GRIFFIN INTERNET SYNDICATE, JANUARY 27, 2004 – In 1960, when I was 14, I was nuts about JFK. The first one, John F. Kennedy, not the current one, John F. Kerry. I got about thirty JFK buttons from the local Democratic headquarters, pinned them all to my shirt, and wore them to school.
Mr. Elliott, my former math teacher, who had a wonderfully dry sense of humor, took one look at me and said, “Why, Joe! Have you thrown subtlety to the winds?” I loved that man. His deadpan ribbing always made me feel like an adult, which is a nice way to help a boy grow up
Of course throwing subtlety to the winds is what politics is all about. In 1960 I didn’t realize that JFK was establishing a lasting style of campaigning for the presidency: offering “idealism” and “leadership,” meaning proposing extravagant missions for the government. JFK promised a “New Frontier,” which took form (sort of) in the “space race” that culminated in putting a man on the moon before the Russians did.
JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, promised a “Great Society,” meaning a lot of new Federal programs. And even today, presidential candidates are expected to make enormous promises, entailing huge Federal spending. President Bush is talking about sending men (and women) to Mars, among other things. Many other things. And he is said to be a conservative!
Utopian reflexes have become part of the job description of the American presidency. We take them for granted. The idea that the president is merely an “executive,” that is, executing the laws passed by Congress, seems pathetic and pusillanimous. Today the president is supposed to think big, like Buzz Lightyear: “To infinity — and beyond!”
Not so long ago, the writer Henry Allen has observed, politics was a rather…