Gene Healy (1)

We Americans like to think our republic is unique, that our Constitution has for the most part preserved a form of government that's stacked with checks and balances, representative, and morally superior to the despots, tyrants, and authoritarian regimes that have ruled over most of humanity for most of human history. That's all true. The most important moment in American history is arguably when George Washington declined to run for a third presidential term, despite calls for him to be crowned king, or to serve for life. What's odd, though, is that since then we've come to venerate as "great men" those American presidents who have behaved most like tyrants, and denigrate the few who approached the office with some humility. Gene Healy's book The Cult of the Presidency is scholarly, acerbic, sometimes witty, and ultimately pretty depressing. Healy not only documents and damns the presidents most guilty of expanding the power and influence of the executive branch, he looks at why and how we've come to expect so much of—and invest so much faith in—the occupant of the Oval Office, and why that isn't healthy for our democracy. As we transition from an administration that believed the president has near-plenary powers to one that's promising to lower ocean levels and cure of us cynicism, Healy's book couldn't be more timely, or more important. Historians adore presidents who fought big wars, grew their own power, and broadened the size and scope of the federal government—think Wilson, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt. They have little respect for men like Calvin Coolidge, Grover Cleveland, or Rutherford B. Hayes, men who, as Healy puts it, were content to merely preside over periods of peace and prosperity. Healy's book cautions that it's time to change the way we think about the office of the presidency. There's nothing "great" about aspiring to power, then consolidating, broadening, and wielding it. Kings, tyrants, and politicians have been doing that for all of human history. It's time to define great as the willingness and ability to leave power on the table.