As the President presses his tux and his luck to pick up
the Nobel on Thursday, I am reminded of one of my late
grandfather’s favorite jokes. Although he died when I was eleven,
he managed to tell it to me three or four times.
A fellow drove across the border from San Diego into
Tijuana in a big yellow Cadillac every Saturday. Customs
officials were convinced he was a smuggler. He and his car were
searched repeatedly to no result. Week in, week out, he made his
journey to the chagrin of the inspectors. After one of the
Customs men retired and asked the man off the record to satisfy
his curiosity: “What contraband have you been transporting all
this time?”
“Simple. I was exporting yellow Cadillacs to Mexico
tax-free. They are huge favorites over there. Every Sunday I
crossed back on foot and nobody noticed.”
Similarly, while the punditocracy and the commentariat, the
intelligentsia and the cognoscenti all searched for
accomplishments to justify the award, only one kept her eye on
the prize itself. That would be Claudia Monteverdi of Argentina,
granddaughter of retired Senator Grigorio Monteverdi and herself
a Congressional candidate. This former Miss Latin America is a
long-time friend of this column and its de facto
South American correspondent. Among other achievements, she
has a thoroughgoing command of the U.S. Constitution and the
Federalist Papers.
Immediately following the announcement, Claudia began to
make the case that it was unconstitutional for Obama to accept
the prize. Article I of the Constitution provides that “No person
holding any office of Profit or Trust… shall, without the consent
of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of
any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or Foreign State.” The
Nobel is a private fund, but the awardees are determined by
members of the Norwegian Parliament.
In short, Claudia maintained, the government of Norway is
slipping a big check to the President of the United States. Her
case is bolstered, I might add, by the clear agenda the bribe is
intended to encourage, i.e. the choosing in all instances of
policies deemed peaceful, peaceable, peace-oriented and/or
peace-inducing by the pacifist international left. Once again,
those who admire this country from foreign shores have a truer
sense of its founding vision than many of its own meandering
children.
NOW HER CALL has found an echo in the person of Tad
Armstrong of Edwardsville, Missouri. Mr. Armstrong is an attorney
who founded the ELL (Earn it, Learn it, or Lose it) Constitution
Clubs. In an
op-ed piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
this weekend he confirmed the view that Nobel’s dynamite is
blowing up the Constitution.
He adds a new wrinkle for folks who regard appeals to the
Constitution as quaint and anachronistic. He cites a law passed
by Congress in 1966, now numbered as Section 7342 of the U.S.
Code, which declares that absent specific consent of Congress any
gift or decoration received by a sitting President must be
accepted on behalf of the United States and turned over to the
Treasury.
Yes, indeed, the disposition of the prize money is not in
the hands of President Obama, despite his magnanimous but vague
assertion it will be forwarded to charitable causes. Our founders
were concerned such gifts might serve as a means of influencing
our leaders to make choices in the interest of other
sovereigns.
Then again, perhaps all this is absurd. Who would be so
overwrought as to suspect a President might be moved to accept
European attitudes at the expense of American ones? That he might
give more credence to conventional wisdom than to common sense?
That he could be swayed by leftist banalities into abandoning an
appreciation of American exceptionalism? That he could be moved
to regurgitate the pap of Marxist professors in major
addresses?
Who would be mean-spirited enough to imagine a President
might be seduced into believing America guilty of torture? Of
arrogance? Of overusing the resources of the world? Of damaging
the physical planet by its consumption and industry? Of
interfering into local affairs in South America and the Middle
East? Of causing Iranian unrest by something the CIA did in the
1950s? Of causing Palestinians to bridle by favoring Israel
overmuch?
The idea that giving an American President a few bucks
could make him do and say such things is offensive. In point of
actual fact, this goof was saying all those things without
demanding anything more in return than flattery. So the Nobel is
not a cause, but we are still in plenty of trouble. Please cry
for me, Argentina.
