Showing posts with label presidency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidency. Show all posts

November 17, 2008

Obama's Restricted Freedom

After the American Century

There is a curious irony in President Barack Obama's e-mail situation. While a Senator he was glued to his Blackberry and emailed constantly. As President, it appears he will have to give up his freedom in cyberspace. Not only will official regulations require that all his official business be preserved for posterity, but also national security mandates that his emailing be restricted to harmless topics, if not cut off altogether.

The erosion of the line between public and private is a problem for all Internet users. Google can mine information on those who use its search engine, strangers can see photographs we post on Facebook, and huge amounts of personal information ends up on the WWW, often without the persons described, discussed or documented being aware of it. Therefore, the President has to become an intensely private person, with little or no personal presence on the Internet, however many official web pages and news stories there are about him or her.

In Obama's case this seems particularly ironic. More than any other candidate, he mastered the new media, and used it to raise money and coordinate his campaign. He apparently also used it to stay in touch with ordinary people - old friends whom he could trust to tell him what the buzz was on the street. E-mail gave him access to life beyond the bubble of celebrity and security. But now, for the next four, quite possibly eight years, Obama will enter a cocoon of cyber-isolation - or he may become a reader but not a sender of emails. One assumes he will still have a computer and that he will be able to surf the web, perhaps under a new assumed name each day.

The President is seen as the most powerful person in the United States, yet his movements are restricted, his contacts are monitored, his every decision recorded, and his email cut off. While there are compensations, to be sure, holding that office to a considerable degree restricts freedom and discourages spontaneity. For decades the President has not been able, on the spur of the moment, to jump in the car and go for an aimless, relaxing jaunt into the countryside. It seems the freedom to roam in cyberspace will be restricted as well.

But on the bright side, for at least four years Obama will not get any spam!

June 19, 2008

The Curious Un-Democratic Secrecy of Vice-Presidential Selection.

After the American Century

One of the most curious practices in world politics is the selection of American vice-presidents. While literally millions of people choose the presidential candidates in the bright glare of constant scrutiny, a tiny handful of advisers and a candidate chooses each of the running mates. In a parliamentary system like that in Britain, Denmark or Germany, the "crown princes" in each party are observed for years in key cabinet positions, and constantly evaluated by the press. But in the American system the vice-president is chosen in secret from an unknown list of candidates, and may not be terribly well-known until after the announcement is made.

This procedure and the selection of possibly unknown candidates means that there can be unpleasant surprises after the formal announcement has been made. In 1972 George McGovern selected a well-educated and promising younger Senator - Eagleton was his name - to run with him. But his staff had not vetted their choice thoroughly enough, and it came out that Eagleton had undergone electric shock treatment some years before. You can decide for yourself whether or not this disqualifies someone to be next in line for the presidency, but Nixon's reelection campaign had a field day with it. McGovern was also the victim of Watergate, which is another story, but after he had to "un-choose" Eagleton his campaign never really recovered. Walter Mondale also sank his chances against Reagan in 1984, when he chose Ms. Ferrarro, without noticing that her husband had some dubious business connections in New York. The idea of choosing a woman was perhaps a good one, but that uproar was pretty much the undoing of his campaign.

McCain and Obama are now making the most crucial decision they have yet had to deal with, and it is one which they make alone, in secret. Voters regard this as a test of their judgement, and a clue to their core values. Has the person chosen really got the qualities needed to be president, if need be? Or has the person been selected mostly to "balance" the ticket? Or, occasionally, is the selection proof that the candidate just lacks judgement? Dan Quayle comes to mind. Was that mentally challenged, vapid, individual really just a heartbeat away from the presidency? The spectacle of seeing him blunder around from 1988 to 1992 certainly did not improve George Bush Sr.'s credibility. Quayle once apologized during a Latin America n trip because he did not speak Latin.

If the president remains healthy, the vice-president remains a minor figure. But the four (or eight) years waiting in the wings make these secret selections into leading contenders for the presidency in later elections. Since World War II, the following vice-presidents, all initially singled out by a handful of people, eventually became president: Truman, Nixon, Johnson, Ford, and Bush Sr. That is one half of the total. The others who emerged chiefly through the electoral process were Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr. Admittedly, Bush Jr. is a disaster, but he did not win the popular vote, either. So leave him out, and what anyone can see is that the former vice-presidents were clearly less popular than those who were first vetted by the press and public. In short, I trust an open democratic process to choose leaders more than a few experts meeting in secret.

It is, in theory, easy to change the selection system, for nothing in the Constitution dictates the present arrangements. Only custom says that Hillary Clinton cannot run an active campaign for the second spot. Indeed, why should not anyone interested in the job be required to declare themselves a candidate, so the public can at least discuss them? The current system is mere bad habit. Some might argue that it is prudent to defer to the nominees and their need to find someone they feel is compatible. But it seems like a curious - and serious - failure of democratic principles. If the US ever decides to write a Constitutional amendment that gets rid of the strange Electoral College system - which led to the unfair selection of George W. Bush instead of Al Gore - at the same time it would be a good idea to require that the selection of vice-presidents be more open. In the meantime, there is nothing that says that either of the two parties will abandon this vestige of pre-democratic times.

December 11, 2007

Gore Receives Nobel Prize

Al Gore received the Nobel Prize yesterday in Oslo. He also won the popular vote in the United States in 2000. And if there were an election today in the rest of the world, who doubts that he would defeat George Bush? The trajectories of these two men, both born in 1946, is fascinating. Bush avoided Vietnam, using family connections to be placed in the National Guard. Even in that safe, domestic role, the evidence suggests he was not quite a full-time soldier. As President, Bush has enjoyed parading himself before the troops as the commander in chief, but future historians will surely see the hypocrisy in his posing. Gore, in contrast, went to Vietnam, out of a sense of duty, but without enthusiasm for the war itself. Like John Kerry, he has direct experience of what it means to serve in a foreign war. 

This is not the place for a full rehearsal of Bush's subsequent career, or to compare it with Gore's. Suffice it to say that after lying to the United Nations and charging into a war with Iraq, there is little chance of George W. Bush ever winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and absolutely no chance that he will be remembered as a man of vision with regards to the environment. Recall that Bush long denied even the existence of global warming. He has represented an old-fashioned view of the relationship between the economy and ecology, one that made him popular with oil companies and the boardrooms of Detroit car companies. By comparison, Gore has proved himself to be a man of vision, articulating the environmental crisis with clarity and compassion. In his speech, he emphasized that "without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. It is time to make peace with the planet." Try to imagine Bush making that statement. Try to imagine anyone believing him if he did.

It is an inconvenient truth for the American people, but Al Gore would have made a far better president than George Bush.