Maybe it's time to consider a co-presidency!!

[center rising]

Let me start off by saying that I know it probably will never work, or never pass, but I would love to see the job of vice-president done away with and a co-presidency take effect. Right now, President Obama has never had his plate as full with both domestic and foreign policy issues. In the world, the US is involved in two wars, one in Afghanistan and one in Libya. There is the natural disaster in Japan caused by the earthquake, tsunami and radiation. There is the political unrest in several Middle Eastern countries, Israeli-Palestinian issues, Iran, and other hot spots to worry about. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is doing the best she can, but the president makes the final decisions on what to do.

Domestically, Obama has a full plate as well. Budget negotiations and the deficit, a possible government shutdown, court challenges to the health care law, protests in several states with budget problems just to name a few.

Maybe the job as president is just too much for one man to handle. Even a four year term can run a president ragged. So I propose a co-presidency, one to handle domestic affairs, and one to handle foreign affairs. For example, Obama could run the domestic side with his handlers, while Joe Biden, with Hillary as SOS by his side, could handle foreign policy. A change to the Constitution would have to take place to make it happen.

This is a big world we live in, and the US with its status as the big dog, has huge responsibilities here at home and abroad. Maybe it's time to take some of the pressure off the president and delegate some of it to a person who is an equal partner in the decision making.

But I guess I'm just dreaming!!!

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Oh, Jay-zus.

Welcome (back) to DU.

:eyes:

[Hugabear]

2. This is why the President has his cabinet and advisers

The Presidency isn't a one-man job, he's surrounded by a team of advisers and experts in various fields.

[Historic NY]

3. Jack Lemmon & Walter Mathau tried it.....

:shrug: How would you elected them? Would 2 person from opposing parties work? Apparently the founders did have this in mind when they gave few responsibilities to the VP, one can't compete with the other.

[blondeatlast]

4. Okeee-dokeee...

Just as I was gonna get ready for bed, too. :popcorn:

[dennis4868]

5. Obama is the one man...

that can handle many issues at one time....GoBama!

[msongs]

10. lol if GWBush could do it (or figure out how to get it done) anyone can do it nt

[dennis4868]

28. U think Bush could get it done?

Huh? OMG....only a repub would say that...hahaha...

[Selatius]

6. The chief executive position is fine. What's destroying this country is a private election system.

You're never going to get anything done if the rich people keep gaming the system to their advantage. The only thing that will be done is the will of the wealthy, and once in a while, the poor get a scrap here and there to keep them placated.

If you somehow, miraculously, passed a constitutional amendment formally instituting a publicly financed election system that also requires equal time for each candidate to advertise their policy positions on regulated outlets, you might be able to save the country from the hands of the wealthy cabal.

[myrna minx]

7. Ridiculous. Unrec. n/t

[Blue-Jay]

11. I'm gonna rec this one for the lulz.

Why not? DU.we'llfiguresomethingoutsoon is doing away with the rec/unrec anyhow.

[myrna minx]

19. I suppose. Perhaps we could bring back the Roman Triumvirate

into fashion since we all know how smooth things ran that way. :D

[Blue-Jay]

21. et tu, myrna?

:(

[myrna minx]

23. Brunch with Crassus and Pompey?

Total BFFs.

[yourout]

8. Already have one.......Wall Street and who ever is "elected"

[Blue-Jay]

9. Time to change the Constitution!

Obama needs to share the presidency with Sec. Clinton, because she's....something!

Who's with me?!?



:rofl:

[Selatius]

14. Bah, General Zod had a better platform than Obama or Clinton or McCain, IMHO. Lookie here:

http://www.zod2008.com/

His platform:

I do not take orders. I give them. Congress shall no longer have the ability to impeach me or override my decisions, and the Supreme Court shall not meddle in government affairs.

Your freedom will be expanded. You will be even more free to give your money and lives to me, and to be my eternal subjects.

Eliminate the Iraq War. The Iraq War has shifted $187 billion to the defense industry. How is this "defense industry" to kneel before me? Are my praises to be sung as footnotes in their paperwork? You will stop giving these corporations your wealth. I suggest you put the money into your own schools and health care, so that I may have intelligent, healthy servants. I will indulge your wishes if you all want a Westernized, unpopular regime in Iraq, and I too shall gloat in its troubles, but it will not be done at my expense.

Universal health care. Even a criminal like myself is shocked that millions are not able to get health insurance and cannot pay for basic surgery. Who are these power brokers that allow the pigpen to become wormy and filthy? I demand your very lives, but I am not such an imbecile as to institutionalize suffering and poverty. You have my assurance that this shall change swiftly.

Corporate reform. You people have become disgusting minions to these things you call "corporations". These things take your money and your land, put you into debt, send your jobs overseas, provide you with unsafe foods, and sue you when you say anything bad about them. Yet you people fatten them up at the ballot box. You give them free land, name your stadiums after them, allow them to telemarket you, and even sacrifice your own bankruptcy protections. Quite frankly it astonishes me. I will break this sickly codependency. It is I who shall be your ruler. I shall empower you with wealth to give me as tribute. A corporation cannot bow to me or give me tribute that comes from the heart.

You will buy U.S. made items. Why do you buy Chinese-made items when you know that it sells out the jobs of your family and friends? How will you buy those cheap things when you have no job? You are sending my wealth and tribute to foreign lands. I will not tolerate this.

