It is common practice today to hold the POTUS on a pedestal. Others here have suggested that in fact not supporting the President is on par with treason (although that is really a minority viewpoint.)

My question is, why this irrational revering of a small part of government? If the framers of the constitution were so terrified of a large all-powerful government then surely they'd be horrified of the near deification of one office of government.

I would say because the POTUS is the face of the US. That position has always been elevated to an iconic status, even at it's conception with Washington when they wanted to make him king and he refused. I think in human nature we seek out leaders and some seek to become leaders.

Has the President always been so highly regarded though. Sure there was a faction in the original Continental Congress that wanted him as a "king" of sorts, but that isn't reflective of the voting population.

Beyond his simple regard though, how has this single office of government acquired (deliberately I might add) so much authority to control government in the last fifty years?

WW2 played a big factor in it. It was the first war that we depended on our President to convey a certain personality to UK and the USSR and a partnership. The Cold War and America's growth and rise as a super power. We are the modern day Roman Empire, though just like Great Britain and others in the past our superiority through expansionism and war will be our downfall. The is held by different person every 4-8 years and different agendas and personalities come and go. There for our policies are constantly changing. Each person who occupies the office helps define it and I'd say in the last 50-60 years we've had some very strong personalities as President. TV and the modern age of media has contributed to the rise of the power of the Presidency. He can reach the whole world instantly and that conveys power.

It might be useful in this discussion to draw the distinction between the office of the President of the United States and the individual who holds that office. I would daresay that a large majority of Americans from across the political spectrum have an extremely high respect for the office though not necessarily the person holding it.

Even many of the men who have held that office were somewhat in awe of it. When Eisenhower became President, he is alleged to have talked about the first time General Omar Bradley visited him in the Oval Office. He said that when Gen Bradley came in, rather than greeting him with a 'Hello Ike", it was a "Good morning, Mr President". Eisenhower said that's when it really hit home to him that he was the President. During Reagan's tenure, no man ever entered the Oval Office unless he was wearing a coat and tie (or dress uniform in the case of the military), and that included Ronald Reagan. I've heard much the same thing about Bush. It is out of respect for the office.

I think the pomp and ceremony that one sees, the "perks" if you will are reflective of that kind of respect. It is a symbol of America itself and of our system which is somewhat unique compared to most of the other democratic systems. When Air Force One in all it's magnificance lands somewhere, it's not so much that Bush, or Clinton and whomever has arrived, it means that the President has arrived, America is there. And we Americans do so love to make a grand entrance.

Your observations are spot on, but my concern is this. Has the American public lost sight of the difference between the symbolic power of the office and it's proper place in government. The president has a tremendous power to set and guide public policy that goes miles beyond what the office was originally conceived for.

I agree that the power or the president has grown beyond anything originally conceived. Consider that the most common lists of "great presidents" is comprised of those who expanded the scope of their power: Lincoln and FDR being perhaps the best (worst?) examples.

But the phenomenon is part and parcel with the overall growth of the government as a whole. As the federal government has expanded into so many areas, new agencies and bureaus have sprung up left and right and become huge beauracracies in their own right. Congress now routinely delegates rule-making authority to regulatory agencies like the FDA, EPA, etc. (A delegation that many feel is unconstitutional as it transfers the law-making authority from the legislative to the executive branch.)

The result of this is tremendous power for whomever controls all these agencies that have the power to make rules, interpret them, and enforce them.

It happened by degrees. Any grant of a new power to the executive always seems to remain permanent, as it sets precedent for future decisions. Democrats fight for more executive power when they control the white house, but that just sets a precedent that continues to be followed when the republicans are in power, and the opposite occurs as well.

The recent grant of authority by the congress that the president can use force "as he feels necessary" (paraphrasing) in the "war on terror" is yet another example of this.

But most of all, the fact that the president's power has gotten out of control is just a reflection of the fact that government has gotten out of control.

I will try to add my 2 cents worth. Although I am afraid I will fall short of the wisdom of the other participants in this debate.

The office of the President has been elevated to the status it is now because of the action of a select group(Lincoln,Roosevelt,Kennedy,etc.) that had great leadership abilities and charisma. People looked up to these Presidents in awe and respect and trust.

It is a lot easier to look at one person(such as the president) then the congress(house and senate) and the Supreme Court(9 individuals). That one person sticks out more and he is presented to the public more often.

A little bit of history,which I believe is correct. If not,please correct me. Our first President,George Washington, was asked to be president for life or as long as he wanted it.

But along with this, the President does have more power,but he is also the one that gets the blame for the adminstration if anything goes awry.

Yeah, that was me, although I think that came out wrong, I don't actually think that, I misunderstood what was being debated, I said that is was treason if a party was to compromise national security for politics, which wasn't the case, I wasn't saying that mearly not supporting him was treason, come on .

To answer your question I think Billy Jean hit the nail on the head, the Pres. is the face of America, so it seems reasonable to hold him to a high standard.

The increase in the powers of the president I think has coincided with the rise of American power and the shrinking of the world. We rely on the president as commander in chief and tend to feel he has to have the individual power to act in a time of crisis. When it took a navy six weeks to cross the ocean we could leave more discretionary power about war in the hands of congress. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution didn't help either.

The President has to deal with checks and balances in domestic policy but he/she is nearly a supreme being in terms of foreign policy.

The United States is unusual because the Head of State and the Head of the Government are the same person. Compare this with the United Kingdom, for example, where the monarch is the Head of State and the Prime Minister is the Head of the Government. The President of the United States is not only a person with great political power, but a person with great symbolic power. I think these two powers tend to reinforce each other.

I had a teacher of political science who told me an anecdote once that illustrated this phenomenon. As I recall, during World War Two, Roosevelt and Churchill and Stalin were at some sort of gathering of world leaders. Churchill and Stalin were at the table with the Prime Ministers and such of other nations. Roosevelt was at the table with the monarchs.