THOMAS H. THOMPSON | Posted: Sunday, January 4, 2009 12:00 am
Awakening on New Year's Day after a deep slumber, I realized I had been having some weird experiences. Out of body, I clearly recalled observing, unseen, a number of prominent figures. They were variously making resolutions, writing in their journals or just muttering to themselves. Interestingly enough, they had all dropped their public personas and were revealed to be as needy and insecure as the rest of us.
Here are some of my recollections:
George W. Bush: "Whew. It won't be long before I can give up the pretense of believing the war in Iraq can be 'won.' I screwed up big-time by listening to the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfie. No WMDs and more than 4,000 dead Americans - and all for nothing, except a trillion dollars of debt. What was I thinking! Can't wait to get to the ranch."
Barack Obama (blinking and half-awake) resolved: "I will lay in a stock of nicotine gum at the White House and never again bum a cigarette from a Secret Service guy. Hmm. I wonder if I could still cancel Pastor Rick Warren?"
Sarah Palin: "If I decide to go for it in 2012, I'll have to enroll in a crash course in foreign affairs. And, oh yes, the names of newspapers are The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor; I'll recite those if ever, and hopefully never, I have to interview with that liberal elite journalist Katie Couric. Now I saw those turkeys being slaughtered behind me on the TV clip of my pardon of the turkey. I still can't figure out what's wrong with that."
Dick Cheney: "Yes, the war in Iraq was by necessity, not choice. And waterboarding is not, repeat not, 'torture.' I'll keep hold of the vice presidential papers; they're mine, dammit, not the American people's! (Right you are if you think you are. So there!)"
Joe Biden: "I resolve to answer questions in one brief paragraph; no exceptions. And I'm going to try to avoid blurting out dire predictions akin to my statement that Obama is certain to be tested by an international terrorist incident. Beau can take care of his own future."
Hillary: "I really did 'find my own voice,' but, regretfully, it wasn't enough to overcome the Obama full-court press. And so I was tired and frayed, but why in the world did I make up that Bosnian sniper thing? Got to button up and fly right as secretary of state!"
You may have some doubts about the accuracy of my out-of-body fantasies. I do too. But they illustrate an important fact about all of us, but particularly about public figures.
Every one of us has to make a face to meet the faces that we meet. Each of us has an interior life and a public life and the two rarely if ever coalesce perfectly. Most of us have a job. That job requires us to live up to external expectations if we want to succeed. We strive to appear in charge even though we have private reservations and even serious disagreements with role requirements. Certainly there are outright hypocrites who pretend to be what they're not. That's not the double life I have in mind.
Each of us presents an image to friends and to the public in general that departs from that interior personage. Sometimes it slips and falters. It's an exercise in repression and release to keep inside and outside functioning smoothly together.
But for politicians, especially those who are nationally visible public figures, the task of aligning interior and exterior is over and above the usual. The successful politico must present a robust public face. He or she must glow with health and endure endless campaigns with no signs of fatigue. He or she must watch every word for there is probably a mike or video camera nearby picking up the slightest gaffe.
Most of all, a presidential politician must incorporate within himself (or herself) the projected hopes of the populace for difficult change without flinching, and then project those hopes successfully outward.
Finally, it's Jan. 20. Obama is in the Oval Office. Yes, we can!