The Bucks County Courier Times is having a contest for Presidents Day. They are asking folks to go to their website and vote for their favorite and least favorite President. I voted for FDR and George W. Bush. I'll let you guess which one was my most favorite. So far the runaway winner for favorite is Ronald Reagan, with 48% of the vote. The leading least favorite President is Barack Obama with 57% of the vote.
It's not a stunning result. We just passed what would have been Reagan's 100th birthday, and the papers were full of articles about him. Reagan has benefited from the passage of time. We have forgotten about trickle down economics and Iran-Contra. We have been willing to overlook the structural causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and give a comical amount of credit to his high defense spending and his "take down that wall" line. We have been willing to overlook his administration's role in the Iran Iraq war and supporting murderous dictators and rebel groups in Africa and elsewhere. Suprisingly, given the after effects of deregulation that we have been feeling, we have been willing to overlook Reagan's role as the instigator for the movement that has left us unprotected from corporate greed on Wall Street, in the Gulf, and elsewhere. Obama has not been able to benefit from any time passage. He also has the misfortune of being Black and having the name Obama. He has also been the focus of a surprising amount of hate and fear mongering. He has also had the habit of making decisions that make no one happy.
The results of the poll are not at all surprising, and really pretty meaningless. What bothers me is the question itself. Why ask for a least favorite President. What does that accomplish? In this climate, any half way conscious person would know that this would become an opportunity for folks to take shots at Obama. The problem with this political climate is that our focus is on what we hate and fear, rather than what we like and value. If you are going to ask for a least favorite president, why not require an explanation. Then, at least, people would have to give a reason for their choice. I would talk about wars that we were unprepared for, torture, a climate of fear, a tarnished image internationally, a questionable approach to education, etc.
I would prefer, however, if they had just asked for people to nominate their favorite President and at least encouraged people to provide justification for their choices. That would be interesting and affirming. That would be something that was in line with celebrating a holiday, and would be more apt to bring people together rather than pushing them further apart.
In the end though, only so much blame can be placed on the paper. It is us, all of us, that fail to take the paper to task, that fail to take our lawmakers to task, that fail to make it clear that we won't tolerate negativity, nastiness, fear mongering, etc. Unlitmately, this is on us. For now, however, I give the WTF award to the Bucks County Courier Times.
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