The Mourning After

The dignity afforded to the President exists only because of the responsibility of the office.  Its honors and prestige are inseparable, because human beings of planet Earth have brains wired to think symbolically and magically.  Respect is owed to the office, and earned by the man. 

Sometimes a man rises to the demands of the Presidency. Coolidge, Truman -- overmatching lower expectations. But they had strong characters. The rise is not from some lowly status -- many presidents have come from humble childhoods.  None have come from meaningless careers ... well, community organizer.  

We'll even grant that having been a lawyer is meaningful.  There can be some integrity to it.  And talking your way into some political office of responsibility is an achievement.  Even being a backbencher of the Illinois assembly, then poodle-groomed into the US Senate is something ... and Obama was a fantastic speech-giver, with a beautiful smile.  

Andrew Johnson was a catastrophe.  He just never should have been VP -- albeit, horrifically, for only six weeks.  Lincoln's great tragedy was not his assassination, but his choice of vice president.  Johnson however did not seek the office -- bad judgement made him accept it, as Lincoln's bad judgment offered it.  People do seem to forget the actual reason the VP job exists -- death.  (The exception is Nixon's resignation -- Ford, selected, was VP for nine months.)

Of the inappropriate VPs, C Harris, S Agnew, A Johnson were/are superlatives.  Henry Wallace, one of FDR's VPs, was a Soviet-Stalin dupe-pawn.  So, never never never just balancing the ticket.  VPs are always political compromises etc, and many were virtual non-entities, but thankfully history allowed most to remain obscure.  

I hope to god that will be the case with Harris.  Just a blip -- in the history of high office, not a footnote but a paranthetical: first self-identified woman in the office.  Being as I am not woke but awake, I don't quite see how she's a woman of color.  I know, I'm too literal, and I don't want to offend or, unforgivably, trigger, but to me color does not mean race. She's the color of some tanned blonde on the beach.  Not a qualification for office.  Also not a qualification is whatever minority or majority of favored African DNA she might or does possess.  It is African, right? -- or not?  Whatever.  (People have been known to lie about it.  It used to be called "passing", except the other way.  This is progress of a sort.  Fair-mindedness and merit would be most preferred.) 

And while I'm about it, this morning's post-State of the Diversity Address spin, from Harris: "I think that age is more than a chronological fact," she says she thinks, re Biden.  She would mean, if her intention were to communicate meaning, that age is less than a chronological fact.  And "think" is also not the right word, given how vapid her statement is.  Then again, in historical order, she would say that she thinks that she means that life, and marriage, and gender, and now age are more or less than biologico-culturico-psychologico-chronologico-facts.  Facts, nowadays, are not stubborn things.

But back to it.  Of all the men elected to the Presidency, the most disgraceful would be Biden.  clinton was a disgrace, but he wasn't incompetent.  LBJ was a disaster for the Constitution, but he was deeply effective.  Etc.  

But Biden, Biden.  That's how he will be remembered.  Butt Biden.  An ass. During his Address, he actually argued, talked back to the audience.  Undignified.  Unpresidential.  But I haven't been paying attention.  Maybe that's what presidents are doing nowadays?  If I continue to pay attention, it's likely he will be demoted to biden.

I don't hate him, at all.  I'm embarrassed, for the United States.  I don't want to say for America -- America is like a dead mother, remembered, mourned, never in life actually the way you remember her, but precious. The United States is not a dream, but a great power of political reality -- not, sadly of realpolitik, which seeks to advance national goals (not bank accounts, egos, etc).  

So.  The Ant and the Grasshopper.  The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Chicken Little.  The Emperor's New Clothes.  Etc.  We did not pay sufficient attention to such tales, as children.  Or rather, as children we do not pay close enough attention.  But come, help me write a fable.  The Maggot and the Praying Mantis.  The USA will be the maggot, feeding off the corpse of its former virtue.  For the mantis, just pick anybody.  A scorpion would work as well.

We've had our Caesar Augustus, visionary.  We've had our Tiberius, diligent.  Next in line is of course Caligula -- hm, how to say it ... enjoying the power of High Office.  Decadence need not only be sexual.  Incompetence is also corrupt. 

Sometimes a man rises to the challenge.  Thus far, always a man, a self-identified man.  So there's time for Biden to rise, to wake up, unwoke, as from a fever dream or a coma, with a changed spirit ... but not with a head wound (not yet, too soon, I'm not ready for the Tribulation.  Biden had brain surgery in 1988.  It is generally supposed that his brain survived.).  Given the fact of his self-identified gender, I mean self-identified chronological age, there's not a lot of time -- but there's all the hope our magical thinking can conjure up.  

J