by Beachbumwriter

Created on: February 20, 2007   Last Updated: December 04, 2010

On President’s day, we take a moment to remember great Presidents of our history.  Some that usually come to mind is George Washington, our first, and Thomas Jefferson who wrote our Declaration of Independence.  Then, there’s Abraham Lincoln who led us through Civil War, and Theodore Roosevelt who helped us through The Great Depression.  In the 60’s we loved John Kennedy and continued to cherish the whole Kennedy clan for generations.  In the 80’s, Ronald Reagan ruled and we all learned a new term, Reaganomics.  Yet, by the time we got to Bill Clinton’s balanced budget approach, we were looking at our Presidents not only by their ability to run office, but by the choices they make in their private lives.  We see them less as this great leader and more human like the rest of us, weakening his ability to lead.

President Clinton came into office with great hopes of balancing the budget and revamping the medical care systems, but as information came to light of his affair with an intern, he lost most of his momentum to function as our leader.  Kennedy was no better than Clinton since he had several affairs, but he continued to be our fearless leader who went toe to toe with Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we admired and respected him, and cried in sorrow when his term came to a tragic end.    Kennedy’s brother, Edward Kennedy never ran for office, and may have been a great leader, but he could never run for the office due to a car accident he was involved in when he was younger, and a woman died.

Today, when politicians and other leaders in our great nation consider whether they would run for President, their primary concern is whether their past personal mistakes they have made would become public causing harm to them and their loved ones, and if so, they do not run.  Leaving to wonder are we therefore settling for people who have groomed themselves for the office by making all the right political decisions, and steering clear of trouble, basically positioning themselves for the Oval office and discarding the leaders who have real leadership skills but have not always been perfect? 

Today the political way to handle this problem is to get all the skeletons out of the closet early, admit to it and explain how you have recovered from it, so it won’t fester throughout the campaign.  For example, President Bush would discuss his drinking problem and how he recovered from it.  This will allow the public to digest the information and hinder opponents from using it as a weapon to gain votes during the campaign.  After all, maybe some of our great Presidents of the past , if campaigning today, would not have past our modern day moral test and would not have been allowed to serve.

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