# Being president is easy. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559 "2015-05-08T14:43:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/21 "2015-05-08T19:43:44Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > ‘…No mechanism for addressing…’ > > I think Mr Nixon and Mr Clinton, might disagree with that assertion. Such a nitpicker, you are. 🙂 And whether or not presidentin’ is easy, I think our 43rd President amply demonstrated that it wasn’t idiot-proof. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/22 "2015-05-08T20:16:44Z")
> [@andros](#): > > I’m sorry. Maybe it’s a lack of caffeine, or all the heroin, but I’m still not seeing how that makes the job easy. (Even were it true, which I would argue against.) What the OP means is that if the President and members of Congress don’t give a shit about the quality of or the results growing out of Presidential decisions, then making Presidential decisions is easy. It is no more difficult than flipping a coin. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/23 "2015-05-09T03:36:53Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > As president, you have to be accountable to 300 million share holders all of whom have different needs, and many of whom hate the very existence of your company. In order to take any action you have to get enough of those varying groups to agree so that you can get it through congress. As president you also can’t pick and choose you target customer base and business model. If Mississippi is under-performing you can’t sell it off to consolidate their interests in the over performing industrial states. Every move you make is scrutinized by your 300 millions share holders. If you spend [$15.00 per per person](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/great-16-dollar-muffin-myth) for a continental breakfast at a bushiness meeting its a massive scandal because everyone of those 300 million will see at as their personal $15 that is going to pay for the lazy bum’s breakfast. You’re buying into the whole illusion. First of all, a President is only scrutinized by 150 million of that 300 million. The other 150 million are sucking his dick, and are willing to kill the first 150 million. In the current case, it’s more than 150 million, since the majority of registered voters are Dems. Also, the 150 million on the President’s side are pleased that the dinners are going so well, as it gets one over on the other 150 million, who do not share the vision that they, and their darling, have for saving America. They would demand $150 dinners, if it would get their President into office, and keep him there. The "great-sacrifice-to-be-President’ reminds me of the really big assholes whom I have had to work for previously; always talk about what a pain it was, yet, they would fight tooth and nail to keep their position. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/24 "2015-05-09T03:42:06Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > Is that why presidents in office look like they age 2 or 3 years for every 1? Or, the fact that this has already been covered in another SDMB thread, and that The Presidential hair is already dyed before entering office, and, they let the dye disappear so that they have more gravitas while in office, and that they are already entering office in their forties, and are what are called “middle aged men, etc…”. IIRC, Clinton’s hair would go back and forth between gray/salt and pepper/something and light brown (or whatever color his hair was) in the early years. Don’t tell me that Bill or Hillary look any older than some other 78 year old. Sorry, any president, or you, yourself, ain’t gettin’ no younger; or prettier. Check old Dad or Mom and see how their years mark them at the Executive age mark. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/25 "2015-05-09T08:13:30Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > You’re buying into the whole illusion. First of all, a President is only scrutinized by 150 million of that 300 million. The other 150 million are sucking his dick, and are willing to kill the first 150 million. In the current case, it’s more than 150 million, since the majority of registered voters are Dems. > Also, the 150 million on the President’s side are pleased that the dinners are going so well, as it gets one over on the other 150 million, who do not share the vision that they, and their darling, have for saving America. They would demand $150 dinners, if it would get their President into office, and keep him there. > The "great-sacrifice-to-be-President’ reminds me of the really big assholes whom I have had to work for previously; always talk about what a pain it was, yet, they would fight tooth and nail to keep their position. That’s remarkably silly. Most human beings feel the weight of responsibility. Only people like Grover Norquist and his ideological fellows don’t care how the government operates. And people care about their legacy. No one wakes up in the morning and wants to be remembered as the stumbling chucklefuk W. will be known to history as. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/26 "2015-05-09T09:38:20Z")
“…our 43rd President…” It’s not that I don’t want to take your point really! Sometimes American’s crack me up! Because the entire world should know which president that is? Is that the assumption? Why would anyone but an American know this? And if you can’t be arsed to use his name, why would your audience be arsed to look it up? Or is it the assumption you’re only speaking to other Americans maybe? You do know non Americans read this board, right? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/27 "2015-05-09T12:51:55Z")
Presidents certainly seem to age more quickly while in office. Here are [some photos showing that progression](http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1872168_2172511,00.html). This would not suggest to me they have an easy time. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/28 "2015-05-09T12:58:17Z")
No, no… Apparently they just stop using hair dye or something. …Except for Reagan, who used \*all \*the hair dye. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/29 "2015-05-09T15:21:14Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Or, the fact that this has already been covered in another SDMB thread, and that The Presidential hair is already dyed before entering office, and, they let the dye disappear so that they have more gravitas while in office, and that they are already entering office in their forties, and are what are called “middle aged men, etc…”. Are you for real ? And if so, how can you \*possibly \*be ? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/30 "2015-05-09T15:53:56Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > “…our 43rd President…” > > It’s not that I don’t want to take your point really! > > Sometimes American’s crack me up! Because the entire world should know which president that is? Is that the assumption? Why would anyone but an American know this? > > And if you can’t be arsed to use his name, why would your audience be arsed to look it up? > > Or is it the assumption you’re only speaking to other Americans maybe? You do know non Americans read this board, right? I assume that if you’re reading a thread about US presidents, you’re interested enough in US presidents either to know who the 43rd US president is or to look up that information. In half the time it took you to post your “crack me up” message (which does nothing to break my theory that this sort of “you make me laugh” nonsense is generally used to represent massive willful ignorance), you could have looked up a list in order of every US president. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/31 "2015-05-09T16:09:21Z")
