Myth: The President Has No Real Power: He Must Listen To His Advisers

      I have heard it said many times by different people that it doesn't matter who the president is, that he will listen to his advisers and do what they say. The advisers have the power and their strings are being pulled by some faceless, malevolent force like lobbyists representing - you guessed it - corporations! Why do people think this? Maybe it's because presidents sometimes surprise us by doing something unexpected or by breaking a promise. Maybe people think this because they've heard it from other people. 


    But as I study the presidency, I do not see this taking place. Oh, but wait a minute Jason, what about President Obama handing 500 million dollars in taxpayer money over to Solyndra (a solar power company which, subsequently went bankrupt, taking our money down with them)?


    Well, if the president had no choice in the matter, the 500 million would have been handed over to Solyndra when they first asked it from President Bush, who turned them down. The fact is, Bush made a choice and Obama made a choice, to give or not to give 500 million to Solyndra.


    The same is true with the president's advisers. An "adviser" is not the same thing as a "decider." People give us advice all day long but do we have to take it? No and presidents don't either. They pick a "cabinet" of advisers because it is tradition to do so and because it is a good idea; the president can not be an expert in every area of public policy.


     Even so, presidents are free to pick and choose which advisers they want to listen to - and sometimes - they don't listen to any of them. FDR totally excluded his secretary of state and the entire state department from any role in the talks that reestablished diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (Russia) in 1933. Just imagine the state department - the government agency that exists to conduct American foreign relations - totally excluded from the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between this country and another major one, like Russia! That's the kind of power a U.S. president has!

Relations between the two nations had been severed since 1917, when the Communists had come to power in Russia. FDR knew the state department was overwhelmingly staffed with people who did not want U.S. relations with a communist country, so he sent his own people over to Moscow to do the job instead.


     In 1861, President Lincoln rejected most of his advisers when they told him not to re-supply Fort Sumner. His decision to do so led to the opening shots of the Civil War. Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Obama, is believed to have begged his boss not to push for health care reform in 2009-10, but his plea fell on deaf ears. The Chief of Staff was worried that the Democrats would take a pounding in the midterm elections (and he turned out to be right). Keep these examples in mind the next time someone tells you the president has little or no power. There are limits to presidential power but I will save that for another blog on another day.






Jason A.

Next Blog Will Be: "Does My Vote Really Count?"