print“Turns out that no, he can’t,” surmises Examiner Columnist, Gene Healy. There was a realistic reason for “the modest view of presidential responsibility” our Constitution’s framers held. “The president was, in Washington’s phrase, the mere ‘chief magistrate,’ and his main job was faithful execution of the laws.” Read on:
“Last week was a tough one for Barack Obama.
The president’s choice for HHS secretary withdrew on Tuesday. It turned out that Tom Daschle, who considered himself up to the task of redesigning the most complex and fastest-growing sector of our economy, had trouble figuring out his own taxes.
By the end of the week, Obama was facing growing resistance to key parts of his $800-plus billion stimulus package. Friday found the new president recuperating at Camp David.
Welcome to the NFL, Barack: There will be many more tough weeks to come.
The ‘Hopefest 2009’ aura that surrounded Obama’s inauguration made him appear unstoppable. But the smart money says that by 2012, Obama will look a lot more like Jimmy Carter than FDR. That’s not because the new president is incompetent; it’s because he’s signed up for an impossible job.
Our Constitution’s framers had a modest view of presidential responsibility: the president was, in Washington’s phrase, the mere “chief magistrate,” and his main job was faithful execution of the laws.
But today, Americans look to the president as the Savior-in-Chief, a figure who will heal what ails us—whether it’s unemployment, hurricanes, divisiveness, or spiritual malaise. When it comes to the presidency, we demand what we cannot have and, as a result, we usually get what we do not like.
Political scientists have a term for the vast distance between what the public expects of the president and what he can realistically deliver: the ‘expectations gap.’ And no presidential candidate in living memory has done as much as Obama to stoke public expectations for the office—which were insanely high to begin with.
‘Yes we can!’ was the preferred hosanna of hope in the revival-tent atmosphere of the Obama campaign. We can, Obama promised, create a ‘new kind of politics,’ ‘end the age of oil in our time,’ deliver ‘a complete transformation of the economy,’ and even ‘create a kingdom right here on earth.’ With the presidency, it seems, all things are possible.
Post-election polls suggested that Americans bought the sales pitch. Eight in 10 expected Obama to improve conditions for the poor, 70 percent to improve education and the environment, and 60 percent counted on him to create a robust economy.
Obama entered office with a 79 percent favorability rating, the highest score of any newly elected president since, well, Jimmy Carter.
As the Carter experience suggests, in presidential politics, great expectations often lead to crashing disappointments. Every post-WWII president has faced what scholar Barbara Hinckley called ‘the decay curve’—the decline in popularity that occurs as the public recognizes that the president can’t deliver the miracles he’s promised.
String them together, and presidential approval graphs look like an EKG on a patient being repeatedly shocked to life—’clear!’—and then fading out again. Just as popularity tends to fade within each president’s tenure, average approval ratings have been in decline from one president to the next for most of the modern era.
You’d never know it from his budget-busting economic nostrums, but Obama has taken office in an era of limits. And when he fails to fully heal our financial troubles, fix health care, teach our children well, provide balm for our itchy souls, and so forth, his hope-addled rhetoric will seem all the more grating, and the public will increasingly come to see him as the source of all American woes.
Perhaps, then, we ought to drop the notion of president as Savior-in-Chief. Our Constitution’s Framers thought the president had an important job, but they never looked to him to heal all the nation’s wounds and save the national soul.
Their vision of the presidency may be unromantic, but at least it’s realistic (not to mention cheaper). Until we return to the framers’ modest, businesslike view of the presidency, we shouldn’t expect any president, however well-intentioned, to be ‘a uniter, not a divider’ in American life.
Examiner columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and author of “The Cult of the Presidency.”
Why Gene, Messiah Obama just CREATED 4 million new jobs (while most likely destroying 5 million others) through the magic of Hope N. Change! The market reacted to this miracle by tanking another 5%. And Decider Bush saved the jobs of Chrysler (he didn’t even have the decency to get Congressional approval for his hanky panky unlike Savior Obama) while Nissan is laying people off (bonjour Bastiat). And trillions are flowing into the economy as we are stimulating our great Orgasmic recovery and revival. Hallelujah! Well, at least Obammunism (which Lew Rockwell attributes to radio talk show host Rocky D. of South Carolina) is not as bad a communism!
…. And Michelle’s dress is so pretty …yada – yada …
This may go on to be remembered as the year of “rescue me” economics.
No matter how myopic one assumes that both politicians and the general populace are about any economic-related matters of any kind, your expectations will always be exceeded. It’s beyond belief.
Well, if he can’t deliver on saving us from the damage done by evil capitalists, at there are always deeper layers of strategy to rely on.
It turns out the Detroit Free Press was right on, when they claimed Obama’s wife’s dress represents “a new way forward”.
Now, it has made the cover of Vogue. So there is hope for us, after all.
[And the sartorial truth was, as I wrote: “Michelle Obama wore an awful ensemble. It was a yellow-greenish sequined affair that makes her skin look like old cheese. Not very flattering.” And “First Lady Michelle Obama’s evening gown was only slightly better than the lime number. She should have gone with a veteran, big-name designer. The white tunic resembled a curtain with bulky tussles, and did not flatter her well-toned figure. An off-the-shoulders garment is not the best fit for a woman with such a wide, amazon-like build.” Usually brutal about fashion, the fashionistas ignored her awful outfits.]
Let’s all hope that no ‘opportune’ incident happens that gives the Messiah the excuse he needs to rally the nation behind the cause of a holy war. The better to get people’s minds off their privation, put the unemployed to ‘work’, prevent uprisings, shore up his popularity, and ‘fix’ the economy.
And if anyone thinks war repairs economies, I suggest they read up on the “Broken Window Fallacy”. The myth that wholesale destruction and death is good for an economy has been successfully propagandized on a scale equal only to the paper money lie.
Good article by Mr. Healy. Unfortunately I think he seriously underestimates the truth-denying properties of modern liberalism. Every setback the Obama administration faces will be blamed on greedy whites. He will simply say that the damage done by Republican policies over the years was far greater than anyone imagined, and he is doing his level best to keep the ship afloat. Many will see through this lie, but many more (especially those who earnestly believe that Obama will give them new cars and refrigerators) will believe him. And so much of the public will increasingly see Obama’s enemies as the source of their ills rather than the Great Pharaoh himself. As Ilana has accurately pointed out, many Americans think that George W. Bush is a fanatical right-wing conservative, when the evidence shows he is anything but. We live in a world of lies, and Obama and his machine are adept at spinning them.
“Secession” is a word I’m hearing more and more lately.