presidency

To Heckle the President, or Not?

by Ryan Young on September 10, 2009 · 1 comment

in Culture, Healthcare, Mobility, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

Over at CNN, John Feehery argues that it’s better not to heckle. I agree, but for different reasons.

Feehery’s line of thinking is that the office deserves respect. Holding one’s tongue is a matter of decorum. “The president is the commander-in-chief, the leader of the country, and in many unspoken ways treated as a king.”

Technically, the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and of nothing else. The rest of his job consists of humbly executing the laws given him by the Constitution and the legislature. That’s why it’s called the executive branch.

Feehery, a partisan Republican, here manages to out-conservative Edmund Burke. Royal rhetoric pervades his piece – evidence of how far the presidency has strayed from its intended purpose. The cult of the presidency endures.

Don Boudreaux’s approach to the presidency is more realistic, if less romantic:

[T]he notion that the U.S. presidency is lofty or respectable in any ethically significant sense is ludicrous. As Saul Bellow said about politicians, “they’re a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of clichés the first prize.”

Hence the real reason to let the president have his say without being heckling him: politicians make themselves look bad far more effectively than any heckler could. He doesn’t need the help. Just take his ideas seriously:

-We can save money by spending $900,000,000,000.

-We can contain costs by isolating people from the costs they incur.

-The Medicare/Medicaid model works. Expand it.

Presidents are unremarkable creatures. Borne of much talent for campaigning and little for governing, more love for power than for principle, and the unyielding belief that they know best, presidents have the worst kind of hubris. This is perhaps their only regal trait.

President Bush thought he could win two simultaneous land wars in Asia, and use military might to build a new nation in Iraq. Hubris.

President Obama thinks he can run the auto, financial, and health care industries at the same time, all while controlling global climate patterns. Hubris.

Feehery is right that President Obama should not have been heckled. If not for the sheer harm his office causes, it would not merit the attention.

Why Good Men Don’t Become President Anymore

by Ryan Young on January 20, 2009

in Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

President-elect Obama became President Obama today. It is worth taking a minute to reflect on the nature of his office.  Exactly what has he gotten himself into?

Good men rarely become president. Good people don’t even want to be president. Once in a while, one slips through the cracks. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Grover Cleveland (not kidding). Maybe Barack Obama will be added to that list some day. It’s too early to tell.

I have some doubts. Here’s why: becoming president requires years of campaigning and fundraising, handshaking and deal-making — no one can possibly endure the modern campaign unless they thirst for power to their very core.

Campaigning for even minor office requires months of the candidate prostrating himself before people he’s never met. Making grand promises he couldn’t possibly keep. The things that must do to his mind. Especially if he starts buying his own hype.

Our candidate must hide his true beliefs. He has to tailor his opinions to match the median voter’s. He dares not follow his own heart or mind. He’d lose for sure.

Good people carry themselves with pride and dignity. The man or woman who voluntarily embarks on the modern campaign has neither.

And the media coverage. The spotlight so bright that it burns. Unkempt reporters always scurrying underfoot. Never a moment to yourself on the campaign trail.

Worse, the strain it puts on your family. Long weeks of separation. Unflattering exposés, revealing your relatives’ personal lives for millions to see.

Good people do not do that to their families.

Nor do good people seek power over other human beings. Morality in politics is that of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic; might makes right. No parent would teach that to their child. It is wrong.

Yet it is the morality that men must follow to become president.

Politicians are terrible little creatures. May our children aspire to better things than the presidency.

FT says “nay” to Hillary choice for State

by Fran Smith on November 24, 2008 · 1 comment

in International, Politics as Usual, Trade

As pundits bet that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a done deal for Secretary of State, today’s editorial in the Financial Times calls it a poor choice for a variety of reasons. In the piece extolling President-ele

ct Barack Obama’s picks for his economic team, the FT says that’s not the case for Hillary and hits her lack of experience, her ambitions, and her personality.

Economics aside, the biggest surprise among Mr Obama’s rumoured appointments is Hillary Clinton, whose selection as secretary of state is said to be “on track”. This is a far more questionable choice, since Mrs Clinton is so lacking in foreign policy experience. The appointment gives rise to unhelpful speculation about the new president’s motives. Is he attempting to bind his party’s wounds? His victory already did that, and governing well would assure a full recovery. Is he attempting to neutralise her as a rival for the presidency in 2012? If things go badly for him, it will take more than this to quell another Clinton bid.

Could Mrs Clinton subordinate herself to Mr Obama, and devote herself to making his presidency a success? That is doubtful and, with many far better qualified candidates available, is a risk there is no need to take.

CEI has criticized that choice for different reasons — Sen. Clinton, who has strong anti-trade, anti-globalization positions, would not temper the in-coming president’s lack of support for trade, which could cause not only more economic problems for the U.S. and the developing world but also geopolitical ones.