My Sunday column

My presidents


John F. Kennedy was president when I was born. But not for long.
I seem to remember Lyndon Johnson but could be confusing him with Bob Hope, who was on TV about as much then.
I do remember my buddy Bill’s dad railing on and on about how Johnson and some Texas sidewinder named Billy Sol Estes scammed a bunch of money. A hardcore Republican, he launched these colorful tirades even after it turned out that Richard Nixon was a fibber ... and a crook.
Which brings me to Richard Milhous Nixon — you might have heard of him. Got in some hot water. Took a powder. Wrote a lot of books that only David Eisenhower read.
Nixon was the first president I was really cognizant of. Maybe he is why I am a libertarian.
Nixon “opened the door to China.” Back then that meant a lot of ping pong on ABC Sports. Today, the ramifications are a little more complex.
There’s a lot to dislike about Nixon, not the least of which is that more than a decade after the former president’s death Robin Williams continues to do painful impressions of him. OK Robin, we get it. We get it!
1976 was the first election I actually paid attention to. Being too young to vote didn’t keep me from throwing my support to the Man from Plains, James Earl Carter.
If Carter had been from Delaware I wouldn’t have given him a second thought. But he was a homeboy and had served on a nuclear sub with Capt. Nemo so I imagined him to be the very reincarnation of noble hick James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washing-ton.”
Wrong.
This remake should have been entitled “Overmatched Liberal Goober Goes to Washington.
Carter said he would never lie to us. What he didn’t tell us was that he would never, ever shut up. It didn’t take long to figure out why that rabbit attacked him. The poor bunny couldn’t sleep for old Know It All walking through the woods, yammering on about trade embargoes and the gross national product of Senegal.
By the 1980 election I was “politically active.”
I really cared who won.
Politics mattered. The election mattered. Ronald Reagan mattered. I can’t remember if I really voted, but I told everyone I did and reveled in the landslide that followed.
The Reagan years. Such fun!
The liberals in America went bananas as Ol’ Ronnie cut income taxes, upped defense spending and slapped that wood chip right off the Russian bear’s shoulder.
Whatcha gonna do big boy? What they did was collapse.
It was a grand and glorious time and I fear I shall not live to see its like again. In fact, I fear my grandchildren will not live to see its like again.
Next up was George Washington Jefferson Lincoln Bush, or whatever his name is. The old one!
I tried to like the fellow, but be always reminded me of that kid in school who listened to classical music, did book reports on Chaucer and got invited to the teacher’s house to discuss Camus.
Bill Clinton might have gone over to the teacher’s house too, but if he did Camus had nothing to do with it.
Like Bush the Elder, Clinton was a high school big brain. But he mixed in a healthy dose of youthful skullduggery to balance things. Camus or no Camus, a boy needs his fun.
Clinton was very smart but at some point his intelligence was mostly used to dip and dart through ethical roadblocks. He could have accomplished a lot more, but blew it — which is good because a lot of what he might have accomplished was bad.
That brings us to George Bush the Younger. I pulled for him in two elections, the first time because the thought of voting for a Democrat makes me vomit in my mouth. The second time was my way of giving the finger to everyone who was bailing out on Iraq
I have been disappointed in Bush the Younger. He’s been a pit bull on terrorism, but rolled over for every Wall Street panhandler in sight
The liberals have said some very terrible things about Bush. It’s a shame not more of them were true.

Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen. He blogs at www.espysoutpost.blogspot.com.