FAILURE TO LEAD

          According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, two-thirds of Americans are worried about an Ebola epidemic in the United States, and more than 4 in 10 are “very” or “somewhat worried” that they or a close family member might catch the virus.    The media frenzy and conspiracy theories on the internet have run riot. Ebola is foreign and exotic and commands our full attention with isolation wards and full body suits.

          Senator Pat Roberts, in the fight of his life for reelection in Kansas, has latched onto this fear of Ebola to attack President Obama and bolster his campaign.  Part of his press release reads:

 “The President has failed to secure our borders, and he is now failing to lead during this crisis.  From the crisis in the Middle East with ISIS, to the standoff in Ukraine with Russia, and now to the spread of Ebola from West Africa to our own shores, this Administration has consistently been two steps behind and asleep at the wheel. We cannot afford the risk of President Obama’s inaction and failure to lead. American’s are frightened, and they deserve better.”

          It is the Senator’s reference to “failure to lead” that grabbed my attention. His party along with a coalition of conservatives and libertarians have filed suit against the President for taking action on a number of issues with which they do not agree.  The lawsuit involves a series of executive orders that Obama issued on climate change, immigration rules, the health-care law and raising the minimum wage for federal contractors.  He has also unilaterally filled important governmental positions that were left unaddressed by Congress for many months if not years.

          Republicans claim that these Presidential actions were power grabs that did not have the requisite backing from Congress.  Tea party members have actually called for impeaching the President for issuing the executive orders.  These are the very same republicans who control the 113th House of Representatives, a legislative body all but assured of being the least productive in recorded history in terms of passing legislation signed into law.

          So when is the President leading too much and when is he failing to lead?  Is it simply a matter of partisan politics or is there something more basic in our unique system of government?  Any student of constitutional history knows that while Alexander Hamilton sought a strong executive for the “protection of the community” and the “steady administration of laws”, James Madison sought a system of checks and balances that greatly limited the executive.  Madison won this debate and our constitutional republic is based on the limitation of authority and the division of power.

           Unfortunately, this division of power is not clearly defined or divided and often replicated among the three branches of government and among federal, state and local authorities.  The result is that any new crisis that has not been put to the test, like infectious disease, or is politically charged, like immigration or is constitutionally unclear, like the war powers, becomes muddled and messy until a consensus can be built.

          The President is neither a benevolent dictator nor a pawn of the Congress and Judiciary.  He is an executive constantly seeking a path to power through the maze that is our constitutional system.  This is why he can be criticized for acting and not acting in the same conversation.  When it comes to the exercise of power, the leader of the free world is anything but free.  When it comes to Ebola, my guess is that the country will learn a great deal from the present scare, similar to the consensus that was built after 9/11,  and be much better prepared in the future for “the big one”, most likely an influenza pandemic.