Waiting for a Bartlet Moment

Historically speaking, Presidents can only be compared to the standard set by their predecessors. No one knows the pains and the pressures of the Chief Executive except for those who have been one, with the possible exceptions of Dick Cheney, Edith Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt. When alone in the Oval, I can imagine the likes William Clinton looking over to Shikler’s solemn posthumous portrait of Jack Kennedy, wondering if his decisions would have been approved by the old king of modern Camelot. Fluctuating Gallup polls and scathing New York Times Op/Eds probably have an effect when first read, but really don’t mean much in the decades after leaving the Oval. When occupying the West Wing, accepting public scorn goes with the territory. History itself is your only true judge. Beginning with Barack Obama though, Democratic Presidents will face an even longer shadow, one that can never be reasonably lived up to. It is the expectation for them to be better than Josiah Edward Bartlet.

In the midst of the recent debt ceiling fracas, a reporter from the Times grilled Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney on why his boss wasn’t forcing Republicans to accept sanity by implementing some grand strategy that no one had thought of yet. Up against a rising press tsunami, Carney finally gave up and sarcastically asked what the beat writers expected, a ‘Bartlet moment’ where the President marches up to the Hill and kicks some a*s, inspires Federal cohesion and wins the week’s top Nielsen rating? Without hesitation the reporter yelled back emphatically, ‘Yes!’

Maybe it was an example of a frustrated political writer getting nostalgic over the inspiring dialogue of an old political drama. Obviously, all President Bartlet had to do was read whatever Aaron Sorkin wrote that week in a deep and commanding voice, without having to worry about real-world implications of killing foreign leaders, invading African nations under humanitarian auspices or dragging the Chinese into the First World community. Far from a confusion of fiction and reality, however, the exchange was indicative of the greater frustration among the American people towards the inability of Washington to accomplish anything that resembles the work of a functioning government. And while it may be unfair to lay quite so much blame at the feet of Obama, he was the one running for an actual office, not auditioning for a killer role. Thanks to Truman, no one needs reminding of where the buck stops (Speaking of what Presidents think of each other, how much do you suppose successive Executives wished Harry S. had just kept his desk clear of that one?).

The United States is one of humanities’ grandest ideas. Americans want a leader who inspires them to live up to that idea. We want to be told that the Moon is within our reach, even if the Soviets made it into space first. We want to believe that if we pull up our bootstraps, the Axis’ path to world domination will be decisively thwarted. We want to prove to the Old World that all men are indeed created equal, along with every woman and slave’s child living here in the New World, regardless of birthright or bank account. And yes, we want a Bartlet moment--but we aren’t going to wait on it forever. As a matter of fact the American people might not be willing to wait one more year for one, which means number 44 may be contemplating his own legacy about half a decade sooner than expected. Where’s a scriptwriter when you need one?

Author's Note

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