Obama, the TSA, and Presidential Power

Shorter President Obama on TSA groping: There's nothing I can do, I'm just the President.

I don't fly so this is just an intellectual discussion for me. The TSA could force passengers to strip naked and engage in bestiality as a condition for flying and it would be no skin off my nose. But President Obama Saturday address on the TSA indicates my main problem with him, he doesn't seem to realize that he is the fucking
President.

We saw it with the BP oil spill. Obama was clearly frustrated with the clean up but he never did the boss thing. It often seems that the President doesn't see himself as the leader but as simply the principle PR flack for the bureaucracy.

Getting back to the TSA. President Obama could order the TSA to clean up their act. He could give them a time frame (two weeks or two months, it doesn't matter) to develop policies that forbid all physical contact searches without probable cause (and refusing to be x-rayed is not probable cause). Just give the order and leave it to the bureaucracy to get it done.

Instead he tells us that he "understand people's frustration" and that it is out of his hands. If President Obama wants to understand why his popularity is low he need look no further than this tendency to punt on first down.