’m going to see if I can’t mobilize the people to demand the repeal of that Amendment. It is an invasion of their democratic rights to vote for whoever they want to vote for and for however long.”
So where’s the petition now, you ask, to repeal this thing? Right here.
