Our Founding Fathers never wanted the president to be all-thing to all-people. They wanted a man who would simply preside, enforce the law and maintain the peace; not someone with a legislative agenda. And so it was like that, more or less, for first 140 years of America’s republican system.

The president was not an ambitious figure. He did not set the legislative agenda, but Congress, rather, did. And most president were happy enough to defer to Congress.

And the national campaign to the president was not the multi-billion fanfare that it is today. The rule then was that the presidency should neither be “sought nor declined.” Most presidential candidates were chosen by party leaders and hardly campaigned. President Taft only gave speeches from his home in Indianapolis. This was known as frontporch campaigning.

How far we’ve come from that republican tradition. The New Deal - like many modern ills - marked that departure. Now, Americans demand the world from the presidents. They demand that the fix the economy, health care, global warming, protect against hurricanes and also revive our national souls. This has lead to the politics of disappointments. Americans place simply too many demands on the presidency that no one man [or woman] can fulfill them and then they are disappointed. But they have only themselves to blame. And do not pity the presidents who then suffer low approval ratings, they invite such unrealistic expectations.

And no modern president has invited such ridiculous expectations more than Barack Obama. It may be a little too early for predictions, but Obama has set himself up to being an incredible failure. His campaign rhetoric reflected a degree of delusion that would have had him forcibly placed in a medical ward in the 1950s. Obama campaigned on changing everything about Washington. As if one man could change the entire culture of a city solely due to his inspiring - if one finds him inspiring - rhetoric.

And the liberal media feeds into this delusion and the eventual disappointment. Next is HBO’s “By The People” documentary. It saw a trailer for this nonsense to be released in November, and once again it is Messanic Obama here to save the world solely with good intentions and nice speeches.

I can never understand people who look for inspiration in politicians. Politicians are self-serving and mostly dishonest. There are better role models. Stop being so emotionally superficial that you resort to worshiping power. HBO’s film is simply un-republican. In a republican form of government, the president should never be worshiped. He is not to be made an idol.

There is one consolation for those of us who look down upon such ObamaMania, in the end the failure of Obama will dampen any near future enthusiasm for any other slick-taking politician.