At least it wouldn’t be if the press was more aggressive about doing its job. A recent remark from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has brought into sharp relief, at least for me, that the role of the President is not temporary King or truth master or even much of a decision maker. What did he say? From the MSNBC Twitter account:
Spicer quotes President Trump on jobs report: “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now”
I.e., candidate Trump proclaimed that unemployment stood at 40% during the campaign, but now President Trump accepts that it’s 4.7% … with some jubilation, even.
Look, for all the noise out there, our society operates best on truth. Thus we have the judiciary, fact checkers, and multiple checks and balances, all there to expose the truth.
And so when Trump, as a candidate, claimed the unemployment rate was 40%, that was a scandal – and he should have been told to put up or shut up. And some tried, but he ignored them and was permitted to get away with it by his core group of supporters. The same goes for his violent crime statistics, his accusations against the FBI, and other such claims.
We keep our sources of facts and truth, if you will, separate from the politicians who stand to benefit, or suffer, from them, because politicians, just like the rest of us, are fallible folks who should not be tempted. Then we staff them with dedicated, non-partisan experts, because whoever is in charge – and the rest of us! – needs the best information possible.
When the truth is not held sacred, buildings fall down and your family members die ghastly deaths. Think not? Remember the Soviet Union, where ideology was more important than truth.
Source: Wikipedia
So how does this tie in with the role of the President? It defines the role for what it is not: a truth-giver. The person occupying that is not here to make up numbers and tell them to us. In fact, those numbers are independent of that role because we can, because we should, use those numbers to evaluate the President’s performance. When Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX) suggested that the citizens of the United States should get their information directly from President Trump, he displayed his complete ignorance of the structure of the government, not to mention the foibles of mankind, and he should be censured and removed from his position for such a failure.
In recognizing that removal from the President’s role (which, to be accurate, occurred in the time of Washington, et al), the recognition of the independence of these critical agencies, we also recognize that the role of the President in making Executive decisions is narrowly demarcated; the President can make some regulations, but Congress makes the law, and the Judiciary executes the law – or not, as it sees fit under its responsibilities. The President is constrained because of the potential power – and influence – the President can possess.
So when Spicer made that hideous remark, the press corps shouldn’t have chuckled, as reported. They should have given him the finger and walked out in a fury, announcing it to the world via their front pages. Because the behavior of President Trump is worthy of impeachment. As Americans, we should be hiring the best to be President, but here we’ve hired someone who’s working on being the worst.
And that’s simply not acceptable.
And for those of us interested, here’s one of those independent fact agencies which Trump denigrated when he was a candidate: The Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yeah, you decide. No riots in the streets. Some quiet desperation in the some towns. Work to be done. Or did Trump’s magic wand fix everything.
