My initial idea and title for this post was going to be “A Case for One Term Presidencies,” based upon an idea that the second term of presidencies are mired in scandal. My initial examples were the scandals under Obama, G. W. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and Nixon. From my memory there seemed to be plethora of evidence, and I thought that the evidence would extend to all the other two or more term presidencies. While many of the twenty presidents who served more than one term (this included partial terms, whether elected or not) had at least one scandal that affected the executive branch, the amount of scandals that have surround the last two presidents is almost unfounded. (The closest was Reagan’s administration.)
(For the purposes of this article, because it’s easier and faster, and I figure both sides will boost the numbers for the other’s president, I am using this Wikipedia entry for both the number of scandals, as well as for this definition:
Scandals; There is no hard and fast rule defining scandals. Scandal is defined as “loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety.” In politics scandal should be kept separate from ‘controversy,’ (which implies two differing points of view) and ‘unpopularity.’ Many decisions are controversial, many decisions are unpopular—that alone does not make them scandals.)
You may be thinking that the ultimate scandalous presidency was that of Richard Nixon. While that might be so, and even though Watergate caused him to resign, it was only one of three scandals that affected the Executive branch during Nixon’s administration. One of the other two was important and caused Spiro Agnew, the VP, to resign, and then the other one involved Bebe Rebozo, who ever that is, and came to nothing. So, even with counting those two, that is a total of three scandals, that’s it.
Now, let’s look at the administrations headed by, Reagan, G. W. Bush, and Obama. Reagan’s administration had a total of eight scandals that affected his administration, the best known being the Iran-Contra Affair. Bush’s administration has the most at 31, quite impressive, but don’t start to gloat if you hate Bush, because if you look at when the scandals happened, at the same point as Obama is now Bush’s administration had 13. Obama’s administration is actually a smidge better, his number is at 12, but that is already second on the all-time list of scandals, and unfortunately in the two and a half years left he only has up to go.
While the severity of the scandal should be weighed, which brings Nixon up in the standings, the number of scandals in the two most recent administrations is hard to imagine. Of course each president didn’t know about all of these scandals before they became public, or to be fair, even a majority of them. But even though the presidents may not have known what was going on, all of these scandals show that there is something going on in Washington, and it needs to be addressed.
Of course some people will claim that most of these were/are political, and were done purely because they either hate Bush or hate Obama, but those attacks are mostly baseless, on all sides.
So if these scandals aren’t because of hate, what are the causes of these scandals?
While there are probably many reasons, there are two that stick out in my mind.
The first reason for the escalation of scandals is technology and social media. These are lumped together because we as a people and country are still figuring out what these things are and how should we use them. By using technology it is much easier to get information, it has really become a cheap commodity. With so much information to be had, and the ease of procuring it leads to more evidence of bad behavior. Just think of the truck(s) Snowden would have needed to get the files out of the NSA back in the 1970s or 80s.
Then social media comes into play, and it allows for instant access to every supposed bad behavior, even if the post is fictional. Now you add in each sides gut reaction to this supposed news. In general, a Democrat has a gut reaction to believe everything good about a fellow Democrat and everything bad about a Republican. The same can be said of Republicans, because we all know that likeminded people stick together. So what this does is rile up the bases, and ensures that there is a bigger rift between the parties. This rift helps drive the “search for truth,” because each party’s base will only believe the worst of the other party, but will think investigations into their own actions are baseless.
(This first reason comes from our society and government trying to come to grips with the new tools that technology has given us. When Obama was elected in 2008, he was able to harness social media to great benefit, and he’s been using the same method ever since. But every tool has benefits and detriments, a kitchen knife is a great tool, but when it’s turned on you it is quite dangers. The same can be said of new technology and the things it brings with it, like social media.)
The second impetus of these scandals is an ideological drive in the two most scandalous (by the numbers) administrations, possibly driven by the aforementioned technology. Bush didn’t start out as a political ideologue, just look at how he was trying to work with Democrats in the first year, but he quickly became one after 9/11, his main mission became the War on Terror. From that came Obama’s ideology, which was to bring the world together after the War on Terror, and to build up the social safety net, the last probably being his main goal.
With these ideologies the presidents became focused on getting the job done, and not on how the job got done. This ideological way of thinking filtered down the chain, just like “Trickledown Economics,” and cultivated a culture of anything goes, because those in charge only cared for results in the important issues. After a short time, people started believing that they can get away with anything, because no one was watching, like the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the department heads in the VA (Bush and Obama are hip deep in this one), or even Sgt. Bergdahl’s exchange.
Is there more scandalous behavior going on than we know? Yes.
Was there scandalous behavior in other administrations, but just wasn’t discovered? Of course.
Could the amount of 21st century scandals be due to the rift between Republicans and Democrats? Possibly, and if so it’s a good thing, because the public should know what is going on with their government, and outrage in most of these cases is justifiable.
The main problem now and going into the future is that the Obama administration is ignoring more laws than any other president in history. Moving deadlines in the Affordable Care Act, and not giving Congress notification of the Sgt. Bergdahl trade are two examples. Did other presidents ignore laws, yes, and you can go all the way back to our seventh president, Andrew Jackson. He decided to ignore the Supreme Court, and did what he wanted with the Native American nations in the southeast. But none of that excuses Obama for his disregard of the law, because it is a starting point for even worse behavior. (I’m picking on Obama here because he is the current president, and could actually do something about it.)
With top officials in the Obama administration ignoring laws, there is a greater chance of these type of actions filtering down. Why should anyone in the executive branch abide by a law if others aren’t, and unfortunately in this administration there isn’t a good precedent of abiding by the law? Then the best part comes when they are caught breaking a law or making a stupid mistake they attempt to pass the blame to those that are investigating. This is like blaming the cops for arresting you after you robbed the local kwiki mart.
These type of actions will cause the amount of scandalous behavior to rise, at least until someone at the very top decides to make the hard choices and works within the system and cracks down on bad behavior. And by the way, a policy of “Don’t do stupid shit” won’t get it done.
No matter what, the well intentioned ends never justify the means. It is the way that justice and laws are carried out that define a culture, and if the leader of the system cannot work within the system, what does that say about the leader or the system?