Cinq mythes entourant la Présidence des États-Unis

Très intéressant! Un extrait: "Americans are presidency-addicted. We can’t get enough information about our presidents, yet there is a woeful misunderstanding of the office. The president is more often than not at the mercy of events rather than a master of them. Our greatest presidents were also lucky: They inherited national crises and times that were ripe for change — and had the skills and capacity to act. As we prepare to celebrate Presidents’ Day, let’s correct some common misconceptions about the job and the people who have held it.

 1. The president has the power to get things done.

Aaron Sorkin, whose NBC series “The West Wing” helped keep this myth alive, described the White House as the “the single greatest home-court advantage in the modern world.” The presidency was not designed to fix every problem, yet we view our presidents as superheroes who can scale tall buildings in a single term, reduce the deficit and protect us from terrorists. The trappings of power (Air Force One, Marine One, Secret Service protection) are impressive. So are the realities of power: executive orders, executive actions, ordering troops into battle and the ever-present briefcase with the nuclear launch codes.

 Governing, however, is a different story. The framers wanted a strong executive but one who was accountable, too, reined in by shared and separated powers. As a consequence, the president can’t simply impose — he needs consensus and cooperation. William Howard Taft lamented a century ago that the president “cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good.” President Obama knows this constraint well: A president can’t create jobs, will victory in the two longest wars in American history, protect the nation from the European debt crisis or even plug an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

 La suite:

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-presidency/2012/02/02/gIQAxi0GIR_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop