Degrading the Presidency

It used to be chanted, almost as a mandatory mantra, by those expressing opposition to any president that although they disagreed with the president's political position they respected the office . . . the office of the president or the presidency.

That has changed with the office's current occupant. 

Delivering speeches was the former community organizer's strong suit. But as president, the nation's current chief magistrate has misused his speech making gifts by delivering words with no clear meaning and making endless promises that he had no ability to keep.

He and his wife have demonstrated wondrous and unprecedented talents for vacationing sumptuously and often, and for taking full advantage of, and relishing, the full range of the perquisites and trappings of the office.  

But lacking any administrative qualifications, he has been a disaster at actually governing. He has used the office to reward his political cronies and supporters at the expense of the general public. He has shown himself to be an economic ignoramus. On foreign policy he has followed in Jimmy Carter's disastrous footsteps by punishing America's friends and rewarding its enemies. And by making Chicago style thuggery a hallmark and instrument of his administration, he has created gangster government.

Finally, he has turned the bully pulpit that the presidency used to be into a platform for the dissemination of untruths. Even the quiescent and docile press has begun to question the accuracy of his public statements with even the formerly adoring and obedient Associate Press instituting a Spin Meter series in which this column notes a "disconnect" between the current president's rhetoric and reality.

Before the press became so sensitive that it bowdlerized the language to avoid offending anyone by clearly reporting news, the AP would have reported that "disconnect" as what it actually is: plain and simple lying.


The upshot of all this is that the current occupant of the oval office has degraded the presidency to the point that the office, the presidency itself, no longer commands or warrants respect. We can only hope that whoever succeeds the current occupant of the office will be able to restore it to its former stature.