The Imperial Presidency

It’s quite possible this belongs in IMHO or MPSIMS, because I don’t know if there’s really much of a debate here, but maybe there is. There were two things that happened recently that, put together, got me thinking, and maybe made me a little sad. The first was the demonstration in Paris to protest the terrorist attack, where a lot of world leaders showed up, but President Obama didn’t go. The second was the announcement of “Big Block of Cheese Day”. As to what these two things have in common…

There was a big foofara in the Pit recently about President Obama not showing up to the Paris thing (which, because it was the Pit, involved one or two people saying he should have gone and a lot of people accusing them of being Fox News shills), but one of the arguments made by people on the “Its ok that the President didn’t go” side was that it would have been a security nightmare. Presidential trips require all sorts of planning and preparation, and having the President down there in the crowd, where anybody could take a shot at him or harm him was just a hassle that neither the President or France needed.

Big Block of Cheese Day is in reference to something that happened when Andrew Jackson became President. Basically, in honor of Jackson’s inauguration (and for the publicity), this New York farmer made this giant, 1400 pound wheel of cheese and sent it to the White House. And it totally stumped Andrew Jackson, because that’s a lot of cheese, and it was stinking up the place. He ate some, he gave some to friends, he gave some to his cabinet, etc, but he still had a lot left. So, just before he stepped down as president, he threw this giant reception, open to everybody, with the theme “Please, eat some of this damn cheese”. About 10,000 people showed up, and finally the cheese all got eaten(This wasn’t the first Presidential cheese, btw. Somebody gave Jefferson a 1200 pound cheese. Most of it got thrown out.) Aaron Sorkin must have heard the story and liked it, because the West Wing had an episode called “Big Block of Cheese Day”, where they told the story (recasting it as a triumph of democratic egalitarianism rather than one man’s desperate attempt to get rid of bad smelling dairy), and met with all sorts of various kookie constituents. Somebody at the White House must be a West Wing fan, because the White House is having their own “Big Block of Cheese Day”, their second, where people can submit questions to the White House on twitter and the White House will answer them.

So what brings these two stories together in my mind? One of the things that sticks out about the Andrew Jackson story (other than the fact that it’s kind of funny) is that Jackson basically opened the White House doors to anybody who wanted to come in and eat cheese. And, in the old days, that sort of thing happened a lot. George Washington, even though he was a fairly private person, had a weekly levee for men every Thursday from 3-4, and Martha had a tea party every Friday evening for men and women. All of these were open to the public, as long as they were decently dressed, and a lot of the appeal was that it was a chance for the average person to meet the President and say hello to him. If you look at President Lincoln’s schedule the day he was assassinated, that afternoon, when he had gotten back from riding, he saw, standing on the White House front porch, two old friends from Illinois who were in town and wanted to say hello. And, of course, one of Lincoln’s complaints when he became President was that there were always all these people waiting in the halls of the White House wanting to speak with him to convince him to make them postmaster or ambassador or give them some other government job.

And with the Paris thing, I understand about the security. But Angela Merkel showed up. David Cameron showed up. Mohammed Abbas showed up. Benjamin Netanyahu showed up, and I have no doubt there are all sorts of people who want to kill Benjamin Netanyahu. The security was good enough for them, but not good enough for President Obama.

It seems like we’re at a point where, even though the President is nominally first among equals, and supposed to be “of the people”, we’ve inflated the office up to a level of majesty and separateness that’s more appropriate for the court of a god-king. The president can’t just go out for a walk. He can’t just decide some evening that he wants to go to a restaurant or the mall or whereever. Everything he does is choreographed and stagemanaged down to the minute. And to see the president involves getting past innumerable gatekeepers, both actual and metaphorical. I’m not singling President Obama out on this. It’s an institutional thing. Everything I’m saying was true of his predecessor, and will be true of his successor.

Obviously, there are good reasons for all of this, and the fact that I had to include the phrase “the day he was assassinated” in the Lincoln anecdote isn’t the least of those reasons. I’m not of the illusion that there’s anything we can do about the situation. I just find it a little sad, and maybe a tiny bit ironic that, as communication and access to information make it more possible for people to have a voice and make educated decisions on political matters, Americans are getting more and more separated from their leaders, who are less and less accessible.

Americans have this rather unique ideal of the enlightened leader who is common and relatable to us normal folks.

It’s because George Washington set such an irreproachable precedent. It’s why he is the greatest president.

It’s in men’s nature to want to establish leaders. Historians, who are otherwise intelligent people, tend to rank the greatest Presidents as the ones who accumulated the most power for themselves and broke the bounds of the Constitution. History praises the great leaders, even though the Presidency was never intended for that purpose.

So what we have is an office of the Presidency that isn’t even supposed to be first among equals. He works for us. Everyone he sees is literally his boss. In that sense, he’s the lowliest person in the country. But psychologically, most people need to see him as The Leader. But he’s not, speaking strictly legally. He’s a glorified clerk, faithfully carrying out the laws passed by Congress. But psychologically, most Americans view the President as equivalent to a monarch, albeit supposedly restricted by the laws of our land. Except when it’s really inconvenient, in which case we let him get away with ignoring the law. Andrew Jackson was really the first President to make an actual point of exceeding his authority on purpose. Many more came, and Americans tend to love those types. Problem is, that’s how you lose your democracy. Ben Franklin warned us.

The famous story about Christopher Spencer calling at the White House with his carbine for the Present to have a look at demonstrates the still-half-built, rather rural nature of the capital in those days.

Of course, the fact that we have a person who wields enormous power, (directing 40% of the entire world’s military strength, to say nothing of the ability to launch nuclear strikes), who has had four predecessors die in assassinations, (and several others who have survived attempts), has nothing to do with moving the president farther from harm’s way.

