[George] Washington was, as David Boaz put it in his excellent essay of that title, “the man who would not be king.” He would not accept a title or an honorific, and established the excellent republican practice of referring to the chief executive simply as “Mr. President.” George Washington did not need the presidency — the presidency needed him.

. . .

The presidency today is a grotesquerie. It is a temporary kingship without the benefit of blood or honor or antiquity, which is to say a combination of the worst aspects of monarchy with the worst aspects of democracy, a kind of inverted Norway. (King Olav V, the “folkekonge,” was famous for using public transit.) It is steeped in imperial ceremony, from the risible and unworthy monkey show that is the State of the Union address to the motorcades and Air Force One to the elevation of the first lady (or, increasingly, “First Lady”) to the position of royal consort; our chief magistracy gives the impression of being about five minutes away from purple robes, if not togas.

. . .

But the president is not the tribune of the plebs. He is not a sacred person or the holder of a sacred office. He is neither pontifex nor imperator. He is not the spiritual distillation of the republic or the personification of our national ideals and values. (Thank God Almighty.) He is not even primus inter pares like the chief justice of the Supreme Court or the Patriarch of Constantinople. He is the commander in chief in time of war (which, since we have abandoned the advice of Washington and Eisenhower, is all of the time, now) and the chief administrator of the federal bureaucracy. That is it.

He is not a ruler.

But men demand to be ruled, and they will find themselves a king even when there is none. (Consider all of the hilarious and self-abasing celebration of Donald Trump as an “alpha male” among his admirers, an exercise in chimpanzee sociology if ever there were one.) But they must convince themselves that they are being ruled by a special sort of man; in ancient times, that was the function of the hereditary character of monarchies. In our times, it is reinforced through civic religion, including the dopey annual exercise that is Presidents’ Day.

Abolish Presidents’ Day – It is time to roll back the imperial cult.

Statolatry and Ozymandias

See also “The President is not my “boss” nor my king nor my God. Rubes“

This is how he struck us the first time we heard him:

President Obama’s stupendously shallow rhetoric betrays a remarkably superficial mind.

— Bret Stephens

Obama the Lightworker, Moral Preener in Chief, President Asterisk

#ShitMyPresidentSays

Obamacare Then, Affordable Care Act Now:

“Until it’s working really well and then they’re going to stop calling it Obamacare.”

#ShitMyPresidentSays

Cuttlefish in Chief

“A color magician of the deep”

Continue reading ‘“Obama’s stupendously shallow rhetoric”’ »

Kind of like “Shit my Dad says,” but with unfortunate consequences for millions of people, not just the rubes who voted for the Moral Preener in Chief.

#ShitMyPresidentSays

Scandal? What Scandal?

“Don’t worry, I’ll pull out.”

“I’ll still love you in the morning.”

“This is the moment the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

“You can keep your plan.” (IYLYPYCKYP)

“It’s the law of the land.”

“We won.”

“Stop fanning the flames of division.”

“Let me be perfectly clear.”

52 Percent of People Don’t Trust Obama Anymore

“You will not see your taxes increase one single dime. Not one single dime.”

“My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe.”

“You can take that to the bank.”

I will close Guntanamo.

“The buck stops with me.”

“Let me be absolutely clear.”

“No more secrecy.”

“I’ll make our government more open and transparent.”

“I will promise you this.”

“I hear you loud and clear.”

No to warrantless wiretaps. No corporate welfare, no more secrecy.

“I am less interested in passing out blame.”

Fast and Furious, IRS, Benghazi, Obamacare, Solyndra, GM and Chrysler, revolving door, Pigford, Sibelius shakedown, no lobbyists in administration, transparency, etc., ad nauseum.

Obama is at Two Dozen Scandals and Counting

“We’ve been a little bit lazy the last couple of years.”

A Noble Lie? Why ObamaCare is worse than just a case of pathological altruism.

“ocean-commanding commander-in-chief”

Liar in Chief

“Marriage is the union between a man and a woman.”

Every president faces the challenge of explaining complex policies in simple terms. But the quest for simplicity is no excuse for dishonesty.

Obama’s own advisers told the Journal that they knew those 16 words were untrue, but Obama kept on saying them — over and over and over again.

If that’s the case, then Obama didn’t misspeak.

He lied.

A dishonest presidency

“Let me be absolutely clear.”

“I want to go through the federal budget, line by line.”

“I’m pledging to cut the deficit by half by the end of my first term in office.”

“I’ll end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.”

“No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens.”

“No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”

“We’re not going to use signing statements to do an end run around Congress.”

“What can we do without Congress.”

Pretty sad when a politician can make George W. Bush look like a miser, Bill Clinton look like a paragon of virtue, Jimmy Carter look decisive, and Dan Quayle look like a brilliant genius.

“We can restore fiscal responsibility in Washington.”

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

The hubris of our ocean-commanding commander-in-chief surely isn’t news to readers of this website. He’s said that he’s smarter and better than everyone who works for him. His wife informed us that he has “brought us out of the dark and into the light” and that he would fix our broken souls. The man defined sin itself as “being out of alignment with my values.” We may be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but at the same time, everyone has been waiting for him. Or as he put it in 2007, “Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama’s been there.”

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama

Hubris, thy name is Barack Obama.

He knows everything. And yet he seems to know nothing. He’s passionate about the details of domestic policy but wasn’t privy to the details of his own legacy law. He’s an academic with a command of every issue at once but seemingly only finds out what his administration is doing in news reports. He’s so brilliant every normal endeavor he’s tried has bored him, but he couldn’t bother to entertain himself with more than one monthly meeting on the make-or-break program of his presidency. He’s the captain of the Culture of Competency who has overseen the most incompetent rollout of an entitlement program in history.
. . .
He knows everything. And yet he knows nothing. . . . The animating feature of Obama’s leadership style is simply making pronouncements. Making them about things he knows, things he knows not, and waiting for everyone and everything to fall in line. And, when things don’t magically come together, he pronounces his disappointment and anger. Wash, rinse, repeat.

“We’re going to get this done, all right?”

Sure. If you say so.

The ignorant omniscience of President Obama

Bill Clinton: “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen.”

Continue reading ‘Shit My President Says’ »