King George

Rep. David Dreier of California was on Crossfire yesterday, and the conversation was about repealing the "Arnold" amendment requiring the President to be born in the US.  At the very end, while Novakula was going to break, you can hear Dreier say, over him, "and we also want to repeal the 22nd Amendment too..."  There's no other reference to it, and while it did make the transcript, it's clear he gets cut off. But he said it.

What's the 22nd Amendment? That's the one that mandates two terms for the President of the United States.

And a diarist at Kos has noticed that this amendment has been entered into the legislative arena:

23. H.J.RES.24 : Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.
Sponsor: Rep Hoyer, Steny H. [MD-5] (introduced 2/17/2005)      Cosponsors (4)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: 2/17/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

This kind of legislation may get passed around all the time, but with this President pursuing the War on Terror with an endless timetable, and all that talk about "not changing horses midstream," it's worthwhile to know that this is far more real than most Americans believe. I think it's the least of our worries (it simply takes too long to get a Constitutional amendment passed in time for Bush to run in '08), but it's important to know just what's going on up on the Hill.