This book is a philosophical study of the presidency. Its purpose is to improve presidential analysis by critically evaluating the office from the point of view of the political system as a whole. It seeks to redress an error committed near universally by contemporary scholarship. By topically fragmenting understanding through historic outlines, legal limits, and observed behaviors, the sometimes noticed difficulties of the office-its pretensions to charismatic leadership, its frequent undemocratic character-have been taken to be occasional short-comings to be guarded against. This analysis,...