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Reply #43: Even a truly saintly President could only pursue his agenda [View All]

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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-28-06 09:27 AM
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43. Even a truly saintly President could only pursue his agenda
in so far that the 'circumstances' (the political machine that's already in place when a president takes office) allow for. Otherwise he won't be president for long.
If nothing else, a president gets his information about what's going on in the world from advisers and intel agencies that have long been there and that will still be there when the president leaves office. And it's typically that information that presidents act on. What power the intel agencies have - though more so when the president likes what they are doing.

Formally a president is responsible for anything that 'the government' does during his/her presidency. But if you want to find out just who had which influence on actual policies (as opposed to what we're being told about the policies) - then you'd have to investigate.

Then you might find that for instance "Bush tortures people" and "Ford supported the invasion of East Timor" is more true than "JFK invaded Cuba". Even though Kennedy did take responsibility while Bush doesn't take responsibility.
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