10 August 2012 By Saeed Qureshi Perhaps the most vigorous yet
most vulnerable office is that of the President of the
United States of America. The American Presidency is
the most awesome of all the presidencies in the world,
because the president presides over the most powerful
country of the world which, of late, has also donned
the mantle of a sole super power. Yet paradoxically,
American President is both weak and strong. A bill in America becomes a law
for implementation after the signatures of the
President. He can declare war against any country,
start even star war, spur space exploration and offer
aid of any volume to any country. He is the commander-
in-chief of the armed forces. He is authorized to
declare a country as a friend or an enemy. American
president can place any country under embargoes and
lift those already imposed. The American President is the
chief custodian of the country' interests. No lapse in
this regard is expected of him. Be it welfare of the
people, the indigenous prosperity, the defense, the
resources, the agricultural production or the
scientific or the technological exploration: America
reigns supreme. In strong economy, high per
capita income and near invincibility in defense,
America wields unparalleled influence over the world.
America dictates its decisions that carry more weight
and command more compliance than the United Nations.
So it is the one country equal to about 180 countries
and still heavier than them. Although there are many checks
and restraints on the functioning of the President,
yet despite this he unquestionably enjoys a vast array
of powers. But the checks on him primarily relate to
his internal policies, upright behavior and moral
standards. By declaring war against any country in the
name of security, patriotism and national honor, he
can rally the nation behind him. After all Americans
are as patriotic as others are. But they are more sensitive about
their identity and security. For this reason American
citizens, cannot be prosecuted abroad for any crime or
illegality. It is the American government, which will
take action against their own citizens, and not the
country on whose soil any minor or major crime is
committed by an American citizen. On the other hand a national or
citizen of any other country, whom US thinks should be
tried for criminal activities against American
interests or security, will have to be handed over to
the US government. Such are the norms and patterns of
the disparities between mightier and the weaker
nations. An American President is
perennially sitting in a glass house being carefully
and closely watched for every move, action and
decision that he takes and every word that he utters.
In American history four presidents were killed while
attempts on the lives of some others were made, the
latest being President Ronald Reagan. The American President is the
most protected person yet occasionally he is exposed
to attacks. While the assassins of Abraham Lincoln was
identified that of J.F. Kennedy remains shrouded in
mystery. Although an individual named Lee Oswald was
named as the shooter, yet before he could be put to a
rigorous investigation, he too was killed. The building where President
Kennedy was killed is like a holy shrine, visited by
both Americans and foreigners in droves every day. The
Elm Street has assumed an historical significance and
anyone who comes to Dallas must also visit the J.F.K.
Museum now set up in the same building from whose
window Oswald fired at President Kennedy. As already mentioned, the
American Presidency is not a bed of roses but a thorny
throne, on which he has to sit with extreme care and
vigilance. The moment he vacillates, wavers, is
inattentive, is forgetful, makes a mistake or resorts
to a slip of tongue, he is checked at once and then a
sordid process of incrimination, vilification,
reprimands and censure starts. It is seldom that he can get out
of such a tirade with flying colors. Multifarious
lobbies, including the special interest groups and the
rival political party are always on the look out to
take to task an errant president and subject him to
severe probe and rigorous censure. In case of
prosecution or enquiry, there is no escape and no
reprieve for a president. The judicial process takes
its own course and there is no easy way to get out of
it unless one is proven not guilty. As for the choice of their
President is concerned, the American people tend to be
idealist. Nothing short of an angle in the garb of a
human is the prerequisite of the people to be a
President. This is the image that the Americans
nurture about their president, a faultless and
flawless individual. The society may be afflicted with
serious moral lapses, but a president is supposed to
be an icon of virtues .He should be the paragon of all
qualities that can be attributed to a human being. A President's past is thoroughly
scanned and dug out to ensure that he did not break
the law and was not involved in major or minor crimes
such as driving under intoxication, tax evasion or
concealing his actual income. Briefly an American
president ought to be a kind of Jesus Christ
re-incarnate or an embodiment of rectitude and
absolute ethics. This is why every President
during elections and after assuming the presidency
remains under the microscopic observation of the
people. The people may still ignore his minor human
lapses that don't impinge upon his performance in
national affairs. Yet the interest lobbies and strong
pressure groups that may still be antagonized for one
reason or another pounce upon him like birds of prey. They rest and recoil only when
either the President is removed disgracefully or
surrenders before the interest lobbies or else makes
compromises with his antagonists. Invariably, there
are reasons or motives behind the smear campaign
against a president, otherwise big holes in the moral
fabric of a president are sometimes ignored or
concealed. The press and media is America is
always ready to analyze and lay bare the personal
character of a president or merits and demerits of his
policies. The American press has its bias and slants
for or against a president. Such a bias comes out of
the tilts either towards the Republican or the
Democratic Party. This tendency of the press is
healthy in a way that both sides investigate and
analyze threadbare the personality and policies of the
high-ups including the president. The panelists,
analysts and commentators freely discuss and debate
with blistering critique against or for a person
depending upon the sympathy or inclination of a media
person. Once a president is out of office
or he is forced out of office, he falls into oblivion.
