Advice & Consent

As we all count down the days until George Bush fucking leaves Tuesday's Inauguration, I keep stumbling across the same two questions. One, can I take the day off? And two, how come every single big appointment made by a president is grilled by a Congressional committee, yet an NFL team can hire coaches and not hire GMs without any oversight whatsoever?

As to the first, I'm pretty sure the answer is no. I took a half-day when we voted in Colorado's caucus in February, I ditched for nearly a week to attend the convention in Denver, and I was absent on both Election Day and the day before. I'm certain that if I play hooky over this election one more time I'll be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

But then I read this and wondered if I found my loophole. Either that or my caucasianality is once again a handicap to my social advancement.

Oh well, there's always my second idea--hauling Pat Bowlen before an elected council of Bronco fans and forcing him to testify under oath as to why the Denver Broncos are stuck in the mud...

Hold up there, mister, I can hear you saying. It's his team, can't he run it the way he sees fit? To which I say of course, up until the moment he asked me, the Colorado taxpayer, to buy his team a new house. At that point it became our team, and I demand more say in its assembly than the right to buy a ticket and a sweatshirt and yell.

I say any team that demands public financing for its facilities has to allow its fans to vote for a board of directors. This board gets to subpoena team employees and demand explanations for boneheaded moves. And every time a big hire is made, the board has to sign off on it.

In the U.S. Constitution, it's spelled out like this:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

If you don't like it, buy your own God damned stadium.