A constant refrain from the left, ever since he announced his candidacy for president of the United States, has been that George W. Bush is stupid. No, not just stupid, but stoopid.

So, in the effort to maintain balance, I'm going to highlight some of the statements by some of his Democratic Party opponents (especially presidential candidates) that would be met with howls of outrage, snickers and guffaws if they were uttered by Bush.

The first entry in what I'm sure will be a continuing series, comes from former House minority leader Rep. Dick Gephardt. (Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the heads-up.)

"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," Gephardt said.

Talk about the horrible job our educational system is doing today. I was taught in a public school that the only ways to overrule the Supreme Court are to pass a new law (if the Court says that a problem with an existing law can be solved that way), or if something is found to violate the Constitution, you can pass an Amendment.

Wow. I bet former President Clinton is just kicking himself in the butt right now. When the Supreme Court said he had to testify in the Paula Jones case, he could have just issued an executive order saying that he didn't have to. Then he wouldn't have had to commit perjury and he wouldn't have been impeached!

Former President Richard Nixon could have just issued an executive order saying that he didn't have to release any recordings he'd made!

Gephardt's statement came during a candidate forum sponsored by shakedown artist Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH coalition, so Gephardt was obviously in full-pander mode.

You can find the C-SPAN video here (RealOne Player Required). The aforementioned statement comes at about 45:40 into the broadcast.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays in the major media, or if Gephardt issues some kind of clarification or retraction.

One other point of interest, Gephardt's House Web site has posted no statements or press releases since Feb. 5, 2003. It almost seems as though, while campaigning for president, Gephardt has gone ROAD (Retired On Active Duty) on his job as a congressman.