Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to A hypothetical question:

A tough decision
Fox — (archived)

Regular readers of my posts (both of you), familiar with my fanboy fixation for the Second President may be thinking, "Oh, jeez... he's going to resurrect John Adams again."

Not this time. Plucking someone out of their own time, place and culture and plunking them down in ours, then handing them the Presidency -- even if possible -- would be futile. [When I lived in Philadelphia, I used to muse on Ben Franklin's reaction to the changes in his old neighborhood. My conclusion: stark raving madness.] Besides, we've already suffered enough at the hands of Presidents confused about which decade they were presiding over.

Briefly, a faint nostalgia intrudes: a yearning for earlier, less complicated times as if the return of some revered historical President might bring his entire milieu with him. My first thought was of Eisenhower: blithely teeing up at every chance while his advisors in and out of government ran the country, yet neither oblivious nor afraid of the Big Issues (see, for instance, the "Little Rock Nine") when they forced themselves upon him. But Ike's administration, while giving us NASA and the Interstate highways, also gave us the covert machinations of the CIA, among other historical burdens we still carry.

In order to provide any answer to the question at all, I'm left with a small handful of former Presidents recent enough to not be completely out of historical and social context. From among those, I would choose only Jimmy Carter, even though he is now far too old.

In any case, it's now important -- nay, imperative -- to consider the next President. My advice, for what it's worth, is to look for someone genuinely new, not a person best described as "somebody-esque".

I've already made my choice.

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