What's YOUR perfect president

[Alpharoth]

George W Bush. You either love him or really really hate him. It seems though that there are more people who hated him than loved him BUT he was elected again as president. Some people say he is a murderer by invading Iraq while others says he is protecting the country. But nevertheless, people ALWAYS goes complaining about their president being crap. Bush, Clinton, Nixon maybe even Lincoln. Why? People said that it's because they don't respect someone who can't run the country or they don't fit the job.

My question is this, what is your perfect president? The type of president that you won't complain about?

 

[Mundane]

A perfect president is one who accepts the nation in a whole They represent all people. They do not plot or scheme without the full consent of the sovereignty of this country. Their will never be a perfect one like that. This perfect president will not run a Christian government and really stand up for the "Land of the Free". Not under "God" but under Liberty. He will accept everyone; Gays, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, and Whites. The perfect president will be born from a unitary government. He will use his balanced power to govern our nation and not invade another countries affairs. A perfect president will outlaw the central banking system because the endless pit of debt it has caused.

The perfect president, ideally, will actually care about the word 'Freedom'.

 

[mawk]

For one thing, a president who respects UN sanctions and doesn't think torture is the new all-purpose cleaner.

And more importantly, a president who doesn't just try to look like a leader with pretty speeches and fresh-out-of-the-movies heroism. A real leader needs to know the situation at all times (and that requires knowing when you don't know. This whole situation in Iraq was created because Bush's informants were seriously bulloxed and didn't notice the sectarian tension in the country) and act with foresight and careful consideration.

I'm not really that experienced with America's homeland policies, and it really doesn't affect me (although I think it'd be nice if America got socialized medicine. It works,) but I can at least dream of an America that has all its foreign-policy ducks in a row and doesn't go around opening cans of worms.

 

[___]

Simple enough:  any president who fulfills his role as the head executive of our country, upholds his constitutional responsibilities, and doesn't shirk or attempt to unconstitutionally extend them.  Sadly, few qualify.

 

[Alpharoth]

Well every president has flaws, and for some reason the people care more about their flaws rather than their strengths.

 

[___]

Every person has personality flaws, that's a fact.  When those personality flaws lead to policy making that potentially harms people or lowers their quality of life, people should be interested in that.  The idea that you should ignore the mistakes your politicians make and "focus on the positive" is atrocious, you can justify just about any regime if you only look at the good things they did for the people.

 

[Legendary]

Myself. I'm the only person I think I can depend on to bring about the social and economic reforms that I feel are necessary for America to survive as a powerful nation.

 

[Grathea]

What is my idea of a perfect president?

Well, firstly, perfect is pretty subjective. I'll go with my idea of a great president.
A great president should:
-Increase the transparency of the US democratic process
-Actually care what the people think
-Not declare war without sufficient reason
-Make renewable energy and getting off of oil in his/her top five priorities, if not first.
-Attempt to fix the US national debt, or at least reduce the rate it's increasing by
-Ratify the Kyoto Protocols

...I've got more, but this'll do for now.

 

[$t3v0]

Chris Tucker. Why? Because he paid me fifteh million dillahs!

 

[tensuke]

Ron Paul!

 

[___]

What is my idea of a perfect president?

Well, firstly, perfect is pretty subjective. I'll go with my idea of a great president.
A great president should:
...
-Not declare war without sufficient reason...
...I've got more, but this'll do for now.

A great president should never declare war, because it's not his job, it's the job of Congress to declare war.

 

[Alpharoth]

A great president is the president that doesn't hide anything from the citizens.
But then again, maybe we better off not knowing.

Ignorance is bliss.

 

[Cruelty]

I agree with everything obama has said since he's been running, so i guess he would fit the bill for me.

 

[$t3v0]

Actually, I've changed my mind. If Chris Tucker was to become president, Gordon Brown wouldn't have much fun behind closed doors. I'm forwarding Hillary Clinton on account she doesn't have a penis.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I've never liked the idea of a President, so I'll say the collective seats of House of Representatives and the Senate and a touch of issue sensibility - so basically the Congress with accountability.

 

[Astromech]

A president who actually follows the Constitution as the framer's intended. (Unitary executive theory?! Where's that in the Federalist Papers?)

A president who doesn't hide behind "National Security" classification in order to avoid congressional oversight and judicial review.

A president who doesn't actively seek out loopholes in the law.

A president who faithfully executes the laws as Congress writes them, not as what he thinks the laws should mean (see signing statements).

A president who doesn't keep a perpetual state of war (read War on Terror) in order to use his "Commander in Chief" powers.

Heh, yeah I'm not too happy with the current presidency, but I am hopeful for these next set of candidates. Hopefully they will have the foresight to reduce the extreme unilateral power of the current presidential office.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Personally any politician who won't look for a loophole or use one they already know about is a horrible politician.
How are you going to get things done without conning the system.  You do it, I do it, and every one we'll ever work with or against will as well.

I'd rather have the rest of the world's leaders be honest to a fault than our own.

 

[Astromech]

I see your point, but I think the president has been too aggressive about it lately. It's one thing to find loopholes I guess, but another to contort the law to your will.

For instance, the president has lately been using the "Commander in Chief" clause of the Constitution to pretty much ignore any laws which limit his power to "protect the American people" during war time, based on the assumption that this clause gives him unilateral power in that regard. Some instances are presidents mobilizing troops without Congressional permission and Bush's signing statement against the McCain Torture Ban pretty much saying he can ignore it if torture will help him carry out his duty.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I'm not arguing your point/motive, but rather the wording alone.
As any single person could say it, and mean one or the other.

 

[___]

I don't know, as far as the legislature goes, I don't think it's a politician's job to try to bend and break the rules, but rather to convince us that the rules are bad if he feels so with rationality and reason, and if successful in his argument, change the rule.  It's the executive's job in the U.S. political system to decide how to enforce a pre-existing rule, so he has a broad amount of discretion there, but then it's the judicial system's job to decide, ultmately, whether the law itself is valid and whether the executive has done his duty in enforcing it correctly.

Any time you have a politician trying to subvert or dodge that balanced system you have a bad politician, I don't care what you want to call it.  It's the job of the media, of course, to let us know what those politicians are up to, and the job of the public to make critical judgments about their behavior and let their voting reflect those judgments. 

There's really endemic failures all through our system, nobody's doing their job properly all the way up and down the chain from the voters to the president himself, but that doesn't mean it's saavy to assume politics are corrupt and that it's a normal and healthy state of things, based on the reasoning that we haven't managed to self-destruct yet or whatever.