United States President™ brand has lost too much value.

A couple years ago, a colleague of mine admitted to loving the President of the United States.

“I just love him,” she said, in all sincerity, regarding President George W. Bush. “I think he’s terrific.”

I didn’t think Mr. Bush was very terrific, but I didn’t have the energy to straighten her out. Who has the energy to take on the power of love?

The point is, love is rarely a word one applies to the President of the United States these days. Despite my co-workers admiration, it’s safe to say that a great deal of people didn’t like Mr. Bush very much. We mocked him. Sneered at his policies. Openly doubted his intelligence.

Somewhere down the line, we lost respect for the office of the Presidency.

Today, the President addresses school children on the Internet, and Conservatives respond as though he is trolling around playgrounds in a van offering crack to kids.

Today, the President addresses members of Congress only to have an elected lawmaker interrupt the speech by calling the President a liar. To his face. On national TV*.

Asshole

Since the founding of this country, the President, even the great ones, has been subject to ridicule and insults. Andrew Jackson was labeled a bigamist. Some called Abraham Lincoln an ape. But today, what Conservatives hurl at the President is nothing less than seething hatred that bypasses reason with barely a glance.

Our President has been called godless. Socialist. Communist. Weak. A Muslim (an insult?). A liar. A foreigner. A radical. People appear on camera to admit that they fear the President. Fear him! As though he were something that oozed out of a haunted lake.

There is a weird segment of this country that treats the President of the United States as an enemy.

Wasn’t there a time when the Oval Office alone commanded respect? After all, it is an office appointed by the will of the people. Us. And when we levy these blind, baseless, idiotic charges at our President, aren’t we really self-indicting here?

Insulting the President has always been a national pastime.

Once, my Dad took me aside and took umbrage for the way I treated President Bush on these digital pages. “Would you say the same things to President Bush’s face as you do on your blog?” he asked. I told him no. I said I would probably just ask him about his dog. After all, the President is the President, and he deserves respect.

Yet, my Dad’s words made me re-consider my editorial position. For example, it was unsavory for me (or anyone) to suggest that the President and his Vice-President were engaged in sexual congress together. I toned it down, electing to blast the President’s policies rather than the President himself.

We were all guilty – discounting those like my colleague who loved George W. Bush. Newsweek often ran editorial cartoons that likened Mr. Bush to a monkey. Late night talk show hosts challenged Mr. Bush’s intelligence every evening. We openly took delight when Mr. Bush tangled his words or choked on a pretzel.

Perhaps Conservatives are merely meting out their terrible revenge. And in their exuberance, they have taken it too far. For the sake of Pete, we’re demanding that the President produce a birth certificate? What next? A photo ID? For the love of St. Luke we’re brazenly calling the leader of the free world a liar before an audience of millions. Other countries are taking notice.

When Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at President George Bush, I was appalled. I was insulted. You don’t chuck footwear at my President, asshole. And while I noted that al-Zeidi’s action was an expression of rancor that the Iraq War had afforded the people of Iraq, I also advocated that Mr. al-Zeidi receive the full harsh measure of the law.

You show respect to the President of the United States of America, bub.

Asshole, too.

The Presidential™ brand has taken a hit. Some will blame President Bill Clinton. More will blame President George W. Bush. Some might go so far as to finger President William Taft. Regardless, it is President Barack Obama who bears the slings and arrows of what has become a Nation that no longer respects the Oval Office.

We can only hope that leadership and decency restores luster to what was once a treasured brand.

* Excluding the FOX viewing audience, of course. Apparently, health care isn’t a big issue when stacked against the premiere of Glee.

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Ask me anything.

Just don’t preach. Or pontificate. Or become hysterical, because I hate noise and “embryonic stem cells research” tends to have a cacophonous effect on people. It drives otherwise clear-headed people nuts. They can’t hear their own thoughts for the shouting.

Before I teach you a lesson about stem cell research – a topic for which I suddenly find myself suitably qualified – let’s throw out a meaty statistic.

In the United States, 400,000 research-ready embryos sit in cold storage at various in-vitro fertility facilities.

Yep. These precious embryos for which so many Americans are willing to fall on the sword shiver in sub-zero temperatures, waiting to be either used by the donor (far more embryos are extracted than needed, and one wonders how many women elect to take the spares home), or to be “destroyed.”

One might argue that when it comes to embryonic stem cell research, we have a choice: destroy the embryo (which has no idea what’s coming) or put it to the use of mankind.

“I’m an embryo!”

