Return to Sanity: Serving Our Government Masters

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Serving Our Government Masters

TIME TO PULL THE PLUG ON KING OBAMA (Photo credit: SS&SS)

There was a time when even the highest government officials lived simpler lives.

President George Washington made do with Tobias Lear, who not only served as his secretary, but also doubled as a diplomat and even measured his body for burial. President Thomas Jefferson made do with Meriwether Lewis as his personal secretary and Lewis also doubled as Jefferson’s explorer in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Washington worked on an expense account instead of a salary. He began his presidency working out of a rented three story house that was later demolished as a slum clearance project to make way for the Brooklyn Bridge on a spot only a few minutes away from what is now Ground Zero.

Washington once said that government is “a troublesome servant and a fearful master.” Government has long ceased being a troublesome servant and has become our fearful master. Today the servants of the people have more servants of their own than many kings and queens.

The government shutdown has forced Obama to make do with only a quarter of his 1,701 person staff. That would leave 436 “vital” employees. The 90 people who look after his living quarters would be slashed to 15 to “provide minimum maintenance and support”.

Buckingham Palace, which is twelve times the size of the White House and has its own clockmaker, only has an 800 person staff. King Harald V of Norway and his court make do with 152 staffers. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden gets by with 203.

On Twitter, Michelle Obama announced that she is unable to Tweet on her own without the aid of all of her sixteen assistants; many of whom take home six figure salaries. There are more directors, associate directors and deputy associate directors on Michelle Obama’s staff than there were in George Washington’s entire administration.

Presidents have fought wars and made peace, explored and annexed vast territories and built a nation out of a handful of colonies with fewer senior staffers than are needed to handle Michelle Obama’s Twitter account.

In 2009, Oprah’s Harpo Productions released a video of celebrities pledging “to be a servant to our president.” The idea that presidents were to be the servants of the people rather than their masters had become outmoded.

There is a word for men who surround themselves with czars, who expand their staffs, who fly their dogs out on separate planes, who amuse themselves at the expense of the people at lavish parties, concerts and vacations.