The framers of our Constitution created the Presidency as an office held by a single individual, rather than a group, for very deliberate and specific purposes. One such purpose is addressed by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 70 (1788) as follows –
But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds — to censure and to punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where there are a number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable.
The great wisdom of this design can be clearly seen in the transparency of Mr. Obama’s failures and his attempts to distract us from them.
Here are some interesting views of Mr. Obama’s failures:
From the Left: Alternet.org
From the Right: Peter Ferrara on Forbes.com
On Foreign Policy: George Melloan at WSJ.com
Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org