the diff: What a Prez Does

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						<strong>diff by diff</strong>
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						<a href="/node/400">what a prez does primer</a>
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						<a href="/node/399">health care diff</a>
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						<a href="/node/420">energy &amp; environment diff</a>
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						<a href="/node/427">economy diff</a>
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						<a href="/node/480">the education, national security, immigration and courts diff </a> 
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<h3>What is it, exactly, a president does?</h3>
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As you know from civics class, the president isn’t in the law-passing business; his main job is to turn laws into reality. But a chief executive can have an imprint on legislation both through his veto-wielding power and, if he has a lot of political capital in the bag, by either shepherding his party or negotiating with the opposition to make some legislative waves (witness Welfare Reform and No Child Left Behind).
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Any environmentalist will also glumly tell you that the prez has the power to nudge policy through regulation and enforcement (or non-regulation and non-enforcement), while a pro-life advocate won’t let you forget that perhaps the president’s biggest role is in appointing justices to our highest court.
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All in all on the domestic front, though, a president only has so much say on what happens in our day to day lives. When it comes to foreign policy, well, that’s a world apart: the commander in chief reigns supreme (in spite of that little constitutional clause about Congress declaring war).
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