Think for a second: without Googling the question, how many American presidents can you name? 25? 35? All of them? Now think about how many Chief Justices of the Supreme Court you can name? 5? 10? Current Chief Justice John Roberts is number 17. If you were asked to write down all of the Speakers of the House, could you? Could you name half of them? Could you name 5? Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the 60th Speaker. Except for scholars who study Congress and the Supreme Court (and even some among them) most Americans know the names of far more presidents than they do Chief Justices or Speakers of the House. We Americans simply have an attachment to our presidents wholly unlike our association with any other individual in government.

We have a national holiday for presidents. Their homes and birthplaces become museums – think of Washington's Mount Vernon or Andrew Jackson's home, the Hermitage – and we build monuments to their honor. It is no accident that all of the monuments on the Mall in Washington named for people are named for presidents. For particularly popular presidents, the efforts to honor and remember can become quite extensive – consider the wide array of books and events honoring the recent bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.

There is no question that Americans have a unique attachment to their presidents. But what is the source of this fascination? It is not a fascination that we share with the Founders.