Permit me to quibble. We don’t have a “presidential palace”. We have, simply, a white house. We don’t have elaborate forms of address, such as “Your Hugeness” or “Your Total Awesomeness”, just “Mr. President”.
That said, if it were to become the fashion to refer to Ms. Obama as “Your Smoking Hotitude”, I would offer no objection. Despite the ornamentation of capital letters, it is little more than a statement of fact.
Officially, it is called the “Executive Mansion,” which is more or less equivalent to “Presidential Palace.”
For which we have George Washington to thank, BTW. The style of the presidency had yet to be fixed when he took office. He could have adopted forms and protocols fit for a monarchy and gotten away with it so long as he stopped short of an actual coronation-and-anointing; but he opted for a more plain, republican style.
Washington, however, was addressed as “Your Excellency,” a usage that later died out.
From what I’ve been reading on some other boards that is a matter of sharply divided opinion (but that’s to be expected, for reasons I hope I don’t need to state).
Queen Elizabeth does the same (or it is done in her name); it makes her no less the head of state.
A title which continues on after you’re out of power and no longer have the acclaim of the people. Mr. President is Mr. President for life, not term. And I seem to recall that your white house is rather well appointed - far from simple.
Yeah? Well, so what, buddy! (I’m sorry, but such brutally important questions sometimes bring out the worst in me…)
Its entirely common to address even the most mediocre of persons by their highest achieved station. I have met any number of men who are addressed as “Colonel” or “Judge” who would lose playing checkers with a dog. There is nothing special in this custom, by no stretch is it uncommon, never mind a unique honorific for a President.
And while the White House may, indeed, be tastefully appointed with furniture too expensive to actually sit on, even the most casual perusal of such buildings that are “Presidential Palaces” will conclusively prove that they are, by and large, lavish testimonials to wretched excess married to wretched taste.
(I recall some guy who went to Ike and Tina Turner’s home who remarked “I had no idea you could spend a hundred thousand dollars ar Woolworth’s!”
Yes, the President is the head-of-state of the USA.
This is a very long article about what a head-of-state actually is. Interesting information. Such as Switzerland has a “sort of” rotating presidency.
Let’s look at what specifically the President is empowered to do in Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
“The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
“…commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States”
“he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices”
“and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
“by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
“and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law”
“The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.”
“He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient”
“he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper”
“he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers”
“he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers”
“and shall commission all the officers of the United States”
May I ask what powers, duties or authorities a formal, official, genuine head of state has that a president of the U.S. doesn’t have?
Elevating commoners into the nobility. 
Actually, these days (since 1901) it’s officially known as the White House:
It’s very simple, the President is the head of state because he’s the dude who rates a Twenty-One Gun Salute.
I’d certainly agree it’s nothing special, it being entirely in keeping with the general idea that a person retired or replaced may sometimes still be deemed worthy of that title. It’s entirely in keeping with the continued title-worthiness of a Head of State after they’re done with it. It’s really not all that in keeping with the idea of democracy and the anti-monarchy sentiments that came along with America’s founding. It’s a little throwback to the idea that our rulers are our betters, regardless of what the public thinks of them. Nixon was still Mr. President upon his death.
Eh, the untasteful decorations were probably in taste at the time they were added. The only difference on that particular point is time. Although i’m sure there’s something to be said for money not being so wasted if spent on tasteful expensive stuff than unpleasant to look at expensive stuff, it’s still not entirely in keeping with democratic ideals, and rather more inkeeping with the idea that rulers should live better than their subjects. And that those people are embodied in the more traditional groups.
That’s because the US has no nobility. Similarly, the head of state of Australia (whoever he or she might be – and it’s probably the Queen of Australia) cannot elevate commoners into the nobility, because Australia doesn’t have a nobility either (even though it’s a constitutional monarchy).
The Australian case does illustrate how you can have a serious argument about who is the head of state. Some argue that it’s the Queen, and others that it’s the Governor General. However, nobody (as far as I know) argues the person with the most political power, the Prime Minister, is the head of state.
(And neither the office of “head of state” nor the office of Prime Minister is mentioned in the Australian Constitution.)
It is possible for a country not to have a head of state. For example, England between 1649 and 1653 lacked a head of state de facto (though King Charles II was arguably head of state de jure), since it was ruled by a Council of State, and Oliver Cromwell had not been appointed as Lord Protector.
Come on! Did I really need to say that I knew that the U.S. Constitution proscribes the country from having a titled class?
Sigh. I guess I did. Article I, Section 9: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
Seconded.
Come on. The White House is a palace in all but name, just as the President is head of state in all but name. The Constitution doesn’t describe him that way, true, but it assigns him duties such as are performed by heads of state in other countries. What the Constitution didn’t do, long years of custom and tradition have. There is no other American public official with a reasonable and widely-recognized claim to be head of state. All other countries recognize him as such. He is our de facto head of state.
The Supreme Court has recognized him as such in dicta, although it has apparently never squarely addressed the question. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), 343 U.S. 579 (Jackson, J., concurring); Greer v. Spock et al. (1976), 424 U.S. 828 (Powell, J., concurring); Rubin v. United States (1998), 525 U.S. 1301 (Breyer, J., diss. from den. of cert.).
Almost all the argument here is argument by conclusion.
Governmental duties may be distributed among various officeholders in various systems. No particular duty or set of duties defines a head of state. For example, in the other thread, a Canadian made the point that the prime minister may accept credentials of representatives of foreign governments.
In my mind, the key definition of a “head of state” is, as some other poster put it, I think, “a single individual who symbolizes and embodies the nation and its people.” While it’s perfectly possible to have such a person, there is nothing necessary about it and our system makes absolutely no provision for one. The state is all of us and none of us is “head” of it. We temporarily employ certain individuals to carry out governmental functions and duties and to wield governmental authority and power and that’s all.
Further, I will say that not only do we not have a head of state, we also do not have a single head of government. We have a chief executive, a national legislature, and a supreme court. These are co-equal and none of them is sole head of the government.
Indeed, if anything, the founders viewed the legislature as being the most important branch.
This is mere social convention and not enforced, either by law or by societal pressure or any authority whatsoever (guides to etiquette are not authorities – they hold no governmental commission or power). No one is castigated for addressing Jimmy Carter as “Mr. Carter” rather than as “Mr. President.”
I’m not sure the extent to which there’s no societal pressure - I imagine there’d be quite a few people ticked off were it not to be followed, otherwise it wouldn’t be a social convention in the first place. But i’d agree with you on your other points. elucidator’s point was that you don’t have elaborate forms of address- I was simply pointing out that, well, you do. Social convention retains quite a number of little details left over from when a Head of State was somehow more than the rest of us peons.
The president is the head of state. There’s no debate here beyond comparing navel lint. The Constitutional argument is asinine. The Constitution doesn’t say America is a country either, but it is.
Are you sure about that?? Sometimes I wonder…
-XT
The constitution doesn’t say that the United States is a tufted puffin. Is it one?
You can prove that the United States is a country by looking at the constitution and decisions of the supreme court, ratified treaties, etc., that either explicitly or implicitly treat the United States as a country.
Is there anything in the constitution or in a supreme court decision or in a ratified treaty that even implies that the person holding the office of the president “symbolizes and embodies the nation and its people”? Anything at all?