The actions of our president systematically provide both the legal and political justifications for similar initiatives undertaken by later presidents.
I saw a Harry Reid statement saying, there's nothing in the Constitution that says the Senate has to act on any presidential nominee. Well, that was back when President Bush was president and vice versa. So this is not a pretty carrying-on at the moment.
You see in Turkey, they had a remarkable success story in building up a democracy. I was in Istanbul for most of the year 1950. That was the year when the government held free and fair election, was defeated and simply withdrew from power and handed it over to the opposition, without precedent in Middle Eastern history. That was a really remarkable time and it was a fascinating and rewarding experience to be there at that time.
For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.
I love Obama, and I love the fact that it's a black president of the United States of America, but he's not the first black president. Robert Mugabe is a black president, too, so let's not get to talking about precedents being set.
We have the precedent of Collin Powell ten years ago, when he showed the evidence, it was false, and it was forged.
Every four years in the presidential election, some new precedent is broken.
I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.
Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.
If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else - fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage and patriotism - then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by his predecessors.
Every presidential candidate for decades has released his tax returns, and I've released 33 years of my tax returns. The American people deserve to know about our taxes. And so Donald Trump is standing in the way of precedent that goes back on both sides of aisle Democrats and Republicans, and he clearly has something that he doesn't want us to see.
It is contrary to political precedent for the voters to kick out an administration in time of prosperity.
