The President Should Lead the Whole Country

September 3, 2014

President Obama has taught us a valuable lesson:  Presidential involvement in partisan politics is bad for America.  When one is elected president, he or she is obligated to exercise presidential power for the good of the whole nation.  The president must subordinate personal political views to that mix of values which can be accepted by all Americans regardless of party affiliation.  Leadership becomes a duty, not a pulpit.  Virtue alone yields the reverence and harmony of character necessary to guide a nation in controversy.

In order to depoliticize the presidency, I believe we need to change the Constitution to require the following:

·         The president shall be elected for one term of six years.

·         The president shall not campaign for or endorse any person for elective office.

·         All profits received at any event where the president appears or speaks or from the president’s sale of books or writings shall be paid to the U.S. Treasury.

·         All monies, if any remaining in the president’s campaign fund after election and payment of costs shall promptly be paid to the U.S. Treasury.

There can be no reverence for the process, no harmony in bona fide political discussions, and no genuine representation of the whole nation if the president involves himself or herself in partisan politics.  Professor Woodruff, in his carefully written book, Reverence: Renewal of a Forgotten Virtue, said:

...power without reverence...is a catastrophe for all concerned.  Power without reverence is aflame with arrogance, while service without reverence is smoldering toward rebellion.  Politics without reverence is blind to the general good and deaf to advice from people who are powerless...reverence is the virtue on which leadership most depends...isolation of leaders from followers is a first step away from reverent leadership.

Limiting our president to one term would give us an executive of superior character in representing the whole nation and doing the right thing by the nation, not the right thing for his reelection or his party.

 

John Cogswell, Founder and Manager

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