June 29, 2010--Troika Presidency

Back in the late 1780s, founders of what turned out to be the United States of America gathered in Philadelphia to work on what became our Constitution. This enduring document has served us well for more than 200 years.

Many aspects of it were complex and controversial. Among other things, delegates had to figure out how to balance the conflicting interests of northern and southern states. This mainly had to do with what to say about slavery but also how to think about the influence of the larger and smaller states. Slave-holding Virginia at the time was by far the largest and was concerned that if each state were given equal representation they might lose political power. Ultimately agreeing to a bicameral legislative system where population determined how many would sit in the House of Representatives while in the Senate each state would be granted two seats settled that dispute.

And since the American colonies had gone to war with England because of the feeling that the English government was too powerful and unrepresentative and further that government itself, unless unchecked, had the tendency to interfere with the liberty of individuals, the Constitution codifies that anti-government philosophy.

Our famous system of checks and balances is the product of that concern about the coercive potential of government. Our founders made sure that neither the legislature nor the executive much less the judiciary would have unfettered authority. They were set in motion in ways to limit the ability of any branch of the new government to interfere with citizens life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. In addition, to assure that the government that would soon settle in Washington would not dominate the lives of Americans, considerable powers were reserved to the individual states.

Anyone reading the history of that period and thinking about our Constitution in the context of contemporary times, will be struck especially by how the drafters and ratifiers of that document strove to limit the powers of the executive branch--the presidency. There was considerable concern that unless otherwise specified there was the danger that even our first president, the justifiably revered George Washington, might declare himself an American monarch. This of course did not happen. He voluntarily limited his years in office to two four-year terms at a time when the Constitution did not specify the amount of time a president could remain in office. (The two-term limit did not get added to the Constitution until the 22nd amendment was ratified in 1951.) But still there was this concern.

But though the president was given quite limited powers in the original formulation of the government, among the founders, James Madison thought that even with those limits and a much simpler than now range of issues to address and administer, the presidency was so vast a responsibility, that he and others thought that perhaps the presidency should be divided between three or four constitutionally-specified men.

This too did not get enacted; but it, again from a current perspective, makes at least conceptual sense. It is still a political non-starter, but if we think about the nature of the modern presidency, it would be worth thinking about a very different kind of presidency.

If we consider what was on Barack Obama's plate just during the past ten days, it is obvious that things today are so maddeningly complex, so fraught with dangers, so demanding of the time and capacity of a single individual as to make the contemporary presidency a job impossible to do well.

This has been true for some time. Have we had even one president who was successful in pursuing his legislative agenda while conducting effective war policy or diplomacy? Lyndon Johnson was adept at getting Congress to pass bold domestic legislation but an utter failure in the realm of foreign affairs. Have we had one president who was adept at diplomacy while successful in working with Congress? Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush were in many ways effective in foreign affairs but could not get domestic policy right. Bill Clinton generally got the economy right but failed to manage either himself or his administration, including allowing the economic bubble to begin to form that burst two years ago. George W. Bush managed to inspire the country after 9/11 but failed to understand the true nature of the threats we faced and waged at least one costly and unnecessary war. Even Ronald Reagan, who Obama got himself in trouble for calling a transformational president, though he helped bring about an end to the Cold War and did some good things for the economy was a careless manager of the nation's resources--he cut taxes but also nearly quadrupled the nation's debt.

Perhaps Franklin Roosevelt was our last more-or-less fully successful president. Though many would argue that he too failed in important realms, very much including bringing the nation out of the Depression until leading us into World War Two.

So what is the case for the one-person presidency? Certainly history does not present many good examples.

Again, during the past ten days Obama needed to function on the world stage while in Canada at the G-20 economic meeting; he had to deal with and very publicly fire an insubordinate General McChrystal; he needed to attempt to guide through Congress an imperfect but still massive financial reform package; and of course he has needed to lead the national government's feeble efforts to manage and clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Four very separate and distinct roles. Is it any wonder that he, or anyone from the past, at best got half these kind of things right?

Can any of us name even one person who would be good at all of these kinds of challenges?

In fact it's hard enough to think about who alone might be entrusted to lead our efforts to restore our and the world's economy. Or who best could figure out what to do in the Middle East and Iraq and Afghanistan. Or who is best suited to work with a highly-divided and fiercely partisan Congress. Or who might have the ability to mobilize effectively the considerable resources of the government by cutting through the intra-government rivalries and red-tape that impede efforts to deal with the disaster in the Gulf.

I am not only incapable of thinking through how a troika presidency might work much less suggesting who might be best to take on these individual roles and functions. But it is clear from history and common sense that the structure and people we have in place are not capable of getting all these jobs done. Maybe, then, James Madison had the vision to at least get us to consider this. It may just be time for a second Constitutional Convention. The system we have is feeling creaky and antiquated.