President's Day

February has a National Holiday honoring our first President, George Washington, although it is called President's Day by most people.

The holiday is most closely associated with Washington and Lincoln, although to some degree we celebrate all the Presidents.

To most Americans, the past presidents are not very memorable with a few exceptions.  Many of them are hardly remembered.  At the time of his election William Henry Harrison was a war hero but he only served 31 days before dying of pneumonia and is best remembered for that.

Each of the Presidents rose to the highest office in the land based on accomplishments, but those actions are generally forgotten with a few exceptions.

What did happen, over the years, is that the President was given more ability to act by the Congress because of the potential need for quick response in emergencies.

This accretion of powers has to some extent changed the balance of power in America from what was originally intended.  While different in form, most of the founding fathers probably had something like Parliament in men.  In England the executive power is almost totally subjugated to the Parliament.

We have evolved differently here, and not necessarily in a good way.  The current President is clearly abusing some powers granted to his office and while it is offensive to see the powers abused, it may result in a needed correction to the proper balance.

The power of the people is inherent in the Congress where many more diverse viewpoints exist.

Goodbye President Bush

During his life I generally didn't agree with his policies but I'll say I always respected him.

He served this country well in the Military, Government Service and in the executive office and afterward he acted with good will and honesty.

There are going to be many tributes to him published but I just want to say he characterized the period in this country where people could disagree without the acrimony and disharmony we see today.

I didn't of course disagree with all of his policies, many of them were clearly bipartisan and in the interests of the country as a whole.

It seems like after him, the country fell under a type of acrimony that we had been somewhat immune to previously and a lot of that is related to the creation of the Murdoch media empire in this country and the sensationalism that used to get revenue.

Its a history that needs to be written how the greed of one man and new technology spread "fake" news into the mainstream.

Of course we went through a period of yellow journalism once before.

How this period will resolve itself remains to be seen, but that is a bit off point.

This president never stooped to the behavior we now take for granted.  He was part of the generation we often refer to as the greatest one, and he took his responsibilities seriously and served honorably.

Goodbye

Not Presidential

The question you have to ask is the performance yesterday in Finland, an act of knowing sedition or simply an act of idiocy?

I imagine using that approach in every interrogation, well he strongly says he didn't do it, so guess we have to let him go.  But what about all that evidence our people have gathered?  Well he says he didn't do it and he seemed pretty positive about it.

There is enough evidence of Russian involvement to convince even the so called intelligence committees in the house and senate so it must be quite persuasive.

This is the problem with the dontard.  He doesn't have a sense of perspective or any understanding of real issues.

He spends his time playing the role of president rather than being the president.  His experience in business didn't prepare him, he inherited it and was always the boss.

The president isn't the boss.  The executive branch has an equal role with the other two branches, something we call checks and balances.

The founding fathers would be mostly aghast at how much president get involved in this day to day politicking.

They envisioned the job as being the administrator of the operation, running the government efficiently based on what the legislature passed.

Not being naïve, they knew he would have some involvement, but more in the way of a senior advisor who might every so often have to veto something that was either unworkable or against the best interests of the nation.

Clearly presidents have become much more involved in mundane politics, but we never had one quite as inept as this one.

Presidents

Ultimately, how any period in time is measured has a lot to do with things outside the control of the Government.

The few times its different is when the country faces a crisis or a major war.

Take the administration of a popular president like Dwight Eisenhower.  Most people associate him much more with being the World War 2 general and while the country dealt with a lot of issues (all presidents do) I suspect most Americans couldn't name a significant accomplishment of his administration.

A president like John Kennedy is remembered by many more people because of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fact that he was assassinated.  The second is clearly not an accomplishment.

Presidents come and go and someone like President Obama will forever stand out as the first black president, which is unlikely to be forgotten, like the fact that Kennedy was our first Catholic President.

He might also be remembered for his health care bill which may have started our move towards health care for all.  However the fate of that is still uncertain and it is still under attack.

You really can't judge the importance of a particular presidency before it is actually over and even then it might take some time.  Of course some, like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt were clearly important because of the events going on during their administration.

I didn't include Woodrow Wilson because I'm not sure most Americans would even know he was president during the first world war and besides that he didn't make much of a mark.

It remains to be seen how the current president is remembered in history, but the fact that he is in the media so much is not really a relevant factor.

Despite his ongoing propaganda about his historic achievements, as of this point nothing really stands out.  He has met with the North Korean dictator, but whether that changes anything or is even important remains to be seen.

Nixon opened the door to China, a much more significant event and it is really mostly a footnote, he has Watergate as his main legacy.

History will decide what to remember, if anything at all when time has passed.