Are you patient? How good are you at waiting? Waiting? Waiting? Soon it will be all over but the shouting. Do you look forward to or dread that day in November when the suspense will be over? Why?

Does it really matter that much? One of Obamas goals was to rein in the administrative sectors of of the government. to lessen their ability to set policy and act behind the scenes. Such sectors as the CiA and the DoD have way too much power to act on their own with little or no control by the democratically elected government. He have made no progress on that at all.

Not that this is a new thing, The soviets had perpetual problems controlling STASI. The British empire had little control over their East India trading Company that blithely started 'local' wars to open new markets, etc. etc. Such 'States within the state' are quite common throughout history ;-))

The excuse is always the same "those people in the big house just dont understand the situations and problems we have to handle". And it is true. But from there to acting on their own without even telling the 'Boss' what they are doing is rather too big a step to be acceptable.

Anyways, whoever gets elected will pretty much have to act as 'his' administration tells him to.

How much unilateral power does the president have JakobA?  Isn't that the point of the check-and-balance system. The prez needs approval of Congress  who holds the pursestrings and the consent of the Senate when he makes appointments. I know he has something called Executive privilege but I have no idea how far it extends. Thank you for your thoughtful answer! :)