Space Goat

Many Americans believe an exchange like this one typifies a novel interpretation of presidential authority George W. Bush’s neoconservatives foisted on an unsuspecting country after September 11, 2001. As the campaign to succeed Bush rages, much of the electorate thinks a new president, with more intelligence and scruples than his predecessor, will sweep away the executive abuses in which the Bush administration reveled.

Perhaps the new president would indeed correct some of Bush’s outrages: A President Barack Obama might ameliorate some of Bush’s infringements of civil liberties. A President John McCain might close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay (if you believe his assertions on The Daily Show). These would be course corrections any fan of constitutional government should embrace.

But one who hopes the ascension of a new chief executive, in and of itself, will steer the presidency away from kingly ambition, might as well also dream of becoming a Jedi Knight. The White House has been marching ever-nearer toward imperial narcissism for over a century; consider that the assistant attorney general above was not a Bush lackey, but the Harry S Truman administration’s Holmes Baldridge, articulating an even-then trite conception of executive power! America needs more than a minor shift in direction for its presidency to return to republican humility.

Instead, a fundamental reorientation of what we expect from the President of the United States will be necessary.

How did we get to this point?

This essay -- a condensation of one of the lines of argument from the excellent book, Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power -- lays out how power-mongering at the top mixed with increasing public expectations of the presidency to give us an increasingly imperial White House that almost everyone today rues.

The fault, dear America, is not in our stars but in ourselves

Before Woodrow Wilson became President, he wrote in his 1908 work Constitutional Government in the United States, "The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can," in order to thwart quaint checks-and-balances that would keep him from fulfilling the popular will. Such was the due, according to Wilson, of "the only national voice in affairs." And a "living Constitution," the interpretation of which could match the needs of the present, justified such a strenuous executive, in Wilson's eyes.

Presidents over the course of the 20th century would have opportunity and incentive to live up to Wilson's credo as the public demanded more of them. Political scientist Clinton Rossiter described the roles Americans expected the President to fill by mid-century; some of them, which have no constitutional basis, are: World Leader, Protector of the Peace, Chief Legislator, Manager of Prosperity, and Voice of the People.

Not even the King of England wore all those hats, and yet Americans have wanted their Presidents to do that and more!

For real change in the Oval Office, the person who sits in there is not as relevant as the hopes we affix and the responsibilities we assign to that person. We must condition ourselves to want from the President only what he may constitutionally provide, and to force the President's impeachment and removal if he exceeds constitutional boundaries.

__________________

kamino

I am becoming increasingly worried about how we as Americans are placing so much on the president. Then when he takes action that we have given him we become outraged. It makes me wonder if any one or at least what percentage of Americans real care. I have been hearing over and over as I speak my rants no one cares and are more worried about our economy. It seems that our civil liberties are taking a firm back seat today. We don't need a president for change, we need a people for change, it amazes me why the populace does nothing. Are they really that stupid or are they just cowards, hiding from the fact that were falling apart?

__________________
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
-Benjamin Franklin

American

Frankly I'm concerned about the public's unquestioned belief that 1) our govt is fascist, and 2) if it were true, that it began with GW Bush. Both of these points are lies, perpetrated by socialists on the left. Furthermore, this whole business pales in comparison to FDR's payroll taxation, and it's long term adverse affect on the wealth of the middle class. The People are less outraged over the confiscation of their income (through taxes) than the govt's ability to listen in on phone calls (which is already regulated by the FCC). The phoneline you talk on, isn't even yours for crying out loud. Why don't the people complain about Customs rummaging through their suitcases when they re-enter the US? "Oh, well that's different?"

LIKE HELL IT IS!

__________________
It's Obama's fault!