[Blue-Jay]

20. Fuck Zod. He threw Non under the bus.

Non is sad.

[aquart]

12. No.

[Blue-Jay]

13. I nominate Reagan's most recent diaper as co-president.

Or maybe RON PAUL.

[Abq_Sarah]

15. No way

If they can't handle the big chair, they have no business sitting in it.

I'm pretty sure President Obama doesn't have a fraction of what FDR had to deal with.

[Romulox]

16. And then what? *FOUR* concurrent wars?

No thanks.

[PufPuf23]

17. POTUS Obama determines appointments and responsibilities.

Same as it ever was and should remain.

Your answer has to do with appointments and delegation and management in general.

One fundemental problem in USA politics is that elective politics and managerial government have an increasingly poor Venn diagram.

[bobbolink]

18. Did all the soldiers come home from Iraq???? Why was't I informed?

[sudopod]

22. Is this SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?! nt

[NYC Liberal]

24. Actually, something similar was proposed during the Constitutional Convention:

http://www.usconstitution.net/plan_pinck.html

5. The Senate and House of Delegates shall by joint Ballot annually choose the President of the United States from among themselves or the People at large. In the President the executive authority of the United States shall be vested. His Powers and Duties - He shall have a Right to advise with the Heads of the different Departments as his Council. <6>

6. Council of Revision, consisting of the President, Secretary for foreign Affairs, Secretary of War, Heads of the Departments of Treasury and Admiralty or any two of them together with the President.

[Mojambo]

25. Why settle for two when we can have a Tetrarchy

Worked out for the Romans, briefly. Very briefly.

[Ozymanithrax]

26. And how do we change the Constitution to facilitate this?

The closes we came to a co-presidency was Bush/Cheney. That worked out so well.

[Davis_X_Machina]

27. Tried...

...2000 years ago. Two co-equal consuls, often one in Rome, one abroad with the army.

Worked a treat -- part of the reason they wound up with Caesars.

[Jack Rabbit]

29. I'll go one better: Abolish the presidency

The presidency has gone too far down the path to where it has become a dictatorship subject to a quadrennial plebiscite. The powers which Bush usurped or which David Addington and Dick Cheney made up out of thin air have not been renounced by President Obama. President Obama can spy on American citizens without a warrant or commit American troops to combat without giving a sufficient reason for doing so. He did that just last week.

The presidency is so imperious, so authoritarian that it has no place in a democratic system. I doubt the Founding Fathers would recognize the presidency today. They envisioned a president and cabinet of technocrats, as we would call them today, who would stand above partisan factions (as they called political parties then) and execute the law not as partisan hacks, the way Bush and his administration did, but as professionals, the way George Washington did. The reason Washington made such a good president was that he saw the office that way, and the Founding Fathers designed the office with Washington in mind. Even over his objections, it was a forgone conclusion that Washington would be the first president under the Constitution of 1787.

Washington was a man who detested partisanship, was suspicious of power and looked upon carrying out his mandates as president as a duty no different from that he discharged as commander of the continental army.

The presidency today is a threat to liberty. Mr. Bush treated the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, as if it were what was used to line Mrs. Beasely's litter box. Freedom of speech was something confined to certain areas where he wouldn't bothered with it. He asserted bogus claims executive privilege. He claimed the right to wiretap without a warrant and to detain a suspect indefinitely. He claimed the right to misappropriate funds for his favorite projects, like the war against and the occupation of Iraq, without congressional authorization, in direct violation of the Constitution. We are still fighting wars the purpose of which has been forgotten, assuming that they had a legitimate purpose in the first place. Some did not.

I, and many of us here, voted for President Obama with the hope and understanding that the Bush model of the imperial presidency would be denounced and the powers that no president should claim would be renounced. No powers have been renounced and no wrongdoer from the Bush administration has been held accountable for his crimes. Instead, President Obama and his Attorney General have not missed an opportunity to reassert Bush's usurped powers in court and have missed every opportunity to prosecute Bush administration figures, including Messrs. Bush and Cheney themselves, for their crimes which include war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, Guantanamo is still open and innocent people are still dying under American bombs for nefarious reasons.

The problem seems to be systemic and the solution is to remove the cancer from the body politic. Instead of placing power in the hands of a president, the political functions of the office can be placed in the hands of the Speaker of the House, who would function as any Prime Minister in any well-ordered parliamentary democracy. His legislative powers, such as to veto acts of Congress, can be given to a collective body. One idea might be to make the House the legislative body and the Senate could take the powers the president now has in respect to Congress.

It is disappointing that, two years into President Obama's term in office, I am and others are still writing about Bush's abuses and misuses of power and how nothing has been done to make the presidency an institution more suitable to democracy. The reason is that, in fact, nothing has been done. It is as if Bush is still there, lurking in the Rose Garden just outside the Oval Office.

If the usurped powers of the presidency are so addictive to any man who holds the office, then it is time to abolish the office.

[tcaudilllg]

30. I agree. Vote for domestic policy without voting for foreign policy.

Send two distinct messages on two very different issues.

[kristopher]

31. A better solution would be a parliamentary system with elected president for head of state

Get rid of the two party system, let the administrators concentrate on administration, and channel the baser "american idol" instincts into an independent nationwide election for a president with powers limited to Head o State duties.

The accumulating power in the WH is an incredibly dangerous path.