Growing up in the fifties, I thought the President of the United States was a holy man. The first one I can recall is Eisenhower, a somber sort who seemed to exist on another plane from the one I was on. I knew nothing about him other than that my parents didn't like him very much, but only because he was from the other team. Still, they never said anything disrespectful about him in front of me or my sister. He was the President, after all.
I really got interested in politics when JFK was running. I was a teeny-bopper by then and like all of my girlfriends, I thought he was
soooooo handsome! My mother, a grass-roots political type, worked hard locally to get him elected. Somehow she found out where to go and got the two of us right in the front of the crowd as he was passing through our town. Kennedy shook her hand and smiled at me, and both of us were thrilled. After that I handed out leaflets for him all over our neighborhood. When he won, I took some credit for that; after all, I had helped! Then he got shot and I felt like a sucker. No more handing out leaflets for me. At 16, I was done with it all.
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| Clinton campaigning. |
The presidential parade continued without me, each Oval Office occupant getting steadily stupider to my mind. LBJ showing off his stomach scar. Jerry Ford falling off a podium. Jimmy Carter with his sweaters and malaise. Dan Quayle and Al Gore as backups, should the worst happen. Sure there were a couple of good ones in there, but then Bill Clinton hired Harry Thomason (an L.A. producer and director best known for the TV sitcom
Designing Women) as his "image consultant." Thomason designed his Inauguration, choosing a then-current hit by the rock group Fleetwood Mac as the Clinton administration's theme song. A theme song? Fast forward to Monica Lewinsky and the blue dress.
So it's no surprise to me that today the two leading contenders are a crude boor throwing his schlong around and a lying shrew shredding her secret emails. Hey, I can handle it -- I'm just sad that our country has fallen so far since the days when I thought the President was a holy man.
A good read if, as usual, a slightly unsettling one. Reagan is conspicuously absent from your list of sliders. His "for real" nature sits well today even with those of us on "the other side."
ReplyDeleteAn image consultant might have helped the likes of Nixon or George W. Bush, even more than Clinton (did the consultant recommend sax lessons?) Big brains or even a small conscience would have been more useful to some of our biggest presidential failures.