Our dubious Constitution (continued)

[Paul Finkelman]

Or you have a general who constantly tells you you are winning the war 
and it only a matter of a few more weeks, or a few hundred thousand more 
troops to turn the tide.
Or you have a nationsl security advisor that tell you the people of the 
country you invade will welcome you with roses.

Sanford Levinson wrote:

> I know there are problems with the following analogies, but I'd like 
> to be told exactly why they don't work.  They arise in the course of 
> trying to figure out what so many people I respect believe that it's 
> better to have a constitution that requires keeping an incompetent 
> president in office for another two or three years rather than one 
> that risks the political instability attached to a no-confidence 
> procedure that would bounce him from office.  So the analogies are these:
>  
> 1)  You are on the board of a corporation and the CEO has a propensity 
> for making disastrous decisions (e.g., deciding that merging AOL and 
> Time-Warner would be a great idea).   Do you say, "Well, let's give 
> him another couple of y ears.  After all, it's only the investor's 
> money....,  Or "maybe he'll do better next time; after all, a stopped 
> clock is right twice a day."
>  
> 2)  You are the general manager of a baseball team, which has lost a 
> number of games because of clearly questionable decisions by the 
> manager (e.g., leaving a clearly tired pitcher in the game when the 
> heart of the batting order is coming up, remember Grady Little).  Do 
> you say, "Well, perhaps he'll learn"?
>  
> 3)  You are about to undergo open-heart surgery and are told that your 
> surgeon or anesthesiologist has a significantly higher error-rate than 
> others who are available to you.  Do you say, "Well, most of us his 
> patients survive"? 
>  
> 4)  You are deciding what airline to fly.  One of them has a 
> significantly higher delay rate, in addition to a markedly lower rate 
> of maintenance on its planes that has seemingly accounted for several 
> crashes over the past year.  Do you say, "Well, the ticket is $5 
> cheeaper"? 
>  
> Are we so casual about keeping incompetent Chief Executives in office 
> because, at the end of the day, we really don't think it's all that 
> important who is president (which seems counter-intuitive) or because 
> we are really fearful of the consequences of making it easier to 
> bounce him from office (because we may, after all, be bouncing 
> Lincoln).   But isn't this a little bit like investing the family 
> fortune in lottery tickets because, after all, you might hit it big 
> and win a billion dollars?  It's still a stupd thing to do even if you 
> in fact hit the jackpot.   That makes you lucky, not smart.
>  
> sandy
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK   74104-3189

918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)

paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu


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