DiMaggio

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Simon and Garfunkel

For most, learning to read was like learning to speak or tell time, it simply happened and that was that. Personally, I don’t recollect struggling with “Dick and Jane” or “Spot.” I do, however, remember the first paperback given to me by my mom -The Book Of US Presidents! How many times I read and reread it, I can’t begin to calculate, but I loved every page. It consisted of short biographies of each President, from Washington to the current White House occupant at the time of its publication, JFK. Standard, less impactful Presidents received two pages within the larger-font, single-spaced format, the more pivotal Chief Executives perhaps twice that. I savored every one. Polk to Grant, Wilson to Ike, I loved them all.

In many ways the Presidency possesses a regal air about it. We are, after all, a nation descended from monarchy. We don’t view the highest office in our land as the purview of faceless technocrats or policy wonks. Each of us appreciates, or condemns I suppose, the POTUS in our own way. Who we remember has as much to do with presidential comportment than policy agenda. When Ronald Reagan’s name comes up, few imagine the thousand-page tax reduction plan he was responsible for, its legacy still addling our national balance sheet. Instead, we remember the guy joking with surgeons after he was shot, or demanding Gorbachev “tear down this wall.”

I make no apologies for my fondness of Barack Obama. He inherited what nobody in their right mind would want to shoulder. Despite united opposition from a GOP with only his political destruction a priority, Obama slogged through the economic nadir his predecessor bequeathed and by the end of his second term full employment had been restored. While his foreign policy legacy was mixed, many quagmires he confronted, like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq were crap sandwiches no amount of seasoning could make edible. Moreover, Obama repaired our global network of alliances, frayed by the impulsive hubris of post-9/11 overreach.

Yet and still, what made Obama special, and fully worth extra pages were he to be part of an updated US Presidents reader, was his style and grace, his incredible cool under fire. More than perhaps any predecessor, he strove for much more than talking points and redundant proclamations. He thought on his feet, and took questions as they came, addressing each with original thoughts and insights, a determination to answer what was asked rather than evade. Both refreshing candor and intellectual rigor, more than welcome after W, who had some of the former and absolutely none of the latter.

Although Obama represented America’s triumph as its first black President, only ditto heads and more unabashed racists made anything of it; the rest of us saw but a Chief Executive we could praise or criticize without a thought to complexion. To me, he was a giant, well up to the historic task he embraced, who performed his job with the hope and good faith he campaigned on to obtain it. That he was rewarded a second term at the expense of a millionaire with every advantage the emergent Fox/AM juggernaut could impart confirmed his ascension was no fluke, and at least momentarily solidified America’s best nature and ability to prosper from lessons its past mistakes offered.

After Mitt Romney was dispatched handily by Obama in 2012 most assumed that was the end of line as far as his ambitions for public office were concerned. After all, not since Richard Nixon had a vanquished Presidential candidate started from scratch to run again for a seat he hadn’t already occupied. Moreover, Fox/AM, aided by cheap seat Monday morning QBing from loudmouth Donald Trump, was intent to blame another Obama term on Romney’s feckless moderation and the weakness they equated his civility with. Safe to say, few saw Romney as much more than a footnote in history, Obama’s Wendell Willkie.

Anyone who doubts the gap between the GOP activist base and general population need only study Utah’s 2018 Senate election to replace the retiring Orrin Hatch. At the state convention Mitt Romney, the Republican national standard bearer only six years earlier, could not beat Trumpie state senator Mike Kelly. Kelly, who would fit nicely into A Handmaid’s Tale and believes limits on possession of bazookas a constitutional outrage, edged Romney in the convention’s delegate count. Lucky for Romney, he was competitive enough to force a run off at the polls, where he demolished Kelly with 71% of the vote.

Although a nice comeback from his walk in the desert, Romney’s narrative as a freshman Senator was not particularly compelling. Indeed, one could have been forgiven for wondering why, apart from the personal restlessness forced retirement imposes, he even bothered. Nobody within Trump’s GOP had the least bit of use for a moderate Mormon most personally blamed for four additional years of “hope and change.” Fewer still were prepared to abide any dissent regarding the Godzilla trampling anything resembling, forget 21st century progress, but any reform after Eisenhower as well. Indeed, it was very hard to see what difference Romney could make even if he had a mind to. Last week changed everything and cemented a legacy history will notice.

It is understandable to relegate the adulation of Romney’s singular act of conscience to little more than commentary on how far we have fallen in three short years. In the short-term it resulted in nothing. Not 24 hours later Trump was declaring victory in the White House, spewing his typical megalomaniacal gibberish to glassy-eyed sycophants, a number of whom now constitute the House GOP leadership.

Of course, Romney has been signaled out for ridicule, but not much more than any other of the President’s enemies du jour. What makes the Mittster’s “guilty” worth grasping on to is why he decided to stand alone, what he recognizes is at stake, and how the costs of becoming an outlier outweigh any benefit conformity conveys. How easy it would be to join the crowd was what gnawed at Romney. Perhaps it really was simply his faith, or maybe, as one who got close enough to the big seat he could taste it, abiding Trump’s overt narcissism and stupidity in the face of the air-tight case House Managers put forth became a bridge to far. Whatever. Finally an adult has entered the room. More must follow.

But what have they done with Barack Obama, who appears to be enjoying retirement every bit as much as his old rival seemed to loathe it? Some months before Obama’s second term expired I engaged in a lively “discussion” with an FB friend who, sadly, has since passed on. He was a black progressive from St. Louis and had little use for Obama, who he felt sold out to corporate and military interests. Somehow the topic of what the President would do in retirement arose. Daryl predicted with confidence Obama would act no differently than W or Clinton and move toward the money. I heartily disagreed and was certain my hero would focus primarily on teaching, charity and community pursuits with no interest in corporate invitations. A wager was made. I still owe Daryl a French dinner.

During several weak moments since Decision 16’ – the turgid backwash created by the American electorate’s temerity in 2008 and 2012 – I have pondered whether it would have been for the best had Romney prevailed. Perhaps eight years of “moderation” at the head of the GOP would have marginalized its extremists and strangled MAGA in its cradle. Then I come to my senses and understand that Fox/AM and its wretched viewer and listener base was exactly why Romney never stood a chance; the party was already lost to him, even as he secured its nomination. That die was cast when John McCain conceded, his running mate already preening for the nihilists.

Broad coalitions win elections, not feuding campaigns that produce sour grapes. I suppose it’s a lot to expect Presidential candidates to check their ambitions for the sake of national survival. Just as it’s a tall order to call on a retired President, who spent many a thankless day taking relentless fire from both sides of the aisle, to quit enjoying post-high office life and again put a big fat target on his back.

That said, as Bernie Sanders seeks to contest a razor thin loss in Iowa, that may or may not owe to a bad app and nefarious GOP efforts to gum up the works, and the Buttigieg campaign starts to go full Machiavelli, the specter of four more years of MAGA has never seemed more possible. The off-season is over. The natural leader of this resistance needs to get back in this game; losing is not an option. Mr. President, the war effort needs you. It’s time for some heroes. After all, if Mitt Romney can do it, so should you. It’s the adult thing to do. BC