The Presidential Preposition
Monday, January 19th, 2009Dave says:
I suspect that I will not be the lone voice in the blogsphere this week. Tomorrow stands as a great test of many people, one person and approximately the whole internet. As the great empowerer (I literally reference the internet and figuratively the president-elect), thousands of people will flood its being with the thoughtful and the thoughtless. I write this on Monday January 19th 2009 for no other reason than should tomorrow the internet crumble under the weight of the inane, insane and inspired, my ramblings will have made it out there as a monument to nothing but my own musings.
My daily observation, (a resolution I made at the beginning of the year along with my desire to decrease my dogged overuse of parenthesizes to communicate a side thought) was marshaled from two segments of seemingly unconnected radio both over employing either the preposition or the concept of the word “like”. The first radio report was an interesting, if not slightly over patriotic piece on NPR: a compilation of inaugural speech snippets from President Coolidge to President G.W. Bush. Each president was telling the expectant masses they are great but could be greater and each, even the last, sounded inspiring and confident. However, the hidden subtext to these sermons from the political pulpit was the desire of each new president to be ‘like’ a predecessor. Quote: as Jefferson said, as Lincoln said, as Roosevelt said, as Kennedy said and, surprisingly, as Reagan said are all really to be interpreted as ‘As I Said’. It is fair to say we all wish Obama to be ‘like’ these presidents also. If you take a bushel of American presidents and thrash out the chaff, you are left with a great man. It is not that we wish Obama to be ‘like’ this great man, we insist he actually become it. Nothing less will suffice and nothing more can be achieved. Obama is about to become America, a metamorphosis that even the most of American of presidents, George Washington, could not achieve. Washington was elected by the small self-appointed American Congress before there was even a government to speak of, to lead a population of mostly illiterate peasants – the unwashed masses. His greatness of office was mainly defined by just being George Washington. Obama’s greatness of office has already occurred: he is the first African American president. He must do more than be ‘like’ his heroes, he must be a hero if he is to eclipse that greatness already achieved. (more…)
