The burden of omniscience

We expect our presidents to be know-it-alls. That personality type seems drawn to the job. This malady is usually moderated in the aftermath of elections. Faced with a skeptical opposition, surrounded by loyal, but practical supporters and a dispassionate, inquiring press, the president is constrained. The message is always the same. You are a leader, not a king.

Until now. The "thrill down my leg" and "Obama, above it all, like God" moments could undermine any man's humility and seem to have scrambled President Obama's. We saw early evidence at the convention when he spoke the words "This is the moment when the rise of the oceans slowed and the planet started to heal.”

Unfortunately, the only lasting remedy for the omniscience phenomenon is voter sanity. Control of both houses and a filibuster-proof majority in the hands of a sitting president, any president, is a bad idea. It reinforces the delusion, rather than disarming it. Worse, it fuels the impulse to act without caution rather than suppressing it.

The press, having campaigned for this president, is caught in a trap of their own making. They defend his initiatives today, more in their own defense than the policy's. The principled opposition is toothless because they campaigned and governed as nanny-state lite for the past twenty years. The only plausible opposition comes from conservative Democrats, but they want to get elected too. Opposing the stimulus and health-care reform probably doesn't help many of them.

The country has survived the omniscience phenomenon in the past because it was a politician's disease. It is potentially more problematic this time because the president's delusion is shared by many voters and the press. If the country believes this president to be omniscient, we had better hope that he really is.