A recent Newsweek article asks if the presidency is too big a job for one man. The better question would be how did we allow the presidency to become so big that anyone might reason it is too big a job for one person?
There are many reasons the Imperial Presidency has expanded over the years. Most obviously, the federal government has become larger (but not the number of employees, paradoxically- to be discussed in the future). With every new department, bureau, agency, and mandate, the Executive Branch becomes more complex and more nuanced. This is, according to author Daniel Stone's article, especially a problem in the White House where phalanx after phalanx of advisers have been brought on to brief President Obama about every conceivable issue. They are the ones who give him the spin.
Good to see not all of our manufacturing jobs have been shipped to Asia.
Some would wonder how presidents allowed this to happen, this death by too much help. I wonder how we, the people, allowed it to happen. The presidency is, after all, a representative office- elected not inherited. If the country wants a smaller presidency, then let us encourage a smaller presidency.
We can start by abandoning our worship of the office. This has become particularly acute in the last two years, likely a result of the media's unquestionable infatuation with Obama. But even under the most recent Bush the media celebrated everything presidential. Most annoying was the throwing around of the "POTUS" label, an insidious tag which "brands" the office and makes it a catchy phrase. The chief of the Executive Branch has become a viral marketing slogan, like something recently posted on UrbanDictionary.com.
I first heard the OTUS (from "Of the United States") scheme in use between Secret Service agents about ten years ago. I suspect it originated from the brevity codes used in law enforcement circles; just as each president had a call sign to be used- there were generic brevity codes for offices too.
Regardless of where it started, it has been taken on by the media, and extension the general public, as a label of adoration and it is foolish.
The federal government is a necessity to monitor closely not an all powerful entity to be bowed to in blind admiration. In the past several years use of the "OTUS" acronym has expanded to include "SCOTUS" ("Supreme Court of the United States"), "VPOTUS" (I'm not spelling these out if they're self-evident), "FLOTUS," "AOTUS" (Archivist Of The United States"), "PLOTUS" (you can Google that one; it is good for a laugh), and even "FDOTUS" ("First Dog of the United States").
I can only imagine the hipsters of Dupont Circle following every FDOTUS update on Twitter via their iPhones. It makes me want to break a didgeridoo over their heads.
It might be said that the "OTUS" designations trivializes important offices. I say quite the opposite: it makes them seem worthy of social adulation as opposed to political monitoring, which is a dangerous trend.
We are not supposed to have a royal family in America. I want a president who goes into the office, does his work, and makes the government run legally, smoothly, and economically. I do not need a leader to show me how to live my personal life. Frankly, I do not like how FLOTUS has been elevated to a public position as well. I have a wife. She is beautiful and sweet and makes delicious shrimp pasta. I do not want to live vicariously through some ficitious office someone created, out of step with the Constitution. I have a dog too, and like my wife, I prefer it to the one currently occupying the White House. FLOTUS can take FDOTUS for a walk and disappear from my TV screen for all I care. I want a president not a father figure.
So how do we reign in this OTUS madness?
Awareness and personal action.
If I were the CSEPOTUS (Chief Social Engineering Officer of the United States- not an official title yet, that I know of- and one I pray we never have) I would hire a bunch of Brown grads and figure out how we could institute a $3 billion program to reorganize the nation's collective brainpower in a more productive direction. But I do not believe in centralized social planning. First of all because the Constitution only allows it in a few, express areas and secondly because it does not work.
If we want this stupid "OTUS" thing to end just start calling the idiots who use it, well, idiots. And just like disco and the Rubik's Cube and Jams and people who used to do Rob Schneider's SNL "making copiiiiiiies" line- it will fade into the past.
AOTUS can document its entire demise.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.