© Alex Brandon
Mr. Hanks, who's starring in the soon-to-be-released "Captain Phillips" and was in Washington, D.C., this week for a premiere showing at the Newseum, declared his choice for president for 2016: Mr. Obama, The Hill reported.
"I'm voting for Barack Obama, 2016," he said. "Yes I am. Four more years."
Mr. Hanks reportedly laughed while speaking.
But do a Bing search on "Obama seeks third term," and the more than 2 million hits that come back reveal the notion is both widely discussed and widely reported. MSN, for instance, in August reported on an investor - Porter Stansberry - who claims the president is secretly planning a third term.
U.S. News reported on that same Baltimore businessman's claim in 2012.
Apparently all it takes is a little poke to get the right-wingers jumping up and down, screaming bloody murder. For anyone who doesn't know, the Washington Times is a newspaper founded by the late Sun Myung Moon, the Korean religious cult leader megalomaniac, whose political leanings were to the right of Attila the Hun.
After President Franklin Roosevelt won a fourth term, the US decided that probably wasn't a good idea and it adopted the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, establishing that a president can only be elected twice. Thus it would take a US constitutional amendment to reverse this and permit any president to be elected to a third term. That's unlikely to happen, especially not during any single presidential administration.