Meacham’s Jefferson
P. Schultz
November 26, 2012
Attached is
an op-ed piece from the NY Times by John Meacham, a historian, writing about
Jefferson and his “politicking.” Typically, Meacham focuses on the trivial and
not the essentials of Jefferson, focusing on his use of dinners as a way to
“relate” to his opponents. He also mentions how Jefferson strove to
differentiate himself from Washington and the latter’s behavior as president.
Again, though he, Meacham, misses the most important aspects of Jefferson’s
behavior, such as his going about town, as it was put by one of his opponents,
dressed shabbily and without the coach and accouterments preferred by
Washington. Meacham also fails to mention that Jefferson radically downsized
the national government and, when he left office, had helped to put in place a
nomination process for president that made the party caucuses the nominators.
Most significantly, however, Jefferson helped to create a system in which the
Congress was the predominant department of the government, not the presidency or
the executive more generally.
I too would
like Obama to model himself on Jefferson and he should begin by not delivering
in person the State of the Union to both houses of the Congress. He should, as
Jefferson did, send his State of the Union as a message and have it read in
Congress by someone there. This would help Obama to model himself on the
behavior of a man who was always skeptical of and careful to avoid “monarchical
practices.” What do you think the chances are that Obama, or any other “modern”
president, would actually model himself on Jefferson? That’s right, between
zero and none.
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