April 17, 2008 • 5 mins
In U.S. politics, a lame duck is a president who will not be re-elected because he or she has been passed over for election, or already served the maximum two terms. Learn more about the origin of lame duck presidents in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from how Stuff Works dot Com? You're getting smarter? Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark as staff
writer here How Stuff Works dot Com, with me as
always as my trustee editor Chris Palette. Chris, Today, I
(00:22):
want to talk about lame duck presidents. Agreed, absolutely, Okay.
Let me give a little background for some what a
lame duck president is. Lame duck president is basically any
president that has already either not been passed over for
election or has served the both of their terms. And
basically they're just sitting around in office waiting to finish
(00:44):
out the rest of their tenure before the next president
takes over. Correct that is correct? And where did this
come from? Lame duck? Do you want me to explain
that part? Why don't you do that? Let me Basically,
a lame duck original it was a financial term for
somebody who couldn't pay their debt. Our current use of
(01:05):
that term has nothing to do with that anymore. As
I said, it's it's a president who's finished out their term,
and it can also refer to Congress. But there's an
amendment in the Constitution called the lame Duck Amendment, and
it is the amenment absolutely, uh, the twenty Amendment is
the lame duck Amendment, and it was instituted in I
(01:25):
believe nineteen thirty three during the Hoover administration. Basically, what
was going on was members of Congress had thirteen months
in between the time they found out that they were
not reelected and the time they actually left office. Thirteen
months is a really, really long time to do a
lot of damage, basically robbing their constituency blind. Right. Well,
(01:47):
you know, they have the opportunity to use the powers
of office for uh, for all sorts of projects, and
you know, once they're not once they don't feel like
they owe the voters anything anymore. They can they can
vote any way they want to, exactly. They could also
pick the president under certain circumstances, those being you know,
a tie in the electoral college, which frankly I don't
(02:10):
even want to get into. But um, Chris, it seems
like there's somebody out there right now who's a lame duck.
Their names slipping my mind. Can you refresh my memory.
I think you're thinking of President George W. Buck exactly.
That's who it was. Tell us a little bit about
his lame duck status, will you. Well, you know, he's uh,
he's actually been fairly busy during his lame duck period. Um.
(02:31):
You know, I saw that people have been talking about
his presidency being entering the lame duck phase as early
as the first part of two thousand seven. So you know,
if if that's true. Obviously this is subjective thing, but
he would have been a lame duck for you know,
almost half of his second term in office. I heard
that the Associated Press actually tagged him with lame duck
(02:53):
in two thousand four. Wow, we'll see, you know, as
soon as you get elected for your second term. I
guess technically you're you're him. Uh, your lame duckness starts. Um.
But he's been he's been actually pretty active as of
late UM worth the Economic Stimulus Package and UM recently
to UH pushing for a permanent extension of his the
(03:17):
UH Surveillance Package, pushing Congress to to extend that permanently
instead of a temporary extension. He's been very vocal about
about doing that. So he's not he's not just sitting
on his on his hands and waiting for his term
to end. Now. Also one of those little balls with
the raccoon tail that is battery powered and cats like
(03:38):
the plue with that's also very active too. But I
think that that has just about as much of a
chance of pushing legislation through as George Bush does at
this point. Uh, from what I understand and doing some
research for this podcast, I found that, um, it's pretty
much open season on Bush. It seems like he's spent
all of his political currency and uh, suddenly the wolves
(04:00):
are at his door, as it were. I quote David
from who's a former speechwriter, there's no possibility at all
of the president advancing anything that is acceptable to both
the Democrats and the Republicans. Talking about what he'll be
able to do his last term, it looks like nothing. Chris,
what do you think? Well, you know, he's he's only
(04:21):
so powerful anyway as president because the members of Congress
are the ones who have to uh push the bills
across his desk form to sign. So you know, there's
there's only he He can talk all he wants, but
if they don't give him a bill to sign into law.
You know, he can't do anything whether he's a lame
duck or not. Exactly two and I think, uh a
further sign of the president's lame duck status that I
(04:43):
was really surprised to find this out. But Nancy Pelosi,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in July two
thousand seven, flew to Syria to hold talks with the
President of Syria, who Bush was ignoring at the time,
going completely behind the residents back. Now, if that's not
a sign that you're a lame duck, I don't know
(05:04):
what is. How about you? I do think you have
a point there. Okay, well, please please read how Lame
is a Lame Duck President at how stuff works dot com.
