I recently read Second Chance by Zbigniew Brzezinski. For those who haven't, the author is a foreign policy expert analyzing the performances of the past three presidents. He lays out each president's foreign policy philosophy and discusses the strengths and weaknesses therein. Brzezinski then goes on to analyze their actual performances.
One interesting effect I came away with was a greater respect for George H.W. Bush. Because I was so young during his presidency, I never really appreciated the scale of the problem of dismantling the Soviet empire, and how skillfully Bush Sr. went about it.
To get to the point though, it often seemed to me as I read through the book that the office of the Presidency is simply too big for any one person. A strong, charismatic, intelligent person can skillfully direct thousands, or even millions of people. I have to wonder whether hundreds of millions is simply too many, even given the technology we enjoy. Add to this the fact that the president is often expected to be an indirect global leader and that number could be in the billions.
So, a pair of questions: 1. Does the office of the presidency require a literal super-human, or is the current system the best realistic one?
2. Assuming your answer was yes, is there any effective way we could go about splitting up that job? Could we have a domestic president and a prime minister in charge of foreign affairs? Would it be feasible to seperate the powers on the axis of military/civilian, or would that unacceptably increase the risk of a coup?
There are more points I'd have liked to make, but this has already gone on longer than I intended, and I'm supremely curious to know what others think.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
1. No, it requires someone who can intelligently delegate, and supervise their subordinates so their policies are carried out effectively . Which is why one of my favorite presidential anecdotes is when President Carter's staff argued about scheduling at the WH tennis courts. To stop the bickering, Carter started making up the schedules himself! What a waste of his time. Obviously someone who cannot delegate effectively.
OTOH, Reagan in the past and the current President Bush delegate too much and don't effectively supervise.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
To be sure, proficient delegation is a skill we rightfully expect of a president, and when that is lacking the problems are obvious.
I don't think though that over-delegation would be high up on the list of my problems with this administration.