A false idol, a loaded weapon

In the spring of 2008, well before Sen. Barack Obama had secured the Democratic nomination, I wrote a book called “The Cult of the Presidency,” arguing that for too long, Americans had looked to the presidency for far too much. The hopes and dreams we’d invested in the office had transformed it into a constitutional monstrosity, too powerful to be trusted and too weak to deliver the miracles we crave.

I thought I’d said my piece on that subject. Then Barack Obama ascended to office on an unprecedented wave of adulation, promising to lay hands on “the arc of history” and “bend it once more to the hope of a better day.”