On 11/29/2011 8:49, Warp wrote:
>    I thought it was Bush who was doing that. Is Obama continuing the
> tradition, then?

Sadly so.

>    I don't really understand how presidency works in the US, as it seems
> that he has a lot of power to influence the politics of the country. If
> the president wants to, for example, reform healthcare, he has a lot of
> power to at the very least put it in motion. I don't really know how it
> works there.

Originally, the president was basically head of the Executive branch. We 
have congress (which passes laws), the executive branch (which executes 
them), and the judicial branch (which deals with courts and the legality of 
laws).

Basically, congress makes laws, the executive branch enforces laws (a la 
police) and ensures they get enforced (a la appointing people to the various 
government branches like the FCC and the EPA and such), and the courts do 
their court thing (including deciding when lower-priority laws are preempted 
by higher-priority laws).

The president gets his power from (A) the ability to talk to congress and 
make suggestions and such, (B) the ability to control how laws get enforced 
(emphasizing or deemphasizing, for example), and (C) the fact that when he 
breaks the law, it's virtually impossible to actually get rid of him, even 
more so now than historically.

> The president is more or less the
> representative of the country in international contexts. (Technically
> speaking the president is also the commander-in-chief of the military
> forces, but in peacetime that has little significance, AFAIK.)

That was how it originally started out, with a handful of notable presidents 
(Lincoln during the civil war, the president whose name I forget (Wilson?) 
who took the US off the gold standard and started the federal reserve banks, 
etc).

>    One interesting aspect of the presidency in Finland is that the president
> must, by custom (although probably not by law), renounce any party
> affiliation, so that he or she may be seen as neutral in regard to party
> politics.

That would be nice.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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