I was thinking this evening about what future generations will think about our almost universally despised, soon-to-be ex-president. Despite his delusions to the contrary, history has already written his epitaph, and it has not been kind. He will be remembered as the president who took America from the heights to the depths; who sat, blank-eyed and uncomprehending, as the worst terrorist attack on American soil unfolded. But this is not the worst.
The president takes an oath of office. Every one of them have repeated the same words. All presidents share this, at least. Washington did it, as did Garfield. The Rooselvelts swore, as did the Adams boys. Arthur, Harding, Ford, all of them. Even Bush. Especially Bush.
In this oath, the President does not swear to Preserve, Protect, and Defend America. I think that all would agree that this is the job off the armed forces. No. What the President swears to Preserve, Protect and Defend is the Constitition. And this is where this President has failed most egregiously, and most often.
I will not list the various, and to my mind, mind-numbing list of offenses that this president has committed against the Constitution. We are all too familiar with them. But when the children of the future learn about the lengths to which this president went in his lust for power and blood, I hope that they are as sickened then as we are now. That they look upon this man as we today regard Buchanan, who dithered while the Confederacy arose, or Nixon, whose moral vacuum was his lasting legacy.
The Constitution is the rock upon which this nation was founded. Over the last few years, the assault upon it has been immense, and the damage done has been almost indescribable. I think that the foremost job of the next president (please, dear God, let it be a Democrat), even more than Iraq, the economy, health care, and all the rest, will be to impose (or re-impose) limits upon the presidency. It is a thing almost unheard-of in politics, where a leader, rather than trying to accrue power, instead urges that it be removed from his sphere. Only Washington, I believe, went to the lengths that I hope that Obama or Clinton will go, when he foreswore a kingshiop and instead set an example for a presidency.