§ The Incredible Cost of Red Herring

§ ≡ A section of Preserve, Protect, and Defend: Faithfully Executing the Office of the President
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“History has handed us the founding fathers' worst nightmare: a hyper-articulate, hyper-charismatic man who has a low view of the constitutional limits of government. It's going to take the founding fathers' best dream, a citizen-soldier of wisdom and achievement to get us back on track. He (or more likely, she) is out there already.”

{link » The word "mandate" is not in the Constitution!}

“John Adams' insightful definition illuminates the significance of elected representation in the United States. It is not, as is commonly thought, equivalent to the granting of a proxy; it is much more than such a grant. It institutionalizes our Nation's rule of law by introducing a crucial degree of separation from the mob-like tyranny of the majority.

During the tortuous, extremely expensive (costliest in U.S. history at $5.3 billion in spending), and sometimes mind-numbing Election Campaign 2008, the ambitions of the candidates prevented them from reminding potential voters what the limits of their elective powers are in our constitutional republic. The overwhelming emphasis of the campaigning was to portray the individual candidate's similarities to and agreement with the electorate, as if the ideal elected representative of the people would be their genomic clone.”

 h/t Theo
Thought-bubble Caption: "He's going to need a bigger bus."

I think the most important lesson to be learned from Election 2008 is that John Adams was right when he defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men." And yet, despite the enormity of the wasteful spending of energy, time, and (by equivalence as well as in actuality) money this lessen that was articulated by Adams two centuries ago has not been learned. The nauseating political ranker that continues unabated in the aftermath of the election perpetuates the fallacy that our constitutional republic is a government of men armed with mandates.

It bears repeating until the fat lady sings "It's deja vu all over again!": Ours is a government of laws, and not of men. In so far as men are the agents of governing within Constitutional limits, we must focus attention not on perceived agendas of the electorate but on the qualities and demonstrable accomplishments of our governing agents. By relegating our agents' ethical standards, personal associations, relevant accomplishments, and proven integrity to the trash bin of "distractions", we elevate their rhetoric and pandering to the irrelevancy of red herring.