Were the arguments so simple. To some, even the idea of in-vitro fertilization is an affront to God’s Big Design, and to mention in-vitro only lends weight to the embryonic stem cell opposition. For those people, this argument is over.

For everyone else, especially those who have struggled mightily to bear children, the topic still sits restlessly on the table.

The Unitarian approach (“The good of the many outweigh the good of the few”) simply points out that not only would we be extrapolating something valuable from what was only going to be thrown away, the resulting medicine will be of far greater benefit to society than what any number of frozen embryos could ever provide. As Mr. Spock (and even Senator Orrin Hatch) might point it, it is only logical.

Logic hardly ever plays a starring role upon the social soapbox, however. You could counter – quite shrilly – that when the Nazi’s extrapolated the gold from their victims’ teeth, it was logical. Touché.

Wait! Not touché! The Nazi’s killed living, breathing, thinking human beings. In most countries, that’s called murder and is against the law. Where an embryo falls on humankind’s totem pole is a matter of perspective.

This is where the unsavory, poorly dressed and slightly smelly specter of Mr. Abortion interrupts what was once a fairly civilized debate.

Nobody likes Mr. Abortion, not even those who would proudly grant him a seat at the family supper table. He causes good-natured people to scream, and compels psychotics with an affinity for chemicals to make explosives. At the very least, Mr. Abortion is the guy at the party who makes all the guests shift nervously from one foot to another. I once met a woman who refused to eat a slice of my pizza for she disagreed with the beliefs of the company that made it. Such is the effect of Mr. Abortion.

Waxing philosophically, Mr. Abortion is first to ask: Where does life begin? The instant of conception? The 5th week, when the heart begins to beat? Or later, such as when brain function is evident? When does a cell become a citizen? Mr. Abortion wants to know.

Surely not while it sits inert inside a steel container, frozen in a bath of liquid nitrogen. Clearly its rights are being ignored.

Perhaps future discoveries will render this sticky point moot. Already, there is some promise in adult stem cells, which are derived from skin and umbilical cord blood. But, thanks to my new education, I understand that adult stem cells – unlike embryonic stem cells – are not pluripotent, meaning that the uses for adult stem cells are limited to the organs from which they are harvested. Supposedly, you drop an embryonic stem cell anywhere in the body. Presto! New pancreas.

Eight years of President Bush may have
irrevocably damaged any chance
of a Family Ties Reunion Show.

The scientific community promises that a whole host of diseases and ailments could be reversed and eliminated through embryonic stem cell research: Alzheimer’s, spine trauma, Parkinson, stroke damage, even birth defects detected from within the womb. Science would have us believe that embryonic stem cells are the panacea to achieving immortality.

Anyone who has had a family member afflicted with the above-mentioned conditions waits with bated breath. Nancy Reagan was a stem cell opponent before Alzheimer’s reduced her once-mighty husband to a vacant stare. My own views became clouded when my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson.

The Skilled Opponent always has a trump card, and in the case of stem cells, that card is, Where does it end? Hello, Mister Slippery Slope. Pardon my not shaking your hand, but you tend to throw me uncomfortably off-balance.

Flush with grim prognostications, Mr. Slipper Slope rubs his crystal balls and reveals a future peppered with designer babies, cloned relatives, and fetus farms. Perhaps even a day that death is cured. Death! Is that a bad thing? Mr. Slipper Slope is nodding.

One thing that has already achieved immortality, seemingly, is the division embryonic stem cell research has created. When Mr. Bush signed into law provisions that would make all but some stem cell lines unavailable to research, neither side was satisfied. If you’re going to terminate one embryo, you might as well terminate them all.

Barack Obama becomes “The Embryo Bro”

Now Mr. Obama has pleased the scientific community by once again opening up American research centers to fresh embryos – research Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom already publicly acknowledge. Who knows what the secretive Chinese, Koreans, and the Russians are mixing up. Were this a race to the moon, we would have already cured paralysis by now.

The slope is slippery. But the potential is too great to ignore, let alone too great for China to have all to itself. Mr. Abortion wants to know, “Should we federally fund more embryonic stem cell research?”

Four hundred thousand frozen embryos, slated for destruction (i.e. abortion) say, “Why not?”

###

Starting from my earliest memories, the United States has been “the Leader of the Free World.” It’s a moniker that is never challenged, and therefore never given much thought. Why we are the leader of the free world seems to be a rhetorical question.

For many, the title is a right of might. We got the guns.
For others, leadership is the reward of virtue. We’re the best because God likes us.

Too rarely lately has our position as leader been underscored by action.

