I was unexpectedly called to Washington to meet with the president.
That’s actually true, and I’ve been dying to say it, though putting it that way fails to take the full context into account, as I’ll explain. Remember that when you’re reading, for instance, a news story about the Pope in which the writer clearly wants to convict him of something.
My son John works for the Defense Department and has been assigned to the White House for the past two years. He’s about to “rotate out,” as they say, which I find an immensely amusing image—I visualize people fixing themselves inside a big wheel, using their arms and legs as spokes, and rolling out of the White House and down the street. But anyway…as part of this procedure, the departing people get to have their pictures taken with the president, and they can invite some family members. So it was that I made an extremely hasty trip to Washington—got a call from John on Friday afternoon, flew up late Saturday, left DC yesterday (Monday) afternoon.
And should have been home very late last night, but bad weather in the South caused Delays in Atlanta—a phrase no air traveller wants to hear, because Atlanta is such an important airport that problems there ripple out all over the country. And I missed my connecting flight and spent the night in the Atlanta airport, which of course has only helped to cement my dislike of air travel. It would actually be possible to sleep somewhat comfortably on the chairs in the airport, but for reasons which I must suppose to be deeply rooted in evil, the airport authorities leave their noisemakers on all night long, even between midnight and 5 or so when there are no planes running from most gates. I’m referring to the every-three-minutes repetition of security warnings, canned music consisting mostly of annoying lightweight pop, and CNN. I know the security warnings came every three minutes because, since they were keeping me awake, I used my cell phone’s stop watch to time them. At one point I was reduced to making an obscene gesture at the speakers in the ceiling. I’m running on about three hours of sleep right now.
But that’s ok; it was a fascinating experience. I think any but the most jaded and cynical and alienated American must inevitably be moved by coming so close to the heart of our system. All three of those words apply to me, and I think I have relatively few patriotic illusions. But I am a patriot, in my way. I didn’t vote for Obama and disagree deeply with many of his policies, but, dang it, he’s the president of the United States, and any American ought to feel a pretty powerful respect for the office, and to wish the man well, even if what we wish is not what he himself has in mind. I couldn’t resist saying “God bless you” to him, which I’m not sure he liked; perhaps he was thinking uh-oh…is this a nut?
The actual meeting and photo with the president was, of course, a pretty quick and perfunctory affair. I think John said he had ten employees, each with an assortment of relatives, to get through in 15 minutes. Still, to shake hands with and speak briefly to the president, in the Oval Office, is not something one takes lightly, or is likely to forget.
In addition to me, John’s group included his brother Will, who works
for the GAO (and yes, it’s amusing that a conservative who thinks the
federal government is too big has two sons who work for it), my
son-in-law Gabe, and John’s fiancee, Claire. After the photos, we were shown out through the White House Rose Garden, and the woman who was leading us remarked on how quiet we were. I thought of an anecdote which must be from Boswell’s Life of Johnson. I hope I’m remembering this accurately:
Johnson was in some library or museum—perhaps it was in a private house—and the king came in. Johnson made some sort of formal greeting and then said little more. Boswell, on being told the story, asked Johnson why he hadn’t taken the opportunity to discuss something-or-other—the dictionary, maybe—which he knew interested the king. Johnson replied “It was not for me to bandy pleasantries with my sovereign.”
I think we felt a bit that way: a respect, bordering on awe, which is not so much for the man himself as for all that his office represents. The American president is not a monarch (many of them have no doubt wished they were), but he does, for the duration of his term, embody the country, in a sense, in something of the same way a monarch does. We, the people, tend to place in him those often excessive, often quasi-religious, hopes, always in danger of becoming idolatrous, that fuel not only the ferocious defense of the nation by its citizens but also, though perhaps unconsciously, the equally ferocious attacks. And yet one felt—I felt, anyway— that the man himself, dissociated from the office he holds, was quite ordinary. I don’t meant that in any disparaging sense, but as a simple fact: confronting the actual person, as opposed to seeing the image, one saw him as no different from the rest of us. The immense respect one felt was recognition that the office resides in the man, and was not produced by some intrinsic quality of his.
By the way, we all agreed that he was smaller than we had pictured him to be.
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There will not, after all, be a Sunday night journal this week. I did make a few notes but didn’t have time to do any more, and to write it on Tuesday or Wednesday seems unsporting.
Light On Dark Water 
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