Mario Cuomo coming up on Hairballz

[Stinky The Clown]

I usually don't post things like this, but its Mario .....

[Lucinda]

1. Can someone play by play it? No TV

And I usually dont wanna know what Matthews is saying, but its Mario :)

[eleny]

3. Asked about what he thought of what the Dems are doing

He answered that he's more worried about what they're not doing.

Talking about the power to declare war. Article 1 Sect. 8

[KoKo]

21. He did a magnificent Essay on how Power to Declare War Belongs to Congress

but since Korea, Vietnam weak Congress has passed the power over to the President. The Supreme Court doesn't intervene because it considers it a battle between Congress & President...and so feels it's roll is to let the two sides go at each other.. Cuomo said the "exception to that was in Bush vs. Gore...but we won't get into that."

He said this President has been wrong about EVERYTHING with Iraq from the beginning and so WHY should Congress give him power to start another war? He said the Congress has got to stand up to Bush and force him to come to them to vote on it whether they vote for or against...it's the Constitution and it hasn't been honored and it's time for the Democrats to step forward and force this President to go to them before he does this again.

It was great....I'm just giving you very condensed version. Plain and to the point. Mario always could cut through the political crap and get to the heart of any issue. Haven't seen him around in years. Glad Matthews had him on. Maybe there will be a YOU TUBE of it...it's worth the watch! REALLY!

Edited to add that Cuomo said since KOREA Congress has NOT honored the Constitution!

[liberalla]

32. Thanks for the recap!

:kick: for the Constitution!

[eleny]

2. Thumbs up!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Couple-a 3 thumbs up, in fact.

[malaise]

4. Thank you Mario

Somebody has to show some balls.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Dems should not delegate war power to the president.

[eleny]

16. Not only that - those powers are not delegable

The Constitution doesn't give them the right to give their power over to the president.

Btw, at the outset it was great when he added "stupid" to his laundry list of attributes a president might have. The reason why the Founders gave the power to go to war to Congress and not the president who is just one person.
:+

[LSparkle]

6. He's upset by the behavior of the Dems in Congress

"Our founding fathers knew better than to put the power to declare war in the hands of one man. He might be mad. He might be an egotist. He might be stupid."

HOW ABOUT ALL THREE?????

[spanone]

14. the trifecta!!!

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Knowing Mario, all three is **exactly** what he meant. .......

...... like when he said, a year or three ago, Bush speaks in "simple terms", you knew damn well, right when he said it, he was calling him a simpleton.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. "Ever since WWII, timid people went to war ignoring the constitution"

.... and the congress never interceded and the supremes didn't do their job.

We are in the habit of ignoring the Constitution .... and we can't do that because the CONSTITUTION has not changed.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Oh .... 1992 ..... what could have been. What could have been.

[annabanana]

11. (took too damn long to make up his mind)

I remember how frustrating that was.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Well .... that's one story .....

..... I agree, he waffled ..... as if there was a skeleton in his closet is how it struck me at the time ..... but other stories have circulated as well.

I suspect we'll never know.

[babylonsister]

9. A voice of sanity-is anyone listening? nt

[Stinky The Clown]

10. The FOUNDING FATHERS considered allowing the president to decalr war ..... and said NO

And Mario says .... especially THIS president.

[malaise]

12. Mario was not the first person to remind Tweety about the

constitution but he sure was refreshing.

[eleny]

19. I caught that, too

It makes my hubby nervous when I yell obscenities at the tv.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. I still love this guy

Scary smart and liberal as can be ....... he's one of very few who I think would have been a truly great president but who never made it there.

[Bluebear]

17. Agree 100%

[eleny]

20. Or a fabulous Supreme Court Chief Justice

[TahitiNut]

22. Mario Cuomo is one the biggest repositories of liberal talent the Democrats have ever wasted.

The Democratic Party "mainstream" should be ashamed of itself. "Too liberal." "A New York liberal can't win in the South." The death of a thousand cuts.

The conservo-Dem "establishment" has abandoned the liberal working base over and over and over again. He's just one example. Brilliant. Conscientious.

But the DINO-right has PROVEN, over and over and over again, with Wallace in 1969 and ever since ... that they WILL vote GOP (not just stay home or vote a write-in) if they don't get their way even after holding their breath.

This is just ONE of the reasons I refuse to affiliate with any political party. The self-interest of the powerful 'establishment' types, now flying under the banner of "DLC," has consistently waved the "fuck you" finger to working people and liberals.

Now I'm hearing the projection of Vote DLC or YOU ARE AT FAULT. (The anti-Nader zealots are on drugs!) Man... talk about the filthy pot calling the shiny kettle black!!

There has NEVER been more hypocritical abandonment of the Democratic ("New Deal") base than has been the strategy of the konservo-Dems for over 40 years.

[orpupilofnature57]

23. The first Politician besides R.F.K. that clung to the label Liberal

as a thing of pride instead of embarrassment.

[KoKo]

24. Yep...and, I'd add......

I never could figure out why he faded from the scene. I remember him talking back before Clinton was elected about the closing of our steel mills and the first waves of downsizing and he an incredibile dialog about government telling laid off steel mill workers that they needed to "retrain themselves" to become Computer Programmers! That speech is probably somewhere out there in Google...but it would ring true today...two decades later..

There were rumors that there was something in his past that he didn't run for President and why he took a low profile after Clinton won. I don't know why.... but his ability to take a complicated issue and bring it down to fine points that EVERYONE could understand...was an incredible talent. Tonight he did it again...and I hope that someone will put it on YOU TUBE for the younger ones who don't know who he was our how he spoke.

MARIO!!!! so good to hear him speak again...sigh...

[orpupilofnature57]

25. We were Damn lucky to have him during the Ray-Gun & Poppy year's!

[KoKo]

28. We were indeed...and I'm glad Matthews dragged him out tonight

even though I have a "love/hate" with Tweety....occasionally he does hit a "Home Run."

[orpupilofnature57]

29. me too

[TahitiNut]

31. Well, it's a criminal waste of an outstanding national resource, imho.

He's out of a mold that I don't see anymore. Brilliant, articulate, fully and completely liberal - an advocate of "win-win" and viscerally against the privileges of power and wealth. He's one of the last "New Deal" liberals and it was the party establishment that jettisoned him, not the People.

You and I are close to having the same historical perspectives - we both remember JFK, MLK, LBJ and the rest of the initials. If I were to name the "dream" liberal ticket from the last 35-40 years of wasted/jettisoned talent, it'd be Mario Cuomo and Barbara Jordan. (I don't care which would be on top and I'd put them on the SCOTUS *OR* the Executive.) We were blessed to have them and we should be cursed for not having more of them.

[charlie]

33. Clinton tried to talk him into a seat on the SCOTUS

I was surprised when I learned that, because it was a strange coda to his astonishing fade from public life.

I wholly agree with what you've said about Mario and I'll add another difference he had from facsimile Dems -- he wouldn't run from a fight. And he could charm the socks off an audience while he gutted an opponent. He never did that idiotic "I'm a Dem, but not one of those Dems" simpering, he owned what he was and made the other guy look stupid.

[KoKo]

26. ....

[KoKo]

27. ...

[judaspriestess]

30. so what was tweetys reaction?