Of course, we as a nation do not suffer from a lack of action. We are very quick to condemn, to enact, to deploy and to marshal. We’re more than happy to spread liberty, forcing it upon nations as if our own were not the result of very good luck. We preach the merit of free so long as free means “be like us.”

And being free like us could use some tweaks.

I’m not slamming the Nation. It is the greatest in the world. But because we’re the greatest, we do ourselves an injustice by failing to hold our definition of democracy to high standards. That bar was destined to rise the moment we declared that black people counted as only 3/5 of a person.

For decades, Free™ was the exclusive trademark of rich white guys.

Since the creation of the Constitution, we’ve been greedy with free. We deny it with regularity: to Blacks. To women. To homosexuals. We do this, and then we say to the rest of the world, “Be free like us.”

Over the years, the Leader of the Free World has lost some of its luster. It’s not George’s fault. No, that lies on all our shoulders. The world looks up to us, and we took it for granted. And like an aging high school football hero, we’re hurt that nobody is buying us beer anymore.

We stopped scoring touchdowns. We’re still good looking. We’re still strong as a mule, and the letterman’s jacket still sort-of fits. But we’re not scoring touchdowns.

Until now.

On November 4th, Americans elected to President a black man with a terrorist name. Race did not matter. Names did not matter.

Leadership mattered. And the rest of the world, at least for a little while, wants to be free like us.

##

Moments before the film was scheduled to begin, two theater employees appeared at the entrance, each carrying a flashlight. One, a round blond woman, clapped her hands loudly and demanded attention.

“We hope everybody enjoys tonight’s viewing of The Incredible Hulk,” she began, “But I am only going to say this once: silence your cell phones. And no getting up while the movie is playing. That can be a real distraction to people trying to watch the movie. Thank you, and have a great night.”

Viewing Threat Condition: Green

She and her theater henchman quit the premises amid a couple teenagers mimicking the squeaky pitch of her tinny voice. I tried to remember the last time I had sat in this theater and had been issued instructions (a warning) like that.

Not once. Not ever.

*

Like no other in history, the Presidential Election of 2008 will test the character of us. All of us. No longer is the election just a matter of political philosophy. Considering the nature of what is at stake, a contest of just political wills would be a Herculean (if not welcome) trial all by itself.

This is an election of exposure. One that will leave us all naked. A contest that will determine if we, as a Nation, have truly grown as a society. Or one whose fears and ignorance have been merely driven underground by a pop culture of forced political correctness.

*

The Junkyard Dog growled into the camera before turning to howl at the audience, who roared their approval with howls of their own.

Two friends and I sat on the living room floor, all knobby elbows and knees of adolescence. We watch the Junkyard Dog lock arms with some unknown wrestler. The only one in the ring who mattered was Junkyard Dog. We sing his praises.

In a twist of unlikelihood, The Junkyard Dog’s opponent managed to gain the upper hand through the application of a seemingly unbreakable headlock. The Junkyard Dog writhed and twisted his body into pretzel shapes, seeking escape.

“Man, what’s wrong with his back?” said One Friend, pointing to the television screen. Junkyard Dog’s spinal column seemed abnormally creased by his heavily muscled back.

Friend Two shrugged. “He’s a nigger.”

“Oh yeah,” agreed Friend One. The wrestling match continued. And when the Junkyard Dog liberated himself from the headlock moments later, I forgot to give voice to my approval.

*

Already, the groundwork for denial has been laid. John McCain, veteran not just of the Senate, but also of the Vietnam War, is being touted as “the candidate with experience.” Barack Obama clearly cannot lead because he has not endured torture by asshole Vietnamese.

Regardless of the merit of this argument, the question of experience becomes a convenient buoy. Yes, Barack Obama is a fine and articulate candidate. Yes. But does he have experience?
I’m voting experience.

*

I’m shucking corn with a man I just met.

He is large, ruddy-faced, with an infectious jovial nature that can only be enhanced with vodka and wine. I like him right away. We shuck corn as the grill simmers a few yards away.

“I don’t know who’s going to vote for Obama,” he says, rubbing a stick on butter on his ear of corn. “The guy’s a communist and a Muslim. He’s going to get shot. Who’s going to vote for that guy?”

I don’t say anything. I shuck corn.

*

A Newsweek poll earlier this month showed that 12 percent of those polled believed Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator on a Quran, and 26 percent believed that he was raised as a Muslim.

Not a Muslim.

Neither is true, but I receive occasional emails validating the lie anyway. The tones of these communiqués have an hysterical tinge to them.