Or, y’know, you could have attempted to be clear. Maybe use something like his name! But hey, potato, potawto! (It’s totally an Americanism though! And amusing!) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/32 "2015-05-09T16:18:22Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > … sucking his dick, and are willing to kill the first 150 million. … as it gets one over on the other 150 million, who do not share the vision that they, and their darling, have for saving America. They would demand $150 dinners, if it would get their President into office, and keep him there… > [@handsomeharry](#): > > The Presidential hair is already dyed before entering office, and, they let the dye disappear so that … Most Doper names are meaningless to me. I’ve seen **handsomeharry** lots of time, but didn’t associate one post to the next. Congratulations, Harry! You’ve joined my list of “memorable Dopers.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/33 "2015-05-09T16:29:55Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Can you provide a link to the previous rant to give us some context? It starts about [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18348221#post18348221). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/34 "2015-05-09T16:31:03Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Simply having the weight on my shoulders that my decisions could affect the lives and well being of millions and possibly even billions of humans long into the future would be a weight I am not prepared to bear. Nothing even remotely easy about that. W seemed to find it easy. The trick is not to think about it too much. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/35 "2015-05-09T16:33:47Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > If the President suddenly started practicing cannibalism, it’d be addressed right damn quick. If it were a Republican president, [Frank Luntz](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz) would jump in to reframe the narrative around the president’s [humanitarianism](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImAHumanitarian). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/36 "2015-05-09T19:07:41Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And whether or not presidentin’ is easy, I think our 43rd President amply demonstrated that it wasn’t idiot-proof. That’s the one who got re-elected, right? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/37 "2015-05-09T19:09:22Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Basically being president means having to please nobody with vast resources. A president can operate at zero approval for years at a time with no mechanism for addressing this. I think this is more succinct and meaningful than your meandering OP. If we only judge difficulty in a leadership position with “how hard is it to lose one’s job”, then I would agree President is “relatively easy.” A CEO can lose his job over saying a single word incorrectly, I think even had Bush gone on a racist rant caught on video, he wouldn’t have lost his job–you need a supermajority of the Senate to remove a President and that’s assuming you have control of the House for the impeachment in the first place. Nixon shows the level of malfeasance necessary to end your Presidency, as even his own party made it known that he was going to be removed from power had he not resigned. Even just gross incompetence like Grant or Harding probably wouldn’t get a President impeached even today, it takes deliberate, willful corrupt practices (Grant and Harding most historians view as simply being too incompetent and uninformed as political administrators to have been knowledgeable or participant in the vast corruptions of their administrations.) Wilson spent several years as President essentially unconscious, as he had been debilitated by a stroke and his wife kept access to him limited. With subsequent constitutional amendments, I do think a modern day Wilson scenario would involve the 25th amendment and the Vice President assuming the office. But yeah, CEOs can be fired essentially in an instant by a board of directors. Many Prime Ministers in Westminster systems can lose a vote of confidence and be out in a couple days. With dictators it kinda depends on the system, but it’s the rare dictatorship where the dictator is immune to the army. In fact a dictator that loses the support of the army is typically only a dictator, and alive, for a short while afterward. More established and formalized undemocratic regimes like that in China or the Soviet Union it’s still easier to lose your job than President–if you lose the support the the top party leadership you can be gone overnight. This was true in the Soviet Union and while the Chinese favor stability it could still be true there if a Chinese leader got out of hand. A constitutional monarch in a stable country does have an easier job than President by this measure. Largely their job **is to do essentially do nothing of importance** , and as long as they simply refrain from trying to get involved in politics they are at little risk of losing their crowns. For leaders with power, historical monarchs who have a lot of passive legitimacy typically have a stronger power base than modern day military strongmen. But being monarch attracted, continuously, plots from close relatives who were scheming for the crown, and outside of that typically other powerful families with accepted claims to the throne were an omnipresent threat as well. But this is silly, most people judge a President’s job based on how good of a President he is, and thus difficulty of said job is most ordinarily defined as “how hard is it to be a good President?” History shows that’s a very difficult thing. Hell a lot of capable men are regarded as mediocre or bad Presidents solely because of things that were never in their control, world economic problems or wars that they had no power to prevent and that were ruinous to their Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2015, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/38 "2015-05-10T09:42:12Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Are you for real ? > And if so, how can you \*possibly \*be ? Of course not. These people sacrifice their lives for me…sniff…I weep for their great love for me and my cats…“NO! Don’t do it!” I shriek, when I hear of another altruistic soul entering the race for the Presidency. “I’m not worth it!” But, their higher call to Public Service makes them deaf to my entreaties-for, this is their mission… ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/39 "2015-05-10T11:41:01Z")
Being President is not easy; authoring a ridiculous OP is. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559/40 "2015-05-10T12:56:14Z")
I think the current occupant of the office thought it would be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-president-is-easy/719559.md?page=3)