By Edwin Cooney
A few weeks ago, contemplating the upcoming November
election, a reader asked me, “What can a president do or what power does a
president have to promote the general welfare of the American people?”
Of course, Republicans, Conservatives, Democrats, and
Liberals always respond to that question by asserting that all that any
patriotic and responsible Chief Executive has to do to cure our ills is to
apply their own particular set of principles and priorities to every problem. So imagine, just for a moment, that
you, not Barack Obama, are President.
You’re sitting in the oval office at the close of the first full day of
your presidency. Throughout the
day, you’ve conversed with the most powerful and influential experts
representing all parties and all points on the political compass.
Some insist you cut taxes and regulations governing business
and commerce and the free market will be energized to handle the rest. Government, they insist, is no different
than business, and every businessman knows you can’t tax and spend your way
into prosperity. Others insist
just as vigorously that government is very different from business. Business ultimately makes a profit by
selling a product to others.
Governments have constituents not customers. Good government serves rather than sells. After all, a free government is of and
by the very people it serves. Good
government isn’t about profit, it’s about equity. Your task is to set the national agenda that puts enough
sound money in people’s pockets so they will be energized to grow the economy
for themselves and the national posterity.
You realize that one thousand four hundred and sixty days
are ahead of you now that your first 24 hours are behind you. You have as your allies your
upbringing, your education, your religion, your family, your friends and the
engine of a mighty nation.
However, that nation is faltering and you’ve been chosen to turn
everything around.
Under the Constitution, you are the Commander-in-Chief of
the armed forces. You can propose laws to Congress and veto bad bills. You can sign executive orders that
direct government departments in some cases to take certain actions with money
that’s already been approved, but only Congress can appropriate any new
spending. The media is available
to you, but it is also very available and in many cases even owned by your most
powerful political opponents.
As you sit all by your lonesome self in the mightiest office
in the history of all humanity, a frightening thought occurs to you. Your capacity to do good ultimately
requires the cooperation of others, but you alone with a few short taps on the
code keys of the nuclear football could engulf all humanity in a sudden short
conflict that would end, if not solve, all human problems. Of course, you dismiss that and get
back to the task of problem solving -- after all, you are the President of the
United States of America.
You lean back in your presidential chair and the images of
our three greatest presidents -- Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt --
flash into your mind.
In 1788, America was new and its people looked almost solely
to the President personally for direction. No one, regardless of experience or intellect, was equal to
George Washington. Washington was
elected and, under guidelines proscribed in the Constitution, put together the
entire Executive Branch of the federal government in his very first year.
Next into your mind strolls the tall bearded figure of
Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was
handed a broken nation to mend, but his bitterest political opponents, from the
South, had seceded from the Union and couldn’t counter his mandates. Hence he passed the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution and freed the slaves without them.
FDR’s jaunty image -- the jutting chin, the cigarette in its
long ivory holder, the glasses and that rich tenor voice -- reminds you that on
that cold Saturday in March of 1933 when he became President, the banks were
almost broke. People’s homes and
businesses were being foreclosed almost every hour of the day. Even the
Congress looked with desperation to the President for help.
Next, you lean forward to consider presidential near-greats
named Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Reagan, Eisenhower,
Polk, Jackson, Jefferson and, perhaps, Grover Cleveland and you realize that
their collective near-greatness had largely to do with a combination of
circumstances and very special talents.
Those talents included Truman’s decision-making prowess, LBJ’s mastery
of men, Wilson’s willfulness, TR’s energetic intellect, Reagan’s eloquence,
Ike’s steadiness, Jackson’s plain straightforwardness, Polk’s doggedness,
Jefferson’s intelligence, and Cleveland’s honesty.
Suddenly, for the very first time, you see what’s uniquely
different about today’s America. You know what you must do about it, but dare
you? Can you publicly “just say
no” to America’s talk show establishment, its professional politicians, its tax
cutters, its tax eaters, its professional teachers and preachers, its expectant
consumers, and its self-satisfied moneyed elite?
Yes, indeed, you can -- and you can do it alone. After all, you’ve just decided that
when today’s opinion makers decide to become consensus builders, when critics
turn into creators, when the possible rather than the impossible becomes
probable, you’ll say “yes, but until then -- it’s no!” Your presidential power to say no is
nearly absolute. No one, not the
media, not the Congress, not even the military can legally block -- let alone
veto -- your veto. After all, to
override your veto requires consensus -- and when consensus occurs, you win.
Now comes the really fun part: writing the speech!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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