He is back to the status of an ordinary person who has
to eke out his living with pension or by taking up
some job or assignment like business, lecturing or
teaching, a consultancy or at best writing his
auto-biography. If he is already a businessman, he may
fall back upon his previous business forgetting that
he was once the occupant of a strikingly glorious and
most coveted status of the president of the mighty
United States. One may occasionally peep into
the life, health or other accounts of the former
presidents, although in their days of splendor, they
were always on the front pages of the newspapers or
the prime topic of the discussions for the electronic
media. They won't have time for interviews to the
press. For instance, of late and among living
presidents, President Jimmy Carter is back to his
peanut business and Clinton is trotting the globe
giving lectures. President Ronald Reagan
(Republican), one of the successful presidents in
whose tenure the Soviet Union disintegrated, sustained
on his pension, until his death. In contrast, in the
third world countries, the former heads of states,
aristocrats and bureaucrats, lead luxurious lives
after their retirement because they amass huge money
through unfair means during their incumbency and stash
it abroad. Those who would fall from grace
but had marveled during their stay in the Presidency
were among others, President Richard Nixon followed by
President Bill Clinton. These are the recent examples
but otherwise every President had to suffer some sort
of disparagement, censure, pressure, scrutiny or a
trial for mishaps or mal-practices depending upon the
nature of their follies. President Nixon‘s Watergate
Scandal initiated by the press was excessively
publicized and grossly blown out of proportion by
Democrats. President Nixon (Republican
Party) was one of the most outstanding and brilliant
presidents after the World War II. It was he who
started the process of retrieving US from the quagmire
of Viet Nam war, which had deal serious setbacks to
the U.S. militarily. Despite the use of most advanced
and sophisticated weapons, the US had to finally
negotiate for withdrawal .He was the President who
also opened dialogue and established link for the
first time with the hated China. The policy of appeasement and
overtures for co-existence with communist China was
not liked by a fanatically anti-communist lobby in US.
Moreover, with peace in many parts of the world, how
could the arms industry in America flourish? He had to
resign despite the fact that the evidence about his
personal involvement in the Watergate scandal was not
stronger. But some strong moral ground and
a high sounding pretext had to be made out to oust
President Nixon from the office and that too with
humiliation. His misfortune was that a journalist
initiated the case of misconduct so the press
community on the whole turned against him. As such he
received a biased and totally negative publicity. The succeeding president Gerald
Ford pardoned him and thus the campaign of diatribe
and character assassination against him came to an
end. It is very seldom that President Nixon, who
rescued US's prestige from complete sinking, was thus
removed from the political scene and forgotten .He is
still not liked by most of the Americans who think
that he was a criminal and a crook. What an accountability but
certainly it was tinged with ulterior motives! The
nation failed to distinguish between the good and the
bad deeds of President Nixon. There is no pardon in
Let us look at Bill Clinton's
case. President Clinton (Democratic Party) despite his
human and personal shortcomings and obsession for sex
had been an outstanding President .In his 8 years'
stint in the presidency; he gave a monumental fillip
to the U.S. economy. The surplus money in Clinton
presidency ran into billions of dollars. The jobs were
plentiful; the industrial sector making great strides,
the business class was all delighted. The American
people were and are still fond of him. But perhaps somewhere there was
an uncanny lobby which disapproved his Middle East
Peace Process. In the hindsight one would wonder to
see the Late Israeli Prime Minister Ralph Rabin
standing by Yasser Arafat, the PLO chief and shaking
hands with him. President Clinton was there in between
with a broad smile on his face exuding his triumph and
sense of achievement of a feat, which looked
impossible otherwise. It was an historic moment both
for the Palestinians and the
If impeached, he would have gone
down in history as a condemned and immoral person. He
may have made compromises here and there but the whole
episode speaks for the ascendency and vibrancy of a
civil and free society adored with the hallmarks of
strict accountability and unassailable system of
checks and balances. The episode of Mona Lewinski
although is the episode of an average American, yet it
was splashed beyond limits as it involved a president.
