Presidential Destiny
I am reading Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. It's worth reading: informative and even funny at times (or, perhaps, riotously funny for those more in tune with Mr. Franken's sense of humor).
In the chapter called "The Blame-America's-Ex-President-First-Crowd", he writes several things that I found fascinating. First, just this comment (p. 105):
On September 11, 2001, NPR had more foreign correspondents abroad than any other network news organization in the United Sates.
This is an interesting observation for those of us who remember the early days of NPR news and its lack of credibility among the "real media". To me, it feels almost like personal vindication, since I used to feel more defensive about Public Radio & Television's reputation for incisive, analytical, and objective news reporting. It's the same way that I felt upon seeing that, for the recent presidential campaign "debates", it was PBS and "The Newshour" that was called upon (no, certainly not for the first time, either) to provide 66% of the moderators.
Now, on to the "desiny" point. On p. 107 Franken writes:
Right-wingers like to call us the "Blame-America-First Crowd." But they've blamed Clinton, who's not just an American, but was the President, virtually nonstop. And Clinton was not just the President. He was the last elected president, who received more votes than any other candidate running against him. In two straight elections! So who's blaming America?
[His italics, by the way. Although written before the 2004 election, this statement may well still be true, since we're unlikely to have any certainty about the actual outcome of the recent election and the true will of the electorate.]
Knowing that the current President himnself, and quite a few of his most ardent supporters, believe that he is in the White House through God's agency, and is guided by frequent conversations with the Head Honcho, there is a widespread belief that this is somehow fulfilling his destiny.
What "destiny", I've often wondered, and why another agonizing, four-year term? I suspect that the current president's destiny is to go down in history as the worst president we've ever had; the second term is just the means to cement that destiny against pretenders and wanna-bes like Nixon, for example.
But, if each presidential office-holder is there to fulfill destiny, what could Clilnton's destiny possibly be?
Thanks to Franken's perceptive analysis, a likely option is now obvious to me. Namely, Clinton's destiny in this scheme of things is to take Presidential blame. For everything!
Remarkably, we've seen how Clinton has come to be blamed for everything that the current administration has found awkward or embarrassing in what resuls from their Rich-Americans-First policies. In the future, I think it will also start to become clear that Clinton was responsible for all the awkward and embarrassing things that have happened to Presidents before he was elected. In addition to fulfilling Clinton's destiny, this will make things easier for historians trying to work out who to blame, for students trying to memorize things for tests, and for conservatives who frequently have trouble remembering facts or staying in touch with reality.
It will be his destiny!
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on Thursday, 20 April 2006 at 16.11
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Becoming the Worst President?
Some time back, I happened to write* that, in my opinion, it is the current president's destiny to be The Worst President Ever. I would claim extraordinary prescience, except that it's such a bloomin' obvious prediction. However, I'm please to disc…
on Sunday, 3 December 2006 at 01.43
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[…] ve but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history. ———- *"Presidential Destiny", Bearcastle Blog, 7 December 2004. #Eric Foner, "He's The Worst Ever" […]