Amendment XXII

A question that often arises these days is whether the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should be repealed. That amendment limits U.S. presidents to two elected terms and to not more than ten years total in that office.

The amendment was proposed in 1947 in reaction to the long tenure of Franklin Roosevelt. When the amendment was adopted in 1951, I – a youngster of but seventeen years - was outraged as it was clearly directed at my political hero. With the passage of time, my political views and the presidency itself have changed.

Despite having feet of clay, Roosevelt remains my hero. Since my youth, when anything he did was in a word `heroic’, heroes and the presidency have changed. Until recently, the private lives of those in leadership positions were generally off limits to the public, and our leaders were portrayed as the unalloyed gold standard of humanity. Today, even seventeen year olds realize that our leaders are mere mortals.

Times have changed since 1951. Men are smaller, but that has given rise to a much more powerful presidency. Theodore Roosevelt’s `bully pulpit’ has morphed into the ubiquitous and unrelenting presence and sound of George Bush in our living rooms. While politicians and pundits scream for our attention, only the President of the United States commands that great window in our homes and cannot be banished from our TV screens.

In my posting of December 28, 2004, Blog On, I made the case that the presidency has grown too powerful vis-à-vis the Congress and the courts and that our system of checks and balances is out of whack.

While I voted for President George W. Bush in 2000, The Iraq War, his tax policy tilt in favor of the rich, and the tremendous trade and budget deficits caused me to vote for Senator John F. Kerry. Since then, the president’s ability to transmit his message and to not waver has drawn both my ire and admiration. While harboring no personal animus toward Mr. Bush, I believe that permitting him or anyone else to run for more than two terms would not be in the best interest of the country and would not favor repealing the Amendment.

Blog on!

Wild Bill