Presidential Despot

Our current President, George W. Bush, is often referred to by his opponents as a despot, tyrant, emperor, or king. The idea is that he rules as if he were some kind of supreme authoritarian entity, without regard to the feelings of his people. Well, I tend to agree with the part that says that our current President is insensitive to his people, although there have been important exceptions. But I have a bit of an issue with the first part.

At the beginning of our country, when leaders were arguing over what kind of government we were going to have, some wanted a decentralized confederation of autonomous former colonies. Others, fearing domination from the stronger Continental nations like Britain and France, stressed the need for a strong, centralized federal state headed by a single ruler. In the Great Compromise that enabled the US Constitution to come into being, the problem was solved by instituting the office of President. The President would be like a king in the scope of his powers, but would in turn be subject to the will of the states that elected him. The extent of this subjugation would be that the states could turn him out of office in the next election, or Congress could impeach and remove him from office should he be adjudged guilty of grievous offenses. Also, the authority to appropriate funds for government would lie chiefly in the hands of the Legislative branch, with the President limited to his veto power in that area.

That being said, the office of President does carry with it great power, and none greater than the power to involve the country in a war. To the extent that our current President plunged his nation into a war that it was very deeply divided about from the very beginning, I can understand more fully the wrath and charges of despotism that his more vocal critics have vented against him. But, in my personal memory (going back to Lyndon Johnson's Presidency), every President has been charged by his critics with strong-armed rule at one time or another. Even relatively weak Presidents like Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were accused of this (Ford for pardoning Nixon and refusing to financially bail out New York City and Carter for pushing through the Panama Canal Treaty).

The bottom line on all this is that someone who politically supports a President and his or her policies is going to refrain from the despotism charges, while opponents will feed into this tactic. But it's an awfully old, badly worn out tactic, the way I see it. Sure, we have to be vigilant that Presidents don't exceed their Constitutional limitations, but this needs to be done without concern over whether it is a Republican or Democratic administration alleged to be committing any abuses of power. And despots don't just get up and walk away from their power at a specified time, the way our Presidents do: they're in it for life (unless they are overthrown by force, that is).