The President That We Deserve

In 1997 Martin Walker, a British journalist who has at times been Editor in Chief of United Press International and European Editor of The Guardian, wrote “Clinton: The President they Deserve”, a book more widely read in Britain and Europe than in America. In this book he dissected fairly accurately the way both Clintons manipulated the facts and the press to gain and hold power.

That book may prove to be relevant again if Hillary Clinton can ever get her campaign organized enough to overcome Barak Obama’s current lead. But whether that happens or not, the subtitle of the book “The President They Deserve” is certainly relevant to America these days.

Americans might be forgiven for choosing the current holder of the office in 2000 over a very wooden Al Gore whose heart really wasn’t in the race (he plays much better in his current role, because his heart is in it). But succumbing to the scare tactics of the 2004 election and repeating that mistake by re-electing Bush really did give us the President We Deserved., though helped no doubt by the abysmal campaign of John Kerry. And we have reaped what we sowed – giving us among other things wiretaps without legal warrants, an impossible war in Iraq even while the Taliban recover their power in Afghanistan, a massive increase in government debt (from the party that is supposed to be the more fiscally responsible!), massive subsidies for things like corn ethanol that actually waste more energy than just using oil, and a general loss of our bargaining power and influence throughout the world.

Now we get another chance in 2008 to try and get it right. If we are foolish enough to just take the political pap and insincere promises that both political parties will feed us, and if we are foolish enough to let them manipulate us with simple-minded slogans and catch phrases, if we are dumb enough to succumb to negative campaigning, and if we are naïve enough to vote mindlessly along party lines or on the basis of sound bites, we will again get The President That We Deserve.

In British politics, candidates have to go to rallies and field hard questions from real voters. Something quite different from the “staged” debates in our country with softball questions from moderators, or the rousing set piece campaign speeches, or the “town meetings” packed with supporters and shills. I don’t think any presidential candidate we have had since, perhaps, Truman could stand up to the sort of hard questioning that is normal in British politics.

A friend has just alerted me to Lee Iacocca’s 2007 book “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”. Iacocca wonders why we, the American public, are not mad as hell about what is going on. He wonders why we aren’t in total revolt against both dysfunctional political parties. He wonders why we have passively let the politicians lead us into this morass. He wonders why we haven’t made heads roll in Congress and the White House.

I too wonder. Will we again get The President That We Deserve?