And for those gentlemen, and also for those sharing their viewpoint, the constitution is just a piece of paper, nothing more. You can twist it any way you like. I understand that what I am about to say, will set many of my critics indignant, but I’ll have to live with that, actually I am quite used to it all. I would like to compare president Putin with the first president of the USA George Washington. But in one aspect only, that. Washington had been elected for two terms, and when the time came for third term, he said: “We did not get rid of the English king to make our own.” And refused to run for third term. And by that he created a precedent, which was not violated in America, well, for almost 140 years. It was first breached only by president Roosevelt at the beginning of World War II, and the amendment to the constitution, the so-called twenty-second, was ratified in 1952, when the number of terms was limited.
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Closing speech (27 October 2007)Vladimir Posner
» Vladimir Posner - all quotes »
We have a constitution, where it is plainly stated, that a person can serve as president for two consecutive terms. That doesn’t mean never afterwards. After four years he is welcome to try to run for president again. And mind, when I told this a major American figure just the other day, he said: “Your constitution is right, and ours is wrong, because we have it thus: two terms, that’s it, and never again. For instance, if we had it as in your constitution, now Bill Clinton would stand for president, and he would have won.” And basically I think that this is the right viewpoint, because if after a four-year break a person can be elected once more, well, obviously, he deserves it, that’s what I make of it. After all, four years is a big stretch of time. So, I guess president Putin shares this viewpoint as well. That is why he does not alter the constitution, he firmly refuses to do so. I am sorry to say that not all people share this viewpoint. Well, Nikita Mikhalkov, for one, or Zurab Tsereteli, who wrote to president and by that said to him, as it were: don’t you care for that constitution, change it, then go ahead and stay for third term. And speaker of Federation Council, head of “Spravedlivaya Rossiya” party Sergey Mironov is expostulating with president on not altering, but outskirting the constitution, and still staying for third term.
Vladimir Posner
President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
Alberto Gonzales
I'm beginning to understand how Americans must have felt living under King George. What was that again - no taxation without representation? The War of Independence wasn't America against England. It was Englishmen resisting the oppressive regime of their autocratic German king - asserting their human rights, in modern parlance. America may be a melting pot now, but it began with a defence of age-old English liberties; liberties that were promptly written into the Constitution - something we never got around to doing in Britain, so we no longer enjoy the same liberties Americans do. We don't have a constitution. We don't have a First Amendment. What we have, and what the whole of Europe has, is the Lisbon Treaty, a kind of top-down constitution that has been imposed on us against our will. And, unlike the American Constitution which empowers the people, the European constitution disempowers the people, and empowers the unelected bureaucrats and career politicians for whose sole benefit it was created.
Pat Condell
Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress.
Joseph (Joe) Biden
I do not know how Vladimir Putin will be esteemed by the future history, but I have no doubt that among his successes and advantages for Russia historians shall absolutely note the fact of his not altering the constitution, for he created a precedent. And afterwards, no matter who might become president, it shall be extremely difficult to alter the constitution exactly on that point. Extremely difficult.
Vladimir Posner
Posner, Vladimir
Postel, Jon
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