Today, as happens every fourth January 20, we inaugurated a new President: Barack Obama. Those who follow this blog know that he was not our choice; if we had our way, it would have been John McCain taking the oath of office today. But the people of the United States decided differently, and ours is a constitutionally-governed nation, so for the next four years, Barack Obama will hold the office of President of the United States.
Under our constitution, a newly elected President is given four years to make his mark, and cannot be removed earlier by a vote of no confidence in the way prime ministers are in parliamentary systems. The only way to remove a President is to impeach, and no President has ever been removed that way. (Only one has even been obliged to resign due to the serious threat of an impeachment; sadly, this was someone who had actually been one of our best Presidents). So for better or for worse, the next four years will see our policy decisions made by Barack Obama.
One characteristic of our system, though, is that while the losing side does not have a lot of power, it does have the right to criticize the President. And this we promise. In the next four years, as stated just after the election over 2 months ago, we retain the right to be critical of President Obama's actions, but when he does something good, we will certainly give him the credit.
So far, Obama's done nothing much but make appointments, and he has been pretty good up to now. We will have to follow very closely what he chooses to do in that rôle— we await his actions.
Under our constitution, a newly elected President is given four years to make his mark, and cannot be removed earlier by a vote of no confidence in the way prime ministers are in parliamentary systems. The only way to remove a President is to impeach, and no President has ever been removed that way. (Only one has even been obliged to resign due to the serious threat of an impeachment; sadly, this was someone who had actually been one of our best Presidents). So for better or for worse, the next four years will see our policy decisions made by Barack Obama.
One characteristic of our system, though, is that while the losing side does not have a lot of power, it does have the right to criticize the President. And this we promise. In the next four years, as stated just after the election over 2 months ago, we retain the right to be critical of President Obama's actions, but when he does something good, we will certainly give him the credit.
So far, Obama's done nothing much but make appointments, and he has been pretty good up to now. We will have to follow very closely what he chooses to do in that rôle— we await his actions.
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