(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

From the New York Times, on Obama's first day as President-elect:

“The one thing he is not going to do is let anyone think he’s undermining the president,” said Mr. Craig, who has advised Mr. Obama on foreign policy. “There’s only one president, and he’ll take pains to make sure nothing he does is taken as undermining President Bush.”

As counterpoint to this, I'm currently trying and failing to find a news report I saw yesterday which suggests that the reverse is not the case, that the Bush administration is frantically abolishing as much environmental regulation and such like as they can so that it will take more time and trouble for Obama's lot to put it all back together. So much for a smooth transition of power.

I don't think I've asked this before, because the last time it happened was pre-blog for me; why is it that after you've had a change of government in America, the outgoing lot get two extra months to make more trouble for their successors? It's like paying someone who hates you for their house and then letting them live in it for the next two months. It's obvious they're going to trash the place--and despite all the warm fuzziness about working together and everyone on both sides loving America, we all know it's true. I'm quite sure that Clinton spent his last two months going out of his way to make things difficult for Bush 2, and so on back.

Not looking for an argument (see previous posts), just asking why it's arranged like that.

Comments

[gingicat]

I have a feeling it's a holdover from when travel times were much, much longer. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4182559.stm for the history of the whole thing. :) (Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_Day.) And re Clinton: His administration spent a huge amount of time trying to tell the W administration that there was this terrorist group called Al Qaeda that was planning a big hit on multiple US targets... and didn't get listened to. Also, they left the W administration a budget surplus and a good economy.

[sorry for repost; had typos to fix

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Longer travel times and no electronic communication. So there'd be the general election to choose the electors, then the electors would have time to get their shit together and travel to vote as the electoral college, then time for news to propogate back, and arrangements to be made, etc. Though it was a smaller country then, it was still pretty big by the communications and travel technologies of the day.

Note that technically, Obama is the presumptive president-elect: he hasn't technicaly been elected yet because the college of electors hasn't met yet. It's just that in this era of instant communication, folks directly voting for pledged electors, and measures to prevent 'faithless electors', we're able to know this early what the result will be on 2008-12-15, so nobody bothers sticking in the word 'presumptive'.

(For folks concerned that a more reliable ballotting method would 'take too long to count', it's worth remembering that the US used to not know who the net president would be until the electoral college had met; it didn't kill us to wait a month back then, so it shouldn't be too awful if we were to have to wait until dawn nowadays.)

I keep hearing folks on the telly refer to Obama as "our new president", and thinking, "No, he's not; he's our next president." On the other hand, one of the late-night comics did follow that phrase with a remark along the lines of, "Well not actually, not until January, but I don't think most people would mind if he got started a little early." And yeah, I'm itching for 2009-01-20 to get here the way I used to get anxious for Christmas to hurry up and arrive most of December when I was a kid.

Re: [sorry for repost; had typos to fix

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

[ICON LOVE]

[armb.livejournal.com]

Also remember that this isn't the equivalent of our general election where the Prime Minister changes as a direct result of the MPs changing, and the House and Senate elections are separate from the Presidential one, which might moderate the potential damage that can be done.

[eoforyth.livejournal.com]

The Prime Minister doesn't have to change just because MPs/majority party changes, s/he doesn't have to be the leader of the majority party, or even a member of that party. S/he is selected by the Commons from amongst their number and then has to ask the monarch if they can form a government. Which is why a Prime Minister can step down at any time and not initiate a General Election.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Salon has some articles in recent archives about the damage Bush is looking to wreak before leaving office, policy-wise, and I don't think they included the recent cross-border attacks from Iraq.

The delay used to be a lot longer, actually - in the 1800s the next President wouldn't take office until March. I won't deny it has its problems, but it does give the President-elect time to put together the skeleton of a team and get a little information that isn't supposed to be available to the general public. There were concerns after the Y2K debacleelection that the Bush team had limited time to get things ready before assuming office. During the month of uncertainty the Clinton team, if I remember aright (and I may be wrong on this) had some lower level briefings with both candidates just in case.

Usually the outgoing President will spend some time with the incoming President to give briefings on the state of the country, what urgent issues are and so on. When the Bush administration came in the Clinton team told them that the biggest threat they would deal with was international terrorism, with some extra emphasis on Osama bin Ladin.

The Bush administration promptly did two things:
1) it claimed the Clintons had trashed the White House on the way out, leaving the interior a total shambles. This was demonstrably false but it definitely set the tone; and
2) it set about undoing everything Clinton it could, including increased counter-terrorism funding and attention. Why 9/11 remains a good thing for Bush remains beyond me in that it was one of his biggest failures.

Before Bush we actually had a certain assumption about professionalism regarding the office of the President. Republicans would hand over the office to Democrats, Democrats would hand over the office to Republicans, and there was, if not amity, at least a certain degree of cordiality and professionalism. Yes, Mr. Bush has wrecked a great deal about the office. Right now he is already under consideration as either second worst or the worst American President ever.

[occams_pyramid]

Yes, I've already commented elsewhere that I get the distinct impression that Bush may spend his last few days of power throwing screaming tantrums and his toys out of the pram.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I'm most worried that he'll try to mire us in another war and excuse himself with "but we needed to invade because they looked at us funny" or somesuch. Which, actually, is pretty much what he did with Iraq.

[occams_pyramid]

He's certainly done a lot of work setting up for an invasion of Iran, though I suppose anywhere they can loot for oil would do. But he may not have enough time left to get something of that scale sorted. And of course he won't be around to give out all the 'reconstruction' to his accomplices.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

because like many other aspects of the electoral system it's out dated. That's how it's always been done. In the 1700 - 1800's is made some sense, travel being more difficult, counting ballots and tabulating the results and them getting them to the capital (new york in those days I think) Perhaps I'm being eleitist, rude and snooty here, but I think it would be a fine thing if their system would come in to say the 20th century? And I don't count those stupid voting machines. Think of the money they could save if they were restricted to say 6 weeks for each stage, that would still give them plenty of time to get all over the country. We aren't in the 1800'd anymore.

[howeird]

As others have said, it's partly a holdover from early times, but remember we have a very different structure for choosing the President's staff. In parliamentary systems, the Loyal Opposition is already in place with a shadow cabinet, and everyone knows pretty much which portfolio will go to which Member if the government changes. You also have the "vote of confidence" system which can change the government at random times, so you're ready for change.

In the US, there is no connection between the legislative and executive, and each new President needs to build a cabinet and much of the undersecretary lists from scratch. He will appoint all new ambassadors, etc. I forget how many presidential appointments there are, but it's in the thousands. His staff has no doubt been working at it for months, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

It is not uncommon for a President to start his term without his full cabinet in place, because the Senate also has to approve/confirm all Presidential appointments.