Do you want a Muslim in the White House? He doesn’t believe in The Bible!

I am reminded of a story concerning the 1960 Presidential Election. John F. Kennedy was rumored to be engineering a plan to construct a tunnel between the White House and the Vatican consulate in Washington, D.C. Later, the rumor is refined; the tunnel is to connect the White House to the Vatican itself. A trans-Atlantic tunnel.

*

I have a friend, a man whose opinion I deeply respect, who routinely supports the Republican Party. He appreciates the basic tenets: Less Government. De-Regulation. Free Enterprise.

He oversees a significant number of employees, all with varying degrees of political faiths. Earlier this year, he approaches one he knows to be a Democrat. She champions government assistance programs and denounces the Iraq War in the same exasperated breath.

My friend asks her if she’s backing “Hillary or Obama?”

“Well, I’m not voting for a nigger.”

*

Democrats, and not Republicans, will be tested harsher this November. After all, Republicans merely have to place their check along party lines. No hesitation. I hate big government.

Meanwhile, Democrats will have to search their souls. The event that they’ve talked so big about these many years finally has a chance to coming to fruition.

Found on the first page of a Google Search.
It’ll only get worse.

It’s not a charlatan like Al Sharpton, or an antique like Jesse Jackson – two men who are fun to root for, but you’d never seriously give them the keys to the Free World. No fucking way. You appreciated the effort. At the very least, Jackson made you entertain the possibility.

Barack Obama is not entertaining. He’s not dancing for our amusement. He’s filling up Mile High Stadium to announce that he will be one of two legitimate choices for President of the United States. Republican’s already have their man. He’s not anywhere near perfect, but he certainly looks like the other 42 guys that sat behind the Big Desk.

*

Mrs. Angry and I have a pre-natal visit with the OB-GYN.

Angry Two flitters inside Mrs. Angry’s abdomen as she completes paperwork for a friendly nurse, who learns that we’re new in town. I tell her we used to live in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Oh,” she says. “I bet you’re a lot happier here.”
“Why?
“Isn’t it more than 60% there?”

“More than 60% what?” I ask. I know her answer, but I ask anyway.

“Black.”

*

From Manifest Destiny to putting our feet on the moon, America is a nation that talks and walks big. Our successes are legend. And maybe because of this, our failures seem nearly as large. If accomplishment is our nation’s trademark, then hypocrisy is our stain.

Concepts like “equality” and “freedom” and “opportunity” are fractured truths. White people complain endlessly about the concessions handed out to the black community. They moan bitterly about the scholarships, the business grants, and for the much-maligned affirmative action. We forget that in this country, black people have only had a real chance for thirty years. In that short time, we expect perfection from a society kept impoverished and without power for centuries.

American Black People, you have Barack Obama, and you are still screwed. Your AIDS rates rival those in African nations. You’re more likely to die of diabetes than your white counterparts. Your young men fill our prisons and not our schools. And if your back looks strange while you’re being subdued in a headlock, at least one teenage white kid is going to chalk it up to you being a nigger.

Which puts us back in the voting booth.

When the curtain closes, we will be left alone with much more than a choice of men. In November, we’ll be treated to a choice of ideals. Like the country he represents, John McCain is a legend through his deeds. He has experience.

He is also a relic. An old man. A curmudgeon who substitutes the past for vision. He knows the ropes, he’s been there a done that, and he refuses to master a teleprompter. He is nowhere near as far away philosophically as his predecessor, which makes him familiar and comfortable. John McCain is safe.

Old white guy experience.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is a fresh pair of eyes. A professional politician who works a photo opportunity as masterfully as he manipulates a crowd. He reminds us that leadership is more than knowing where the buttons are, and which ones to push. Leadership is the ability to inspire people to greatness; to put boots on the moon.

Obama may not be a Muslim or a communist, but he is black, and (to borrow a phrase my Republican brethren love to utter when no real words can be found) we’re going to have to “get over it.” He is naïve. He is too often without substance. And he is the man the Democratic Party has worked to put into the White House since Lyndon B. Johnson began rolling back Jim Crow. If not now, when?

This election will test us in ways no other event in our brief history ever has. Already, before the start of a single convention, I feel the cold tension. The weaknesses of Al Gore and John Kerry were so cartoonishly transparent, so easy to exploit, that the arguments those elections provoked produced harmless sparks from our bristly surface.

Come November, the debates we conduct at our most private moments will gouge us deep. Deeper than skin even. And we’ll have to wonder, truly wonder, if we are really voting for experience. Or are we voting to avoid one.

###