The Life and Lies of Presidents

Two months after electing their first Black president, Americans gathered two days ago in Washington or in front of their TV screens to officially witness Barack Hussein Obama becoming their 44th Commander in chief.  Everything has been said already about the symbol carried by such circumstances. And Obama’s speeches themselves tell you everything you need to know about why his victory couldn’t have been anyone’s else in the interest of the country and the rest of the world.

Of course we should be careful about our expectations for the next four years. Obama is no wizard and after cleaning up the mess his country has been left in during eight years of uncontrollable Bush-ism, he will still have to deal with exterior powers and influences, foreign governments and conflicts and go against the flow of internal lobbying. However I think this new presidency should bring hope and enthusiasm and be embraced with a positive attitude that shouldn’t be polluted by cynicism you can still find in the mouth of disappointed Republicans. What is so laughable about wanting to improve American Health care so everyone could benefit from a decent system? What is so unbelievable about the concept of free education so every child could start with the same chance in life? These systems already exist in other countries (and not only socialist ones!!!) and they do work.  With hiccups and problems to solve of course, but generally they do work and make people’s life easier and fairer.

Another criticism thrown regularly towards Barack Obama’s presidency is that little is known from him and his past. He scares Americans (well, obviously not a majority of them) because of his unusual and sometimes mysterious background.

The truth is: these previous presidents you thought you knew so much about used to hide so much from the general public and would deliver to the press only what information suited them! Of course any president would orchestrate its image, hide imperfections and make himself look as good and strong and trustworthy as he could. Obama arrived on stage at a period of huge technologic possibilities. He is young, aware of the new tools on offer and used them cleverly to broadcast his ideas throughout the campaign. McCain couldn’t and you can’t blame him not to be that tech savvy at his old age!  William McKinley who lead the country between 1897 and 1901 was the first truly media-conscious president, establishing the White House press-room and encouraging the flow of selected information to journalists. Do you think he should be blame for using this new strength to make himself look good and communicate better with his fellow citizens?

Hidden secrets and anecdotes are plenty if you take the time to research the life of public figures. None of them were a saint and even the much revered George Washington would spend 7% of his $25,000 salary (the equivalence to around $1m today) on alcohol. Thomas Jefferson, despite his opposition to slavery, was one of America’s biggest slave-owners…  As for Grover Cleveland (president twice 1885-1889 and 1893-1897) he was drafted to fight in the Civil War but paid a 32-year-old Polish immigrant to serve in his place.  Would you have given your vote to someone who paid to get out of service to his country? Then in 1917 it was revealed that in 1893 at the height of financial panic he had secretly undergone a major operation for cancer of the jaw. Desperate not to see public confidence undermined further, the White House insisted he had merely had minor dental treatment. Electric lights were installed in the White House during Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)’s term of office. However he and his wife were so afraid to touch the switches they would often sleep with the lights on.  And what about Woodrow Wilson, hero of WWI who considered suffragettes “disgusting creatures” and wrote with seeming admiration for the Ku Klux Klan… Not so much of an aura about him any more, uh? The same man suffered a stroke in 1919 and never entirely recovered. However he refused to even temporarily relinquish his duties and left his wife to decide which matters were important enough to bring to his attention… Absolutely shocking, isn’t it? As for Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), although he publicly supported Prohibition he would let down his fellow citizens by dropping by the Belgian Embassy now and then to down a few martinis on the way home. Jimmy Carter once claimed to have seen a UFO… The list could go on.

We have to realize once and for all that what we know of public characters, and especially as highly regarded as the President of the United States of America, is what we are supposed to know and not a single word more. It is what we are allowed to know by the powers that be. Behind the clean cut images  we see and hear on screen many secrets and embarrassments are kept in the dark . Some for the best, some for the worst. The bottom line being: let’s judge the 44th President on what we know of him, on his work, on his goals and actions as it is all that we can do for the time being, and let’s history do the rest.