My Presidents, II

My Presidents, II

  Just a couple of presidents left, but because they are closer, they loom larger, much larger. Bill Clinton: I was favorably disposed toward him when he became president and was somewhat taken aback when my best Pittsburgh friend, John Craig, retired as the boss of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, spoke very reprovingly of Clinton’s sexual escapades. That made me conscious of the need to distinguish the public persona from the private one. Historians routinely do that; why not contemporary commentators as well? It may all come down to the fact that titillating news sells, whereas it gets buried in historical accounts unless truly flamboyant or in some other way significant.

   I think of Clinton as a president who coped with an increasingly bifurcated country; in my view he leaned to the right more often than he had need to in order to survive. His sexual escapades that led to an absurd impeachment “trial” is another example of Americans’ preoccupation with sex. I have some idea of the historical roots of my fellow-citizen’s allegiance to a gun culture comes from, but I am puzzled about how earlier religious injunctions have survived to this day.

   Next came George W. Bush, whom I rashly labeled as our worst president ever. He lost that title in favor of today’s incumbent, Donald Trump. I won’t comment here on the current scene except to hope that the pendulum will swing back.

   To conclude this excessively breezy overview. I mostly agreed with Obama’s actions and proposals and think of him as one of our best presidents. His successor, Donald Trump, is undoing much of Obama’s good works. Trump’s successor, I am quite sure (think of the swing of the pendulum) will revive Obama’s measures, as having only been sleeping, not permanently killed. Call me an optimist.