Yeah, I think it has more to do with the nature of the job than the status of the person in it. He’s not entitled to protection because he’s better than us, he’s entitled to protection because there are a LOT of people disgruntled with even the most popular President’s policies. Plus just general crazies who would love to become famous. Or just impress an actress.

Comparing the President’s absence, in Paris, with other world leaders who are much closer is incredibly disingenuous. Better to compare his absence with other world leaders from this distance, like the Prime Minister of Canada, or the President of Mexico, neither of whom attended. For the same reasons, too far, too short notice, not sufficient time to manage the logistics. Your refusal to acknowledge this basic, self evident fact makes your entire OP mostly so silly, it’s hardly worth attempting to discuss it with you.

Are you suggesting that, 1) an extra few hours on a plane is a meaningful difference, and 2) the attendance of POTUS is, with no disrespect to our neighbors, no more important that the leaders of Mexico and Canada?

Even that’s not really the worst thing.

I mean, we have a back-up President ready to step in at need; that’s, like, pretty much the whole point of having a VP. And then comes a clear line of succession for the next commander-in-chief; we can tell you today exactly what has to happen before, say, the Secretary of Defense gets the big job – and we can tell you the name of his current Deputy, standing by to play SecDef for SecNav, and et cetera.

If we lose a President, we’ll get by; we’ve done it before, everybody’s on standby to do it again; we can switch right from one guy doing right by the American people to another guy doing right by the American people.

But if a President can be bullied, can be reverse-bribed by a personal extortionist saying “stop doing right by the American people; do what I tell you, or say hello to my little friend,” then the whole thing falls apart; he needs to be guarded from force because he needs to be guarded from the threat of force.

That scenario doesn’t sound to plausible though. Even if the President didn’t have such extensive protection, he has the full powers of federal law enforcement at his disposal. That’s a problem that actually does affect judges and district attorneys. If you want to get a President to do what you want, blackmail is probably a better option, and if anything a President has LESS defense against that than your average person, because even if the law is on his side, if the information you can reveal is damaging enough he has a lot to lose. We’ve now had two straight Presidents who used cocaine when they were younger. Get them on film doing cocaine say, just before a President took office, and you can name your price. Secret Service can’t protect him from that.

Imagine you’re the President. Imagine you don’t have that extensive protection. Imagine you’re deciding whether it’s in the best interests of the American people to commit our military to a long hard fight against, oh, say, folks who are willing to live by the sword and die by the sword.

Do they need to literally make a threat for said threat to sway you from dispassionate analysis to personal omigodaretheygonnatrytakillme? Or do we already need to start bodyguarding you to restore much-needed equilibrium, doing our best to minimize the obvious threat that (a) you can’t help but factor in, but which (b) we kinda sorta wish you wouldn’t ever need to factor in?

Suggesting the leader of the U.S. is no more important than the leaders of Canada and Mexico?

Ha, ha, that’s hilarious. Because being more important shortens the distance, and makes the logistics easier how exactly?

While you’re at it please share how many solely French speakers are in your country? I only ask because we have an entire provine full. Oh, and French is an official language.

It would indeed have been a security nightmare. However, he should have sent the Secretary of State to represent him. Even if that was impossible due to travel logistics, he could have sent the Attorney General, who was already in Paris. Not doing at least that much was inexcusable, not because of any domestic politicking, but because it was seen by international opinion as a snub of the French.

Back to OP

Heck, try to do something spontaneous, or fall victim to your common human foibles, and you will be accused of “demeaning the dignity of the office”.

Which somehow is not demeaned by pardoning turkeys. ( :dubious::rolleyes: I’m with you, Malia and Sasha)

If any POTUS is to say “I don’t care, dump the schedule, get me to [wherever the crisis of the day is]” he’ll be lambasted for changing plans on a dime not listening to his time managers’ and security handlers’ advice; if he sits tight and says “hey, I have work to do here”, he’ll be accused of not caring enough. And yes, we have seen that applied to every recent President and will see it happen to the upcoming few.

And yet he can drop everything and go to Saudi Arabia on a moment’s notice to pay homage to the absolute ruler of one of the most repressive states on earth. (Not “he” as in Obama, but “he” as in pretty much any US president would have done this).

Ugh. I know all about realpolitik, but this still disgusts me.

Take comfort in knowing no one else in the world thinks the slightest thing about this. Especially not the French!

The only people getting bent about it would seem to be the partisan right who love a tempest in a teapot.

Now we’re comparing a street rally in France to the passing of the leader of an extremely important nation in the geopolitics of an extremely unsettled part of the world. Where numerous wars are raging and endangering millions. How’s anyone supposed to take that seriously?

I don’t know how much of a snub it was, but IMHO the right person to send would have been Biden. Kerry has actual work to do. Biden could have had someone else check to makes sure Obama was breathing in the morning for a few days.

In the year 2015, what difference does the distance make? Instead of a 1 hour plane ride, he has a 8 hour plane ride. Why does that mean that it is more difficult for him to attend?

The U.S. is, for better or worse, the leader of the free world. After 9/11, it has been in the forefront of the fight against terrorism. Our President takes the lead on many issues, and other countries take a back seat.

I see absolutely no relevance that Canada has a large population of French speakers. Had the attack occurred in Portugal, I don’t see how that would somehow elevate Brazil to a more important status in the matter.

So any time a two-bit terrorist wants to dictate the whereabouts of the president, he should just blow some people up? Honestly, why confirm their delusions about themselves?

What non-European world leaders were there other than (the uninvited) Netanyahu?