Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Do you have to be CRAZY to run for President?

When William Henry Harrison was President of the United States he famously said, "Any man who wants to be president of the United States has to be out of his mind." There is some evidence of the truth of this quote. My memory of presidents only goes back to FDR who crazily tried to pack the Supreme Court with 16 judges, all his cronies, when the law only allowed 10. Nixon lied, stole, cheated and authorized the break in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Kennedy had sex with a woman he took along on his flights in his private quarters. She has written a book about it. Clinton did something akin to that with an intern while Hillary napped or something. George W. Bush refused to land in New Orleans to view the disaster of Katrina stating, "It just didn't feel right." So far, after four years, Obama seems to be the least of church goers and the best at living a high moral life with his family.

So - why the despicable behaviors of so many presidents? Here's a possible clue: in Harpers, Vol. 325, No. 1950, p. 96, it is suggested that psychopathic traits may make for better presidents. Harrison was right!  Ya gotta be nuts to want to be President. A psychopath, among other things, is defined as having maladaptive behavior ("Let's go to war with somebody!"), difficulty in knowing the difference between truth and untruth, "I never had sex with that woman!", Reagan before the Iran-Contra Investigating Committee, "I had no knowledge of, or information about, that operation," (later witnesses testified he lied), and presidential aspirant Barry Goldwater, "...extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! ...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." In other words, Nuke 'em.

I don't know, maybe a president does have to be loony to want to be president and to endure four years of it. My hat is off to anybody who has been, is now, or ever will be, president. Maybe what we really ought to do is pick a candidate from one of the wards at Bellevue Hospital and elect him or her on the slogan, "He kept us out of war with Bermuda." Then he or she wouldn't have to go crazy in office, he's already got it made. I'll vote for him, her, on the slogan "ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE ALL YOU CRAZIES."  Can't hurt, and maybe we’d see a better outcome than from some of the former occupants of that lunatic asylum.