Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Sorry If I Woke You

My apologies to those of you who may have been trying, this past Sunday morning, to get a little extra sleep. That was my squawk of outrage that woke you up from a few extra winks. The good news would be that since I'm out here on the left coast, those of you on the right were probably brunching or checking for hurricanes. Still, it's been a tough couple of weeks and we all need our rest.
Oh.
What was I squawking about? Nothing new, really. Our "President's" Twitter feed. This  time it was an animated GIF (graphic interchange format) depicting said "President" taking a swing on the golf course that ends up hitting Hillary Clinton boarding a plane. This was a funny little Internet meme generated by "Mike on Twitter" whose handle is "Fuctupmind." Almost certainly the defense for this kind of jocularity will be that A) he was just repeating a funny he happened to run across and B) Twitter accounts are covered by free speech.
Both of these conditions may be true, and I won't bother to argue them. What bothered me so much on that quiet Sunday morning is that there is no such thing as presidential anymore. What bothered me was this was a guy sharing a funny little joke at the expense of the woman he beat in an election. What sort of human being won't turn the page after ten months? How  precisely does this  help Make America Great Again? I am not a Constitutional Scholar, that distinction goes to our last president, but I do think there is something in there about serving and protecting all of the citizens of the United States. I can imagine there were some quiet moments when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were sitting around the Oval Office that they shared a derisive laugh or two at the expense of John McCain and Sarah Palin. The day after the 1948 election, Harry Truman held up a newspaper that incorrectly identified Thomas Dewey as the winner to gales of derisive laughter.
Ten months later, Harry was busy dealing with Russia and its nuclear weapons and the invasion of South Korea by the North. There wasn't a lot of time to sit around and yuk it up. Harry played a little piano, but he wasn't much of a golfer. He was just President. Of the whole United States.
And he didn't have a Twitter account.

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