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The Spectacle Blog
Fresh off coming in first place in the presidential preference poll at the Values Voters Summit this past weekend, Mike Pence tonight is making a speech on the nature and conduct of the presidency at Hillsdale College. We at the Spectator secured an advance copy of it, and it is powerful stuff. It is thoughtful, wise, eloquent, inspirational, and timely. It also takes some barely veiled, beautifully targeted shots at the current occupant of the Oval Office. The theme is that the presidency is not an office for a ruler, but for a servant; not for somebody to “transform” us, but for somebody who will listen to us and work for us, to make our visions a reality rather than to impose his vision on us. Obviously, this is not what one B.H. Obama is doing, or at least trying to do.
What the nation says — the theme of this address — What it says, informed by its long history, impelled by the laws of nature and nature’s God — What it says quite naturally and rightly, if not always gracefully, is that we as a people are not to be ruled and not to be commanded. It says that the president should never forget this; that he has not risen above us, but is merely one of us, chosen by ballot, dismissed after his term, tasked not to transform and work his will upon us, but to bear the weight of decision and to carry out faithfully the design laid down in the Constitution and impassioned by the Declaration of Independence.
Furthermore:
The presidency has run off the rails. It begs a new clarity, a new discipline, and a new president. The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us, we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing.
Take that, Barack!
While most of Pence’s best passages are paragraph-long, a few pithy sentences stand on their own. They stand well because they are rooted in the best of American values. For instance: “The powers of the presidency are extraordinary and necessarily great, and great presidents treat them sparingly.” And: “A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him.”And: “The sun will burn out, the Ohio River will flow backwards, and the cow will jump over the moon 10,000 times before any modern president’s conception is superior to that of the Founders of this nation.”
And, stirringly, on America’s prudential place in the world, as oft by example as by direct engagement, but always steadfast: “We can still astound the world with justice, reason and strength.”
But what am I doing by doling this out in dribs and drabs? Here, yes here, is the whole speech. Read the whole thing and marvel. Maybe Mike Pence will run for the presidency in 2012, or maybe not. But he definitely belongs in the conversation for it, and as a potential leading light among the candidates. And even if he does not run, the other candidates should call upon his eloquence and his wisdom.
To Rep. Pence, we should all say: Good job, good sir. Good job.
View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/09/20/pence-on-the-presidency-pluper
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LadyPatriot| 9.20.10 @ 8:38PM
I am watching Pence closely - he definity talks the talk - and from what I hear, walks it too.
Of all those with their hats in play, he does pull ahead at this point. Time will tell.
Christopher Holland| 9.20.10 @ 10:18PM
The Presidency is about leadership and that is based on character and integrity, which in turn rests on moral convictions and beliefs, strongly held and clearly understood and defended. Obama understands nothing about leadership, he thinks that having a great ego makes him a great man. It does not, it makes him a small one - he is too busy admiring himself to have time for anybody else. Obama is a loser who does not understand his job, his own weaknesses or the qualities of the people he claims to represent. The sooner he goes back to Chicago, the better for everybody.
Warrior | 9.21.10 @ 9:48AM
One minor correction. The sooner he goes back to Indonesia, the better for everybody.
Tim*| 9.20.10 @ 11:16PM
We ,Tea Party Rebela are looking at The Tea Party Kingmaker Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina to run for The Presidency in 2012 .
Jim DeMint can take Mike Pence Man Up .
The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates .
Rise Up !
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.21.10 @ 7:17AM
Quin,
Thanks. I did read the speech.
Simply splendid.
I wish I could have heard him deliver it.
Annie| 9.21.10 @ 7:35AM
Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels.....Indiana's got a lot of things right it seems.....
Christopher Holland, can I quote you? "Obama understands nothing about leadership, he thinks that having a great ego makes him a great man." That is the best one I've read!
Nate| 9.21.10 @ 3:12PM
Don't forget SCOTUS Chief Justice and native Hoosier John Roberts!
Oldefarte| 9.21.10 @ 10:38AM
Pence is a good/credible conservative Republican, but due to the extreme and disasterous economic conditions now occurring within this country, I'm more inclined toward either a candidate who has practical business experience or who has expressed detailed business type solutions to same. Romney, Ryan and possibly Barbour come to mind, although there are no doubt others as well. What is needed is a broadaxe cutting/elimination of the wasteful [taxiation burdensome] federal programs/policies now present in the governmental budget [and which have existed since Johnson's Great Society and maybe before]. These programs/governmental departments are simply a waster of money and should be reduced/eliminated, which would lower the federal deficit/governmental borrowing, and thus free up available financial credit for private businesses to borrow which would correspondingly grow our economy. Tax reductions would be unwarranted at the present time [due to Bush's prior tax cuts], but the needed economy boost could be accompolished by these goavernmental expense reductions. Additionally, in so doing, the business community/companies would observe the government's taking needed fiscal action as a positive sign, and would thus be willing to unleach their excessive present savings/non-spending and put same to productive usage. I like Pence, but I think others possibly would be better choices as presidentail candidates. We already have a artsy-fartsy [another lawyer, Harvard no less] type president, and just look what he is/has done to this country!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tim*| 9.21.10 @ 1:07PM
Prior to entering politics, Jim DeMint worked in the field of market research. In 1983, he founded his own research firm, The DeMint Group. He was president of this corporation until 1998 when he entered Congress.
Oldefarte| 9.21.10 @ 1:18PM
Tim, I forgot about DeMint-----he also would be an outstanding candidate!!!!!!!!!!!
Andrew| 9.21.10 @ 10:46AM
I had the honor of being in the audience as Congressman Pence delivered this speech. It was even more powerful in person. I'm not sure I've ever heard anything quite like it.
Gladstone Payton| 9.21.10 @ 11:35AM
This would be a lot more compelling if there was any intellectual honesty to Rep. Pence's statements, or for that matter the to the writer's who is clearly an "acolyte" of his particular brand of polemic. Who is trampling the Constitution seems to be as fickle a notion as your chosen ideology. I could take this same exact speech and change some of the focus and attack the recent Bush/Conservative years in the same manner. That administration made a daily habit of blatantly circumventing the Constitution as the "decider." Karl Rove and others believed in a carte blanche executive that tailored constitutional interpretation to serve their own ends - by their own admission. To wit, as an independent and libertarian, I see the flouting of Constitutional principles as nothing new for the executive branch and is only odious to which ever partisan is in the minority. There is now incorruptible conservative conception of the Founding Father's executive branch - as there isn't a liberal’s or even a moderate's. There is only presidency as defined by the person in power arced by the political landscape of the day. To think otherwise is naivety of the highest order or intellectually lazy.
Bob Miller| 9.21.10 @ 4:15PM
GP,
You should have noticed that the anti-Constitutional abuses perpetrated by the current Administration are far more frequent and severe and comprehensive than those by GW Bush or his post-WW2 predecessors.
2008 voting behavior based on "they're all bums" set the stage for Obama.