What job would * have been good at? - Democratic Underground

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Sat Feb-03-07 01:48 PM
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What job would * have been good at?

I'm just musing about that.

Back in the '90s some of my Clinton-bashing friends asked the same thing about Big Dog and managed to be pretty positive, and decided he would have been a really good Hollywood producer (and they were right about that).

I'm wondering the same thing about *: what's a job where he could have done some good and not been over his head? I know we love to just trash him (I do too) and a lot of people will probably say "cleaning Grand Central Station bathrooms with his tongue" or "crash test dummy", but I want to see if we can be positive here.

For all his blatant and horrible flaws, the man clearly does have some talents, and I do think the last 6 years have aggravated his weaknesses rather than simply revealed them (many of you may disagree). What would he have been good at? Baseball Commissioner? Head of a national fraternity? Development officer for a college?

I know he has that same nearly unbelievable gift for remembering faces, names, and little personal facts that Big Dog does (in fact, he's met my dad twice, once in 1994 and once in 1999, and he remembered my dad's name and where he's from in 1999). I know he's possibly the most disciplined President we've had in a long time (dry drunks are like that -- not entirely a bad thing).

I wonder what makes him happy. You can tell what made Big Dog happy: food, sex, and winning. In some of *'s older pictures he looks happy. I think he liked flying planes even if he had to quit to avoid popping positive for coke. He seemed happy back then around Jeb. He seemed happy running the Rangers (except when he traded Sosa... God, he has always been a moron I guess...). I haven't seen a picture of him looking happy since... I don't know... since he beat Richards I guess. Sometimes he seems happy around Condi -- even if they aren't having an affair I think they do have a kind of bond that's good for each of them. I take that back -- he's happy cutting wood on his ranch. The smirk goes away until he talks policy, and it's a real smile. Maybe he should have been a farmer; that's a noble profession.

You can tell what made Poppy happy: money and Barbara. Attention made Reagan happy, and making people laugh made him happy. I haven't seen Carter happy much -- as much as I love the man I think he takes too much responsibility on himself. He feels the problems of the world too personally and lets their weight get him down; it was his main weakness in the presidency, not letting his subordinates make their own mistakes and learn from them. But maybe that's the difference in a true Christian (Carter surely is one) and me.

Anyways I'm asking about happiness because I think you can't really do any good in the world if what you are doing doesn't make you happy. And this probably won't go over well here but in a lot of ways I feel sorry for *. He always wanted his dad to love him but you can tell his dad and mom always liked Jeb better. He always wanted to earn success but people always stepped in and gave it to him (people see smugness in his victory smirk; I see pain and self-doubt). I think he does believe in God but he knows that he has to pretend to be an evangelical (which he's not) to keep his support, and that kind of cheapens the whole thing for him.

Also, I think he's been lied to all his life by just about everyone, and he does at some level know that. Maybe that's why it's so easy for him to lie. But he knows it means people have never trusted him to deal with the truth.

It's easy to trash * as a monster because of the monstrous things he has done. In fact it's too easy. He is a human, he has hopes and fears and disappointments. Like I said, I like to be positive. What could he have done with his life that could have made him happy, and done the world some good?