What it Takes and Doesn’t Take to be Prez [ by Michael T] [Culture Clash]
February 18, 2008Cue Hail to the Chief. Today we celebrate Presidents - yes we’re sick of all of them except Washington, Lincoln and a couple of Roosevelts - but 200+ years into the country’s existence, have we made any real progress in our quest to elect honest, intelligent, even inspirational leaders?
Today we look at a real choice of three presidential candidates and I think, well this is progress. You have a woman, a mixed race essentially black man and a white guy. The white guy is not some billionaire or dilettante but a lifelong “servant” for the American people - whatever that means, I got it off his website. That seems like some sort of progress - more so when one of them actually gets to be president and is not the white guy. (Full disclosure, I am a white guy.)
But looking at it more, we see some things you can do to be president and some things you can’t do or be or say.
Top of the list used to be things like being black or a woman or divorced or Catholic or an actor or having taken drugs or draft dodging. Heck convicted of crime used to be on the list. We can safely say that all except the first two are no longer the case. Are we better off for it? Maybe not, but it does at least reflect reality. For a while it’s been show business that has pushed along society - a black woman winning an Oscar 25 years before the South was integrated or mixed race bands breaking out in the 60s. Now our culture looks like a melange of every color, creed and sexual orientation. Even our government has been transformed with more and more minorities and women over time. All that is good. Pat yourself on the back America…
But we have to look at the disqualifiers and see that maybe we have not totally climbed out of the muck.
- you can’t be gay or even bi-sexual
- you can’t promote the legalization of drugs
- you can’t be Mormon
- you can’t be a preacher
- you can’t be an agnostic or atheist and you must attend a church even if you don’t want to
- you can’t be single (we had a single prez but that would be impossible today)
- you can’t be vegetarian
- you can’t be a single parent
- you must have children (also not a requirement in the past but certainly one now)
- and don’t even think of being Jewish
Now, what does it in fact take to be prez - listen up kiddies: you should go to an Ivy League school, you should be or have been a lawyer, you should make lots of money (but not be too filthy rich), you should be white and a man and over the age of 60, you must go to some kind of Protestant church, you must be able to say the same thing over and over in front of lots of people, and most importantly of all - you must answer all questions indirectly and with platitudes. Oh yeah, and having the name of a former president remains very helpful.
Sheesh! Happy President’s Day everyone.
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