Your Thoughts Exactly

Here's a hypothetical situation. Let's say you took a random American-- no special qualifications, no special ideas, not a spectacularly good speaker, nothing special about him, except maybe that he was a graduate of the Derek Zoolander center for kids who can't read good and would like to do other thing good too. And then you made him President. For 8 years. What would happen?

Most people, most Americans, myself included, think we know a few things about how the world works, we're convinced that we're right, and we think we could do a better job than Bush could. All of these things may very well be true. And that last one might be twice as true as the rest. But, the point is, we're still normal people, not professional politicians, and though we are convinced of our morals and ethical practices, we rarely see the bigger picture that can only come from being lobbied by Indian reservations and their casinos while trying to decide how best to completely deforest 'their' land legally.

So, if we took this hypothetical geek off the street and turned him into a Regulator, I mean, the President of the United States, wouldn't he also be in way over their head? So let's explore what it would be like if you, being an average American, were the big bad POTUS.

The first year, being president would be pretty sweet. You just sign a few bills, make a few appearances, do what your advisors say, and blame anything immediately wrong on your predecessor. You'd talk the big talk- "cut taxes", "better education", "save the whales", and "God Bless America" over and over again. You of course would know that you might have made some campaign promises you couldn't keep, but that was politics. So you'd twiddle your thumbs, sit around, and drink a lot. But then oops, late in the year, something awful happens. Making sure that Americans don't forget it, you'd resolve to mention its date approximately 14,000 times. And you'd be sure to mix it up, sometimes calling it September 11th 2001, sometimes September 11th, and sometimes just 9/11. Variety is the spice of life.

Of course, being a regular guy, having a good time, taking a shitload of vacation, you weren't expecting this. So you freeze. What the fuck are you going to do? Take cover? Immediately go on the air? Destroy all the planes in the air? Declare a state of emergency? Martial law? It's hard to say, of course. So you think about it for a few minutes, you go on auto-pilot, because continuing to read a book about a pet goat is easy. After all, you've read it so many times it was the subject of your thesis.

But the public doesn't mind- it's not like there was anything you could do. And they're right. So when you vow to absolutely annihilate those responsible, everyone agrees with you, because after all, they're regular guys too. And that's what we were supposed to do.

And then everyone would love you. You'd be a big hero, you'd make more appearances, ensuring the populace that everything was going to be fine, that yes, there was evil, but as long as God continued to Bless America, we'd win. And it would be so awesome, because everyone would forever identify you as the Guy who was President when IT happened. And you'd think to yourself: I am great, Mom was right! I was such a strong leader for delivering America out of despair, and I'm going to make sure that it never happens again. After all, it was Clinton's fault anyway.

After a while it would get boring, though. After two full years of having a microphone and recording glued to your mouth, you'd be bound to have some ridiculous slip-ups and everyone would make fun of you, on national television, saying what a moron you were. But those people were missing the point. The point was that you were making America a better place- because you knew what was best for America.

But it would become rapidly apparent (even to yourself) that you were indeed over your head. It's impossible, you'd say (probably rightly), for one person to truly grasp the state of world and national affairs. I'm going to delegate. I'll make sure to surround myself with like-minded people. And that would be a great decision. But then you'd look around, and think- these people are all smarter than me in their respective departments! This place can run itself!

And then you'd notice that all of the people in Congress were on your team- and since they were on your team, you could trust them. Trust them so much that you would NEVER, not even once, decide to veto one of their bills. After all, if 51 senators agreed, who were you to tell them they were wrong? Plus, they're on your team, they wouldn't do anything you didn't like.

So, later on, you'd finally be faced with the fact that all you were charged to do, really, was keeping the public informed. Coupling that with the fact that you really weren't a spectacular speaker, you'd want to do something else. You'd need to make your mark on the world- be remembered for something other than "the guy who was President on 9/11" Doesn't "the guy who delivered us from evil" sound so much better? You'd make a plan, to fix these evil places in the world, and the public be damned.

