Last night, I caught the last half of the movie "The American President," which was released in 1995. While a romantic comedy, it offers some great perspectives on what the presidency should be and what, as American citizens, we should expect from a president or anyone serving in office.
I remember watching it for the first time in 1995 and thinking that the "real life" Republicans could never get as crazy and vicious as the Republicans in the movie, especially the character Bob Rumson, portrayed by Richard Dreyfus. Was I wrong or what?
This following quote, spoken by the movie's president, Andrew Shepard, is almost prescient; it's exactly how the Republicans ran their campaign, minus the part about the president's girlfriend (just substitute "liberal" or "elite" or "homosexual" or "trial lawyers"):
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"And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character. Then you have an old photo of the President's girlfriend. You scream about patriotism and you tell them she's to blame for their lot in life, you go on television and you call her a whore."
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I would like to think that when the American public watches this film, they pause to think "Hmmm. Maybe the Republicans played us like a well-tuned piano." But I don't give the American public that much credit anymore.
As an aside, I'll be out of town from Wednesday to Saturday. I'll leave you in the good hands of The Fixer and Gordon.
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