THE PRESIDENT’S IMAGE

By Edwin Cooney

Just a few days ago, one of my readers sent me an interesting little article about President Obama’s television watching habits. The president appears to be such a big SportsCenter fan -- favoring both college and professional basketball -- that he avoids the 24/7 news cycles. He never listens or watches reruns of his own news conferences, town hall meetings or speeches. Thus, one gets the idea that President Barack Hussein Obama is just a regular guy.

It’s often observed that modern Republicans prefer the presidential image of a Commander-In-Chief on foreign policy issues and a business-oriented Chief Executive Officer on domestic matters. Their memory of President Ronald Reagan’s dignified eloquence and idealism makes him the GOP’s modern presidential role model with additional kudos to Ike, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Democrats, on the other hand, are said to favor a “Philosopher King”, someone with just enough majesty to guide the people without appearing “above” them. FDR and Truman are the modern Democratic role models — different as they were.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harvard-educated, possessed a Brahmin accent. Nevertheless, he spoke plainly and directly to the American people beginning that Sunday night of March 12th 1933. He sat behind radio microphones and addressed the people from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. His topic was the purpose and scope of the bank holiday. FDR’s mostly Sunday night talks came to be known as Fireside chats. On the other hand, Harry Truman--short, trim and gray with wire-rimmed spectacles—spoke with a combined Southern and Midwestern accent. He addressed his country’s foreign and domestic crises with his words often coming forth in a staccato rhythm.

In 2000 and again in 2004, George W. Bush was the people’s choice over the “wooden” Al Gore and the “rigid and aloof” John Kerry because he was “the kind of guy with whom anyone would enjoy sharing a beer”. So, because we more readily identified with the image created by the plainspoken Texan, we chose him as our leader. He was one of us.

Thus, as we approach the third month of a new presidency, the question is what is President Obama’s overall image? He has just returned from his first trip abroad where he apparently impressed his G-20 heads of state brethren, wowed the intellectuals and media of Europe, and assured the Turks that Americans would never go to war against Islam. He reassured our troops in Iraq that he appreciated them for all of their accomplishments--insisting that a grateful nation owed them much in the way of education and health care--and told them that their Iraqi service time would soon be over.

Conservatives insist that President Obama is everything from a Marxist to an Islamic-Fascist. Liberals and Progressives, for the most part (but with some exceptions on the part of populists who fear assistance to corporations), still consider the president as having the makings of a political messiah.

As for this observer, I like him for his steadiness, his capacity for flexibility and for his overall outlook. I like his assertion that even with all of the vexing problems a president faces (such as AIG executive over-compensation, North Korean aggravation), he can’t afford to govern from anger.

Even more, President Obama seems to operate from understanding rather than judgment. Unlike his predecessor he doesn’t confuse approval of an individual head of state or system of government with legitimacy. He seems to comprehend that behavior rather than propaganda or even outlook is what all governments, ours included, should be judged on.

His critics will continue to paint him as an elitist, a spendthrift and a socialist -- and that will be the kind things they say! His supporters, for the most part, will cut him slack offering the benefit of the doubt, softer criticism for his inevitable mistakes and praise for his successes. Both of these perspectives, as Jimmy Carter used to point out, “go with the territory’ of the presidency.

Some of us, who invariably enjoy linking baseball to American political life (as well as with life in general), might get some perspective out of the following: A number of years ago, there was an infielder for the San Francisco Giants who boasted that he had seven given names. They were: Alan Michael Edward George Patrick Henry Gallagher. (He was also called “Dirty Al Gallagher—but we can generously put that aside.)

Hence, my ideal presidential image is: Abraham Teddy Delano Kennedy Carter Reagan Obama. How’s that for inter-political presidential image breeding?!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY