Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire can't the president have a private conversation??

There are two big factors in any conversation the president has with a foreign leader: transparency and secrecy.

First, in our pseudo “transparent” historical fad, everything needs to be on record, partly to protect the president himself. As said, due to the office he holds, there is a sense in which the president never has a private conversation.

On the other hand, if such conversations are not kept secret, no foreign leader will speak freely, ever.

Re the second of these essential factors, if congress forces presidential phone calls to be made public, they have cut off the president’s ability to lead, to speak for his nation, to be president in any real sense in terms of foreign policy. Stupid with a capital STU. No foreign leaderr will speak honestly if he knows what he says will be in the WSJ tomorrow. He will mouth PR material.

Once elected, the constitution is smart enough to give the president a LOT of trusted autonomy, with all of the risks and rewards that entails for the nation. It assumes that we will elect pretty good men and gives them power to act in a CEO capacity rather than merely as chair of a bickering committee..