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Could you imagine the public voting for Bush to serve another 4 in the political climate of 2008? Because I'm quite sure they wouldn't have. The public barely voted for him in 2004 against Kerry. And Kerry was a robot at best in personal charismatic terms and got beaten by a well executed campaign to get out votes on national security (during a time of war). By 2008, people were mostly, and finally, tired of the national security issues because of secondary problems they were causing us. And most importantly, the economy had tanked. Americans will always vote out with their checkbook the people who are, successfully, blamed for their economic woe.

I don't think owing to the demands of the office that most people would be able to continue in it indefinitely, certainly beyond even 8 years and two terms. But removing from our scope a viable (and presumably popular) candidate to serve in public office is actually a limitation on our individual liberties as voters. This is the same argument as it applies to the example of Congressional term limits. If you want someone out of office, vote them out, run and campaign against them, find someone you think is better and support them. But don't take them off my ballot without my consent as a voter. If they don't want to run for traditional or personal reasons, fine. But that's also their decision as a public servant and ultimately our decision as voters to impose the limitations on time of service. Purely arbitrary designations of that time, as any legal designation of term limits are, or determining what that time 'ought' to be seem destined to be structurally flawed against the possibility of continued utility to constituents.

The public may often be insensible as uninformed voters but with traditional practice, a sense of general public fatigue with incumbents and the normal political cycles of the zeitgeist combined with the likelihood of Presidential candidates actually attempting to run a 3rd term, I wouldn't be that worried about this. Keep in mind it had happened only 3 times prior to the 22nd amendment's ratification (FDR, TR, and Grant who didn't even get the party nomination), out of 32 Presidents prior to 1947. And of those one who was successful, FDR owing that victory to some of the most curious set of global circumstances imaginable and a largely ideological bankrupt oppositional party (Republicans of 1940). Those are pretty good odds in my opinion.

Well, folks, I ain't gonna write a book on this.

I have my own opinions as to what the Presidency needs to evolve into, so I won't bore you all with the details.

I will, however, let you in on one small secret yearning that I harbour – The President should only serve ONE five year term. That is it. No more than that, and he should be banned from holding any public office after that.

Anyway, that is just my not-so-humble opinion.

Why should he serve one term, of five years, and indeed be banned from ANY office afterward?

As I specified, any time term limitations come up as arbitrary features like those, they are effectively banning our ability as individuals, in the aggregate, to make choices of our own. If we are to override that demonstration and exercise of personal liberty and autonomy as voters selecting representatives vested with our public interest, there better be some significant benefit for doing so. What are the benefits of a 5 year term with no continued public service in some lesser status position, such as a federal judge or even a sheriff somewhere?

Only one term seems to lame duck the entire presidency. I like it where it is, 2 terms of 4 years and no more.

Nah if he is good, let him go more.

Bush completely killed Stem Cell Research in the 8 years he was in. Obama reinstated government funding within 120 days of his presidency.

War for eight years, instead of five. So much could go wrong in those eight years.

We're still not out of the war. Presidents don't usually have that much political power to change objective conditions regarding the military and its committed operations such that a change of administration signals anything more than a shift in associated policies and troop levels. Look at Vietnam with Nixon and Korea with Eisenhower.

Sun Tzu,

You seem like a very intelligent and articulate person, so I will be gentle with you on this.

NO ONE should be allowed to become a career politician! Especially the POTUS!

That is exactly how we got ourselves into the mess up in DC that we have today!

As I previously said, I do have some very definite opinions about how the [political landscape of the USA needs to be shaped into. The elimination of the political party system along with career politicians is just the tip of the iceberg.

Of what evidence is there that this is always to the bad or that political figures cannot be turned out of office for irregularity. It seems like a heavy handed emotional response to just ban outright public service as a career path. Even acknowledging that there are questionable morals involved in the types of people who end up as career politicians. They aren't that different from the types of people who end up as career executives in private enterprise however. Power in any form is going to have some interesting effect. With the public we can remove from power by voting, in private business this happens for somewhat more concrete reasons, though not simply because the public whimsically opposes long standing executive service (usually). I conclude from that that people who are good at something and are recognized as such should be able to remain in that stature.

I'd agree completely that breaking up the two party political system would be to our advantage, in this as well as other ways. But I still don't see a justification for limiting voters in their choices of public servants or that any supposed value of statesmanship is in someway negated by actually performing it.

And voters have the power to make that change in 4. It's not like they run for an 8 year term, they must be re-elected.

