The Burden of Presidency

Today marks the first day that Barack Obama got his first national intelligence briefing as he begins to learn what it means to be a president. Damn I wish I could've been a fly on the wall for that first briefing. I'd have loved to have seen the look on Obama's face when he began to learn about the harsh realities of the world that he never knew about.

That's the thing about American presidents (and probably most other figureheads around the world, too). Presidents have the privilege and the BURDEN of discovering and knowing things about this world that you and I will never know. I can't even begin to fathom what a shock that must be to any first time president. I heard it secondhand today that someone close to our last two presidents personally witnessed that when each of them first heard their initial national intelligence briefing, they each left the room white-knuckled and rather pale. I can totally understand that.

It is for that reason that I generally give our presidents a more forgiving margin of error when they perform their duties. They have to bear the burden of knowing things that they cannot always share with the public. They know more than any of us ever could about the horrors of this world. It is through that information, that filter, that they see the world, and through which they must make impossible decisions. I don't envy them that burden. It has to be a LOT to bear.

I had a tit-for-tat political conversation with one of my closest friends via telephone yesterday. He's a fairly well-read individual, and certainly intelligent. In the years that followed 9/11 and the start of the Iraq conflict, he and I became very aware that we were on polar opposite sides of the fence with regard to our government, and more specifically, our president. I realize that most folks in this nation despise Bush, but I don't think I've ever seen such a focused crusade against George Bush as I have seen from my friend. It's one thing to disapprove of the president's performance. But my friend has taken it to such an extreme that he somehow has managed to extrapolate literally EVERY SINGLE ONE of the world's ills on George Bush. It's actually laughable. Bush has faults; this I will concede. But to take any and every negative topic or headline and blame it squarely on George Bush is ridiculous. Even you virulent Bush haters probably agree with that statement.

Sometime during 2006, my friend began sharing some e-mails with me that he occasionally circulates to his circle of friends. The e-mails were political in nature, and it was sort of a round-table discussion e-mail exchange where a certain topic would be presented, and each person on the mailing list would reply to the group and would put their two cents in on the matter, with point and counterpoint. Such an activity is certainly a risky venture, particularly among a group of friends. Politics is just one of those things that is very difficult to discuss politely. Someone will always get their feathers ruffled sooner or later. The same thing applies to religion. This is why the old adage about never discussing religion or politics in mixed company is such a valid one. Nothing could be more true.

Well, I don't remember the specifics of it now, but after one or two of these round robin e-mail exchanges, I began to boldly weigh in. Knowing that I solidly supported Bush's policy of engaging our terrorist enemies anywhere and everywhere, my good friend launched into countless attacks on Bush just for the sake of bashing Bush. It is positively fascinating to listen to this guy take any given problem in the world, and blame it squarely on George Bush. He's made it into something of an art form. I swear, if somebody's neighborhood cat got run over down the street from him, he'd find a way to link it to George Bush. "If Bush wasn't spending billions of dollars on the Iraq war on a daily basis, maybe the town could have afforded more animal control staffers to keep stray cats off the roads." I mean, he's literally THAT bad.

Anyway, after some heated e-mail exchanges, I eventually got tired of hearing how George Bush was the anti-Christ and the worst thing to happen to humanity since Adolf Hitler. It was at that point that I politely asked that he and I never again discuss politics, because it was beginning to take a toll on our valued friendship (at least in my eyes). I'm sorry folks, but comparing Bush to Hitler is ludicrous. I don't hold Bush on a pedestal, but I don't fault the guy for trying to protect you and me. I, for one, commend him for making an effort to protect our nation. The guy was only in office for part of a year when 9/11 happened, and it changed everything. Bush's presidency, as I said in my previous blog, was and always will be defined by 9/11. Who knows how things would have been different if 9/11 never happened? I suspect that Bush would have been able to carry out a very average presidency if 9/11 never happened. Nothing great, nothing terrible, but probably pretty average. But he really didn't have much opportunity to carry out an average presidency. 9/11 changed everything. The events of that day forced Bush to make decisions he never thought he'd ever have to make. They were hard decisions, but he did what I would have done: he took the fight to the enemy, wherever the enemy might be hiding.

After the U.S. military pounded the Taliban to dust and chased the rest into Pakistan, Bush may have been able to gather himself enough to attempt to tackle other issues (both foreign and domestic), but everything else was very secondary to the effect of 9/11. No other single issue could possibly matter as much as our safety and security in this nation. It is with that mindset that Bush carried out his duties as president. Such a mindset inevitably leads to very unpopular choices, decisions, hardships, and sacrifices. But he remained steadfast in his effort to protect us all, and to his credit, post 9/11 we have not seen a single successful terror attack in THIS nation during his presidency. Al Qaeda has had to resort to attacking softer foreign targets because they've been unable to muster another attack on our homeland. Numerous terror cells and plots have been broken up and/or disrupted here and abroad, and I think that's a credit to our departing president. He put our military forces and intelligence agencies up to the daunting task of protecting this country, and I feel they've done an excellent job of adapting to the threats that so violently awakened us all on 9/11. Kudos to our armed forces for keeping us safe, and kudos to Bush for having the courage to become unpopular to serve a higher purpose: protecting our lives, liberty, and our way of life.

In light of everything that presidents are expected to endure, it is a wonder to me that they can even sleep at night. And it is no surprise that the last two presidents have departed the Oval Office looking considerably older and more frazzled than they did when they first took office. I suspect Obama will be no exception when his term is up. He won't look anything like he looks now. You probably won't even recognize the man by 2012. Heck, I bet today's national intelligence briefing was enough to turn the man white.

To wrap up my main point, I just want to remind everyone that American presidents know more than you or I will ever know about the immediate and potiential threats that face us all. Obama is now facing the fact that there's probably a lot more going on in the world than he could have ever imagined. I'm not suggesting he was oblivious to the world, but Mr. Hopeful is probably a little dizzy tonight as he digests what he's gotten himself into. I know I would be pretty nauseous.

To Bush bashers everywhere, one cannot blame all the world's problems on Bush. Those who do that are simply copping out. And don't even get me started on all those crackpot conspiracy theorists who claim that Bush "knew" about 9/11 beforehand, or perhaps the double-whammy blame-game attack where they actually posit that George Bush was BEHIND the 9/11 attacks for this purpose or that. I just don't understand people who believe that shit. To each his own, I guess.

When you lambast your nation's president, folks, please take a moment to stop and realize that he probably knows more than you do about any given political topic. It's easy for you and I to armchair quarterback the White House. We all do it. But give your president some leeway when he makes unpopular choices. He knows more than you; that's his job.