To...Is Human

Presidents are people. We're all people. So, ergo, we're all human. That of course delivers us not only to be all born of "original sin," but also with a backpack of flaws.

Depending on your memory and knowledge of history you might be able to attach something to any president. Certainly the current president's flaws are playing out in front of all of us in real time. Never has Social Media delivered so much news so fast.

To say JFK was a ladies man is to understate his libido. It was said he'd come to an event with wife Jackie and leave with another female. His nickname became "Mattress Jack."

President Clinton of course gave into star-struck Monica Lewinsky's affections and allowed himself to be serviced in an Oval Office alcove, leading to his spending his entire second term fending off the ramifications of that bad judgment that eventually resulted in his being impeached. Impeached of course should be remembered as being charged, but later found not guilty by the Senate, the judge and jury. Clinton was not removed from office.

And of course we've heard about President Johnson, who could be coarse. After his gall bladder surgery he held up his shirt and revealed his scar to reporters. This of course lead to what I've always admired as one of the best editorial cartoons of all time when Herblock drew a picture of Johnson lifting his shirt to reveal a scar in the shape of the map of the two Vietnams.

My guess is Robert Caro has amassed more examples of President Johnson's behavior. And he's still coming out with another book that will cover Johnson's final years. But the beat example of presidential behavior I've come across so far was found in Dwight Garner's NYT book review of Reporter:A Memoir by Seymour Hersh.

It's a lukewarm assessment of the book, but Mr. Garner's review quickly grabs your attention when he provides the following one sentence paragraph.

The best story told here may be about Lyndon B. Johnson defecating on a dirt road in front of The Times reporter Tom Wicker to indicate what he thought of his work.

He did what? Did Robert Caro get to that part? Imagine that act of presidential criticism in this age of Social Media and instant judgment. The Commander-in-Chief, whose actions can mobilize the largest armed forces on earth, can also control his digestive tract to enable him to drop a load in front of a member of the press who he can't abide by. That's power.

For the younger set who might read this, Tom Wicker was an award winning columnist who won high praise and a promotion for his on-the-spot coverage of the assassination of JFK, and who was sharply critical of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Thus, someone who Johnson did not agree with on a regular basis.

Tom Wicker's 2011 obituary by Robert  McFadden does not give us the Johnson en plein air outhouse story. It must have been widely known amongst news people, but that was a different era. You only exposed the seedier side of someone when it involved their power and their corruption of it.

My guess is if you read, or just pick up Mr. Hersh's book in the bookstore, you can read more about the roadside cow pie left by a president aimed at a journalist's attention.

I can imagine President Trump having similar LBJ-type feelings about any number of journalists, particularly Maureen Dowd of the NYT. That no story of bad manners on the side of the road has reached us must count for something.

And given today's ordinances about dogs doing their business on the sidewalk or curb, and the requirement for the walker to pick up after the animal, who would do the presidential pooper-scooping? Is their an open position?

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