Why prevent career politicians? Here's why in a name – Barney Franks, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Charlie Rangel . . . and the names go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and – well, do you get my drift? These folks have made it their lifes work to screw up this once great country.

Look, take Ted Kennedy for instance. He was directly responsible for the death of a young lady way back in the 1960's and just because he was a Senator he did not do one day in prison . . . Now the way I learned it was that the law is for everyone and there is no such thing as a person who is above the law. Now everyone is looking upon his life as some kind of hero, but to me he is nothing more than another criminal who gt away with murder – just like O.J.Simpson!

This country was founded on the belief that all men are created equal and that we have equal justice under the law. So when a sitting President lies under oath like Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, it takes months or even years to impeach him? When a business executive commits a crime he/she can be fired immediately. I mean look at the Illinois governor that sold Obama's senate seat and it took them a several months to kick him out and he still hasn't served one day in jail.

The only solution to the problem of political elitism is to do away with career politicians and make political offices a one term deal. Anything else would just be another smoke and mirrors job.

Jared, get your fact straight please! Bush killed embryonic stem cell research, not adult stem cell research.

Adult stem cell research is directly responsible for the saving of the life of a personal friend of mine. There have been no recorded incidences of embryonic stem cell research ever having resulted in anything but wasted time effort and money, whereas there have been great things that have come out of adult stem cell research.

Our currant POTUS has done nothing but embarrass this country and waste trillions of dollars since he took office. And yes, so did GWB, but not in as grand a scale as this idiot!

No I don't get your drift. While you or I might oppose such politics, the people of those districts and states feel themselves to be capably and adequately served by them. The solution to that problem is to understand their arguments and oppose them with firm and well-reasoned assessments that they are wrong (in the manner of a Madison or a Hayek). There is no justification for removing from our choices or from others the ability to serve others in public office.

There is clearly justification in applying as often as possible the same legal treatment to authority and power. But this is just as true, as I mentioned, in private citizens (CEOs, celebrities, et al). Emotional objection to a stratified society in form does not remove the stratification in practice.

Adult stem cell research is effective, but a lot of medical professionals agree that you can do more good with embryonic stem cell research. Since Bush was "Mr. Holy-man" and the genius that he was, he stopped the funding for it, so the whole program is back in the stone-age until Mr. Obama comes along and saves the day.

It's funny how Bush is so concerned about killing babies, meanwhile he had fully-grown men with families fight in Iraq and die for their country in the process. Unbelievable. That's why we shouldn't have a president for more than two terms. Although it would've been unlikely that Bush would've won again, you never know. Look at what happened with Florida vs. Gore.

Adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues, so isolating these cells from adult tissue is challenging…Procedures and methods to expand their numbers in cell culture have not yet been developed. Since large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies, the pluripotent embryonic cells are more promising.

For those who argue that using embryonic cells is equivalent to killing life – Then we are all murderers when we wash our hands, chew our food, etc. A cell's a cell.

McCain did not have most of Bush's downside political costs and got smashed. There's no way Bush would have had enough upside to stay in power if he could have run a third term, not to mention the public and political parties oppose having third terms by tradition anyway for Presidents (1 out of 3 who tried). In 2004 Bush was able to sell a case on national security and provide a reason to vote FOR him. He just ran a better campaign than Kerry. Whatever Rove's faults, and they are major, he's a brilliant political strategist for the 50+1 system we have. By 2008, people were calling in that hand finally and I think any neutral political observer would note the Obama campaign was extremely well organised and well run. It had to be in order to overtake Clinton. A Bush 08 ticket (especially one keeping Cheney) would have been destroyed. Probably at least a 10-12 point gap instead of 6-7 we had.

To the latter point, I'm not sure that a Gore administration wouldn't have gone into Iraq either in the poisonous atmosphere of the early part of the decade. The Clinton administration wasn't exactly fond of Saddam either (as they proved several times with bombing campaigns). And Lieberman was and has been pro-Iraq war. I might agree he might not have had incompetent morons like Rumsfeld running the war in the first place and that would have helped, but we don't know who his SecDef would have been either.

As far as stem cells, I'm in agreement we should be funding them, privately, publicly which ever where they show promising research potential. I would be greatly disappointed if reversing that policy (along with the Mexico city resolution with abortion and foreign aid) is the only thing done so far that matters however.

what is the problem if they serve more than their term and is making problem if the parliament reform the system on a president?

You forgot Strom Thurman.