Superman for President

How's this for a headline: “Worsening oil spill tests Obama response”. That's from AP. Note they said “Obama” response, not “government” or, heaven forbid, the people responsible for the spill in the first place. That's right -- doing something about the oil spill is the personal responsibility of the president, and no one else. Doesn't this reflect the... well, not the “imperial presidency” so much as the _deification_ of the presidency? At what point did the president of the United States become all-powerful and all-knowing? Even his enemies attributed those qualities to George W. Bush; because he was president, he was “responsible” for, basically, everything that went wrong in the entire country if not the world. And yes, this deification is a bit one-sided. The president is responsible for everything that goes wrong, but little if any of what goes right. Clinton got some credit – mostly undeserved – for some things that went right during his tenure; Bush, of course did not... and Obama? Too early to tell, really. He gets credit for force-feeding health care reform on millions of unwilling citizens and not a few skeptical legislators... but so far it's all on paper, it's really too early to assess the total impact. Otherwise the Obama administration has been pretty much on an unbroken continuum with that of George W. Bush – a fact which upsets the lefties no end, which I, of course, find quite satisfying. But in any case, when it gets to the point where the president is widely assumed to have super powers, and all he has to do is fly in “to save the day”... well, I'm not sure that's quite the model the Founding Fathers had in mind, although, let's admit, the deification of the presidency certainly got its start under Washington, and a huge boost under the likes of Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and now Obama. And I guess it says something about human nature as well – I mean, look at where all the most blatant personality cults exist, or have existed: communist countries! First they ban religion, then they deify the national leader and turn the state into his church. And I suppose that as traditional faith erodes we can expect to see more and more of this basic human motive, or need, displaced in the direction of the president – even though, at the very same time, the significance of nations is diminishing and that of the “new world order” is expanding. It's no secret that the American president is not his own man – and has not been for quite a few administrations. He is a creature of much higher powers, both domestic and international, and rushes to do their bidding. So our national deity, as it turns out, has feet of clay – which makes our worship of him all the more absurd and pathetic. But as long as he is seen as all-powerful, it lets us off the hook, and allows us to blame him, rather than ourselves, for whatever goes wrong, and for anything we don't like. And thus proceeds the infantilization of the American public...