The nation weighed his purely private forays in sex
with his outstanding achievements in the national
service making the former as the only issue and
overlooking his marvelous feats. One of his outstanding
achievements was not only to rehabilitate the battered
US economy after the Middle East's military adventure(
Desert Storm) launched by his predecessor President
George H. W. Bush, but filling of the national
exchequer beyond expectations. Clinton's was one the most
prosperous periods in the American history. The
poignant reason is that he opted for and worked for
peace around the world. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan
were involved with Russians in Afghanistan, while the
senior Bush's main penchant was Middle East and to
reverse the Iraq's uncalled-for invasion of Kuwait. Those were chaotic and turbulent
times as both the cold war and the hot war had mingled
with each other. But
His ruinous slogan of dividing
the world "you are with us or not with us," kept the
world in perpetual turmoil and unremitting tension.
His penchant for war mongering not only depleted the
coffers of American wealth but weakened the moral
grandeur, the strident integrity and sublime stature
of the United States around the world. Internally it
brought about a colossal economic collapse that had
rudely shaken every household and business upside
down. Resultantly, the Republicans
suffered defeat at the hands of a brilliant black
democrat. The American people gave their unprecedented
historic verdict to Democratic Barack Obama which
speaks for the sparkling beauty, exquisite strength
and glorious spirit of American democratic culture.
The American people are the real masters and arbiters
of America and their empowerment is derived from its
adorable democratic system. With no transparent policy or
clear vision on the Middle East and with the murky
Afghanistan situation at hand, the U.S. economy sinks
and buoys up in a pool of uncertainties. In an
unbridled and uncertain situation overshadowed by
distant wars, the economy moves backward and forward
alternately. A leadership quality called statesmanship
is missing in US policy on the Middle East, which is
to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But despite this pro-Israel
partisanship, various American governments have not
been totally blind or unmindful of the ground
realities in the Middle East. They would occasionally
talk sense and emphasize the necessity of peace via
negotiations between the inveterate adversaries.
Nevertheless; the present leadership has failed to
bring about thaw and a meaningful breakthrough in the
stalemated crisis and to disengage the combatants. The M.E. plan of President Bush
did not throw up a successful modus operandi for an
end to the deep bitterness and chronic hostility
between Israel and the Palestinians. It does not give
the Palestinians what has been promised to them in the
Oslo accord. Mediocrity spoils even the
brightest chances of success .It is another matters if
U.S. wants to keep the inferno of the Middle East
blazing. But if the intention is to make peace then
exhortations of any sort should be for both the sides
and outpourings of condemnation should not be
exclusively heaped on one side only. Similarly, the
flames of war in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be
doused and withdrawal of American troops must be
accomplished sooner than later.
The world looks at these wars as
a manifestation of neo-colonialism which may
contradict the American ideals of democracy freedom,
equality, peace, respect for territorial integrity of
other countries and the norm of equal status of all
the members of the United Nations. If at all Iraq was
involved in criminal activities such as making of
biological or chemical weapons, then it should have
been the combined headache of the entire world
community and not that of US alone. Yet later that
pretext also proved to be fallacious and forged. The outgoing President G. W. Bush
at the outset considered to be as one of the most
popular Presidents, finished as the most derided,
failed and reviled president of the United States. The
history will pass a very harsh judgment on President
Bush for his grave wrong doings, involving this
magnificent country in futile wars, sullying its image
and plunging it into the worst economic morass. But
once the chickens come home, the United States has the
potential and resilience to rebound once again as a
formidable economic power, maintain its super power
status and its hallmark as an enviable welfare
society. Barack Obama is neither rash nor
temperamental or whimsical. He is a pacifist and
believes the efficacy of parleys and dialogue even
with the worst enemies of the United States. He looks
sober which is just the opposite trait of G. W. Bush
who was in the habit of talking tough and was cast in
a mould of belligerent. At a critical and demoralizing
juncture of American nation, president Barrack Obama
is the one who seems to be the right choice because of
his composure and professed sincerity and vivid action
plans to restore America its prestige and economic
strength. During all these four heady years
in office, he has been exposed to formidable and
poignant challenges that were bequeathed to him from
the former administration. Obama received a
shipwrecked vessel to steer it to towards the safe
shores. The overhauling of the massive damage to
American soci-economic fabric and its body politic is
a gigantic task that he is trying to address, to the
best of ability. This president is conscious of the
arduous path he is treading. He has been cautious, cool,
sagacious, discreet and absolutely focused on the
vital undertaking of damage control and crisis
management. With his team he is engaged in
straightening the unwieldy state of affairs. But deep
scars inflicted by an erstwhile rash and irresponsible
administration would not be healed so soon. The four years of Obama's first
term may not be enough to bridal the galloping drift
that have deeply caved into the American society. He
deserves and so does America need, that he should
return to the presidency for another four years to
bring to fruition his indispensible task of rebuilding
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