Today is Presidents Day, an occasion to reflect upon America’s past commanders-in-chief, but if you’re hoping it might provide a helpful guide in choosing whom you’ll support in the presidential election nine months from now, forget it.
If performance was all that mattered, Donald Trump could run unopposed. Economy? Employment? Immigration enforcement? National security? Trade relations?
He’s been what Scripture describes as that workman who needeth not be ashamed.
Indeed, he’s delivered what he promised, which clearly means nothing at all to his Pavlovian critics whose unchecked loathing has made a mockery of that domestic tranquility our framers envisioned.
America hasn’t been this ruptured since the Vietnam War.
Studying our presidents tells us a lot about ourselves.
While leading us through World War I, Woodrow Wilson publicly acknowledged “praying to God that I may be given the wisdom and prudence to do my duties in the true spirit of this great people.”
Imagine if Trump said that?
While sending American troops off to World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt added this inscription to Bibles that had been distributed among them by the Gideons: “As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. It is a fountain of strength.”
Imagine if Trump tried that?
His detractors are forever trying to link him to lascivious behavior, though their same sensitivities somehow remained intact when Bill Clinton’s tomcatting with Monica Lewinsky became known, thanks to a blue dress she retrieved from her closet. Remember?
And you’d need a Rolodex to recall all of the other femme fatales who populated his entourage.
Yet he remains a darling of the left.
When Trump was surreptitiously taped using bawdy locker room language in an off-the-cuff conversation, those who already reviled him leaped at the chance to label him a lecher.
Their hypocrisy is disheartening.
It’s not their dislike of our 45th president that’s hard to stomach because political popularity has always been subjective.
What’s repulsive is their intellectual dishonesty.
Remember when Barack Obama caused such a stir by going to Cuba and allowing himself to be portrayed as Raul Castro’s buddy, even joining his Cuban counterpart in doing a lighthearted wave at a baseball game in Havana?
But when terrorists attacked Brussels with bombs that killed 32 civilians, American leaders, primarily Republicans, urged him to come home and focus his attention on the mounting international crisis.
Instead, Obama and his wife Michelle were next seen joyously dancing a tango in Argentina.
Can you imagine the outcry here if that had been Trump hoofing on the dance floor with Melania?
We’re better than this, aren’t we?
We sure used to be.
Happy Presidents Day.
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