In the November 22 issue of Newsweek magazine , Daniel Stone defended the Obama administration by blaming the institution of the presidency for failures rather than the chief executive himself: “The issue is not Obama, it’s the office….Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency?” The same argument was used to excuse an overwhelmed Jimmy Carter 30 years earlier. The sub-headline for the piece read: “The presidency has grown, and grown and grown, into the most powerful, most impossible job in the world.” At one point, Stone explained: “Among a handful of presidential historians Newsweek contacted for this story, there was a general consensus that the modern presidency may have become too bloated.” A January 13, 1980 Washington Post article made a similar conclusion about the beleaguered Carter administration: “Voters have lowered their expectations of what any president can accomplish; they have accepted the notion that this country may never again have heroic, larger-than-life leadership in the White House.” read more
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Newsweek Uses Same Excuse for Obama as Carter: Presidency Too Big for One Man