It'll change your life. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, this is it how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
(05:28):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready. Are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from how Stuff Works dot Com? You're getting smarter? Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark as staff
writer here How Stuff Works dot Com, with me as
always as my trustee editor Chris Palette. Chris, Today, I
(00:22):
want to talk about lame duck presidents. Agreed, absolutely, Okay.
Let me give a little background for some what a
lame duck president is. Lame duck president is basically any
president that has already either not been passed over for
election or has served the both of their terms. And
basically they're just sitting around in office waiting to finish
(00:44):
out the rest of their tenure before the next president
takes over. Correct that is correct? And where did this
come from? Lame duck? Do you want me to explain
that part? Why don't you do that? Let me Basically,
a lame duck original it was a financial term for
somebody who couldn't pay their debt. Our current use of
(01:05):
that term has nothing to do with that anymore. As
I said, it's it's a president who's finished out their term,
and it can also refer to Congress. But there's an
amendment in the Constitution called the lame Duck Amendment, and
it is the amenment absolutely, uh, the twenty Amendment is
the lame duck Amendment, and it was instituted in I
(01:25):
believe nineteen thirty three during the Hoover administration. Basically, what
was going on was members of Congress had thirteen months
in between the time they found out that they were
not reelected and the time they actually left office. Thirteen
months is a really, really long time to do a
lot of damage, basically robbing their constituency blind. Right. Well,
(01:47):
you know, they have the opportunity to use the powers
of office for uh, for all sorts of projects, and
you know, once they're not once they don't feel like
they owe the voters anything anymore. They can they can
vote any way they want to, exactly. They could also
pick the president under certain circumstances, those being you know,
a tie in the electoral college, which frankly I don't
(02:10):
even want to get into. But um, Chris, it seems
like there's somebody out there right now who's a lame duck.
Their names slipping my mind. Can you refresh my memory.
I think you're thinking of President George W. Buck exactly.
That's who it was. Tell us a little bit about
his lame duck status, will you. Well, you know, he's uh,
he's actually been fairly busy during his lame duck period. Um.
(02:31):
You know, I saw that people have been talking about
his presidency being entering the lame duck phase as early
as the first part of two thousand seven. So you know,
if if that's true. Obviously this is subjective thing, but
he would have been a lame duck for you know,
almost half of his second term in office. I heard
that the Associated Press actually tagged him with lame duck
(02:53):
in two thousand four. Wow, we'll see, you know, as
soon as you get elected for your second term. I
guess technically you're you're him. Uh, your lame duckness starts. Um.
But he's been he's been actually pretty active as of
late UM worth the Economic Stimulus Package and UM recently
to UH pushing for a permanent extension of his the
(03:17):
UH Surveillance Package, pushing Congress to to extend that permanently
instead of a temporary extension. He's been very vocal about
about doing that. So he's not he's not just sitting
on his on his hands and waiting for his term
to end. Now. Also one of those little balls with
the raccoon tail that is battery powered and cats like
(03:38):
the plue with that's also very active too. But I
think that that has just about as much of a
chance of pushing legislation through as George Bush does at
this point. Uh, from what I understand and doing some
research for this podcast, I found that, um, it's pretty
much open season on Bush. It seems like he's spent
all of his political currency and uh, suddenly the wolves
(04:00):
are at his door, as it were. I quote David
from who's a former speechwriter, there's no possibility at all
of the president advancing anything that is acceptable to both
the Democrats and the Republicans. Talking about what he'll be
able to do his last term, it looks like nothing. Chris,
what do you think? Well, you know, he's he's only
(04:21):
so powerful anyway as president because the members of Congress
are the ones who have to uh push the bills
across his desk form to sign. So you know, there's
there's only he He can talk all he wants, but
if they don't give him a bill to sign into law.
You know, he can't do anything whether he's a lame
duck or not. Exactly two and I think, uh a
further sign of the president's lame duck status that I
(04:43):
was really surprised to find this out. But Nancy Pelosi,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in July two
thousand seven, flew to Syria to hold talks with the
President of Syria, who Bush was ignoring at the time,
going completely behind the residents back. Now, if that's not
a sign that you're a lame duck, I don't know
(05:04):
what is. How about you? I do think you have
a point there. Okay, well, please please read how Lame
is a Lame Duck President at how stuff works dot com.
It'll change your life. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, this is it how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
(05:28):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready. Are
you
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