A recent issue of Hillsdale College’s Imprimis features U.S. Rep. Mike Pence‘s thoughts about the proper role of the president in our constitutional system:
The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing.
Is my characterization of unprecedented presumption incorrect? Listen to the words of the leader of President Obama?s transition team and perhaps his next chief-of-staff: ?It?s important that President-Elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.? Or, more recently, the latest presidential appointment to avoid confirmation by the Senate?the new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?who wrote last Friday: ?President Obama understands the importance of leveling the playing field again.?
?Take power. . .rule. . .leveling.? Though it is the model now, this has never been and should never again be the model of the presidency or the character of the American president. No one can say this too strongly, and no one can say it enough until it is remedied. We are not subjects; we are citizens. We fought a war so that we do not have to treat even kings like kings, and?if I may remind you?we won that war. Since then, the principle of royalty has, in this country, been inoperative. Who is better suited or more required to exemplify this conviction, in word and deed, than the President of the United States?
