President Day

Nation Cruelly Reminded That It Once Had a President was the headline for satirist Borowitz when President Obama's portrait was unveiled on Lincoln's Birthday.  The story continued:

In a televised event that many deemed unnecessarily cruel, millions of Americans were briefly reminded on Monday that they once had a President.
Unsuspecting Americans who turned on cable news Monday morning were suddenly assaulted with the memory of a time when the country’s domestic affairs, international diplomacy, and nuclear codes were entrusted to an adult.

Compounding the cruelty of the televised event, the networks lingered unnecessarily on a speech that only served to remind viewers that the nation once had a President who rigorously obeyed rules of grammar and diction.

In a mercifully brief discussion of the antipresident's domination of the past year at a Christmas party, a friend commented that he was especially alarmed by what he had to let go by.  We've all had to survive by, on some level, ignoring the latest from the fulminating con man who has destroyed the presidency, perhaps forever, and so degraded the public world that sanity as well as blood pressure are threatened by paying the normal attention of a citizen.

This is perhaps why I noticed that while I was hanging out at a bookstore in Menlo Park for an hour before Christmas Eve festivities, several people came in asking for "the Obama book."  It was the book of photographs by the official White House photographer called Obama: An Intimate Portrait.  I looked through it, and even though I'd seen most of the photos before, it was hard to hold back tears.

I didn't buy it then (I got the Ursula LeGuin book--easier to carry home) but I ordered it when I got back to Arcata.  However the book was so unexpectedly popular that the edition sold out, and it has been unavailable for more than a month.  Good news is that yesterday I got an email saying I could expect my copy in early March.  I decided to get it because I want it to leave to younger members of my family, so they will have some evidence of the existence of what we used to call a President.

Update: A survey of historians released Monday concludes that James Buchanan is no longer the worst president in American history.  You might be able to guess who has replaced him, after only a year in office.  President Obama on the other hand has moved up into the top ten of best presidents.