World Politics - "Only one president..."

PC Mode

Reverend Joe 16:26 01-05-2009

Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost:
The US system is seen in many quarters as quite unwieldy, leading to a lame duck period and perceptions of a president in office with little constraint on his capriciousness for nearly three months. It seems odd, particularly when the people have voted for a significant change in political direction, that the tanker steams blithely on for another quarter - much of which time, Congress seems to be on holiday/without mandate too.

That's actually a good point; "lame duck" presidents have been historically unpleasant to have around, mainly in the situation we have now, when they are free to do whatever they want for about three months without worrying about the repercussions on their party for another four years at least. I also fail to understand the point of such a system; probably it has something to do with tyranny (with a period before the new president coming in giving the old one some time to slow down the new) but what it does is to create a tyranny of the old president, rather than a tyranny of the fickle majority.

As for the present situation... the combination of what Obama could be doing with what Bush has been able to get away with makes me really wish we would switch to the instant transition of power following election day.

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