The middle east would look like a great place to start. You could start with the main anti-American dictator and depose him. I mean- the terrorists were from the middle east, and here is this guy who would like nothing better to destroy us as well. It's hard NOT to believe he wasn't involved! So you'd gather intelligence. Your director might give you some shaky evidence for a case for war. You'd look at it, agree that it was shaky, but would rather not take chances with American lives! So you'd start putting the pressure on, squelching evidence to the contrary- and not really listening to what people were objecting to. After all, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. And you'd rationalize that the public was mostly uninformed, and that their objections were the result of not seeing the whole picture. After all, you're the President! But you wouldn't flat-out lie to them. That would be wrong. Instead, you'd lie to yourself. Plus, if you went to war, you'd probably win the upcoming election- most presidents stayed on in a time of war. It (and being the incumbent) would be just what you needed to get a leg up.

Later on, a large natural disaster might strike the US. Let's say a hurricane. You'd seen plenty of hurricanes before. They could be bad, but as long as people were aware of them, they could usually evacuate and after a short rebuilding period, they'd be back on their feet. Sure, you'd sign a few emergency response budgets, but basically, your underlings would take care of it. But you'd have bigger things to worry about.

After it became readily apparent that it was much worse than you thought, you'd say things like"'I don't think anyone foresaw the levees breaking" because most regular guys didn't see it happen. Never mind the fact that the Army Corps deemed them incapable of handling a large storm, or the fact that even in the immediate run-up to the hurricane it was one of the biggest concners. And you wouldn't remember that earlier in the year you had cut funding to a project that would have helped fix it. I mean seriously, you sign a billion pieces of paper a year, and they expect you to remember each one? Sometimes the public can be so unreasonable.

Anyway, your dutiful little chain of command would do its job, send food, helicopters, rescue teams, and they'd get it all sorted out. You'd go down, make a few appearances, and it'd be great. You'd praise your underlings for "doing a heckuva job", because of course they'd been working hard- they were on your team. It would be ludicrous to think that one of your teammates would be so incompetent as to discuss fashion and PR rather than doing his job.

What you'd also want to do is get rid of all those pesky constraints on your power. Sure, there were laws- but the President was different. The executive branch was different. And really, wasn't the whole Constitution really just more of a guideline?

You'd think about what you could POSSIBLY do to ensure that you'd prevent another attack. And if that wasn't allowed, then you'd just do it in secret. That would be the nice thing about being the president- unparalleled amounts of power. And what power gives you is the freedom to make the decisions- the decisions about who you want to listen to, who you want to convict, and who you want your people to spy on, and torture. You'd get angry, because your critics just refused to understand that this situation was different! Your enemies were secret, not like in past wars. And this war looked like it would "end" in constant vigilance rather than a surrender signing on a big battleship. Why didn't they see that? Why couldn't they see that you weren't spying on decent Americans? Why couldn't they see that you were doing the right thing, and that all those people you had locked up and beaten were at the very least, indirectly related to terrorist activities. These were bad people! And you were a good person! You weren't going to do purposefully do anything bad with your power. And if a few innocents were harmed, well- it was a fact of life in war. You'd create a false dilemma in your head, saying that the critics would rather have an America where we sat around and waited to get hit again. And in that case, innocents would die too, so at least in your scenario, you get to mitigate the effects.

What you'd reason is that power is only suitable for those with morality- and that we were more moral than the terrorists, because we gave everyone a fair trial, we didn't kill innocents, and we didn't torture people. Ok, so there were a few incidents, but on the whole, we were the better option than them- and you couldn't afford to have your power diluted- that would enable it to go to people who didn't know how to stop themselves, people with questionable ethics.

So the last thing to do, would be to ensure that your legacy lived on- you'd appoint highly like-minded Justices to the court, who agreed that the President had all sorts of powers not written into the Constitution- that way nobody could disagree when they said you were breaking the law. But at the end of every day, you'd be able to sleep at night, because you'd be remaking the world in the image that you saw was right, because after all, you aren't just a regular guy, you're the President.