[image: examiner.com]

Dear Mr. President: I have a better idea…

Few jobs require less brain power, less organizing ability, or fewer skills than does that of U.S. President. The President has maids and servants, drivers and pilots, cooks and body guards, and every form of transportation at his or her beck and call 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. He also has doctors and lawyers, barbers and beauticians, tinkers and tailors, writers and teleprompters, scripts and interpreters, mentors and analysts, as well as access to the widest assortment of media on a moment’s notice. Away from the official mansion he stays at the most palatial palaces, wines and dines on the best cuisine that can be served up, all of it set out in regal opulence; he golfs at the most exclusive courses, and he has all his physical, psychological, and spiritual needs attended to by those who are always on call. He probably even has a miscellaneous staff nearby to take care of whims and fantasies as they arise.

On the intellectual side, the President has a host of advisors from legal to military, economic to scientific, cultural to geopolitical. They track all that is going in within the range of their duties and they have ready answers long before the questions are asked.

Yes, a dufus can fill the shoes of our top CEO simply because there is always someone present to do all the heavy lifting and the thinking, and the recent history of those who have occupied the office is proof enough of the truth in that statement. Still, when the chips have been down and an authentic decision had to be made that reflected a genuine stirring of brain matter of consequence to us, most have failed the test. Ultimately, we have chosen men who did not have the right stuff to fulfill our minimum expectations in the age of diminished expectations.

Why then, would any would-be president, with her opening statement in anticipation of occupying the top slot in 2017, show us that she cannot rise to such a low standard?

Recently, when asked about her personal wealth, Hillary Clinton responded with “We (she and Bill) are not very well off.” Perhaps there is one person on this planet who believes that $100+ million of net worth is not enough to qualify as “well off.” But most of the rest of us want to slap anyone silly who makes such a stupid statement. Apart from the many millions of dollars we divvy up to keep this dreary duo in comfort and luxury, they get first billing and all expenses paid in any effort to rake in more money however unqualified they are for their roles. A hundred million in speaking fees and book deals is a hundred million dollars wasted. Does anyone really listen to, read, or care about the pablum they speak or their ghost writers write? Yes, and voters do remember—especially we remember those really arrogant statements that show a complete lack of respect for our numbed-down sensibilities.

I have observed every President since FDR, and frankly, they all bored me to the bone except for JFK. And probably 90 percent of my interest in him was explained by my interest in his beautiful and mesmerizing wife, Jackie. But that’s a story for another time.

OK, I’ve had with the Clintons, the Bushes, the Gores, and a long list of others who have never occupied the throne, but who have stated an interest in doing so. It seems that the office of Emperor-in-Chief attracts the dimmest among us, those who believe they have something going on in their heads that interests us. For lack of a better term, let’s call that aberration “ophthalmic-fecalosis,” or an obstruction of that “vision thing” that so haunted the father/son team of the G.W. Bushes.

Yes, limited vision, obstructed by fecal matter can be acquired only by those who sling said matter onto the whirling blades of fans, either the cooling type or the human type, perhaps both, whilst standing within the rebound zone. Mitt Romney showed he had an extraordinary affinity with this stuff-in-face syndrome, and he was summarily dumped onto the dung heap of also rans because of it.

Constructive criticism requires that I show an alternative Presidency, one that recaptures the original lure of the office, the humbleness of its earlier holders, and the modesty of income and trappings befitting the common man or woman. Here then is my trimmed-down, slimmed-down Presidency for all to see and digest:

The Presidency needs to be free from money influences, with no television campaigns, a smaller salary, fewer perquisites, no speaking fees, no book deals, and not open to anyone who wants the job. Let political parties draft their chosen person. Get rid of the electoral college, and count the national vote. The winner is the one with the most actual votes. Move the resident to the Blair House, and make a national museum of the White House. Ban the use of teleprompters, prepared speeches, and servants. Provide one aide-de-camp, one driver, and one pilot and crew for one helicopter and another crew for on jet plane for 12.

The primary function of the Presidency is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. Each cabinet executive is to do the same with his or her department and to provide the President a single page summary each day about the major activities within that department.

A more detailed description could be drawn up with only slightly more thought. The primary objective would be to establish and maintain a simpler office, with streamlined activities, without money and influence as the driving motivators, and without the trappings of opulence designed to seduce the occupant into a state of entitlement or allegiance to the wealth holders of America. It is a task worthy of most 3rd graders, and easily within the abilities of nearly all of them

Candidates from each political party could be chosen by a 10-year old girl scout drawing a name from a hat from among of those who do not want the job.

It’s a start, a new beginning, stripped of the framework that leads to dynasty building, but remaining faithful to the hearts and minds of those early settlers who were in search of that elusive thing writers have for generations called the American Dream.