Realtors and Presidents

Recently I put my home up for sale, and I noticed that the agent I had chosen was a Realtor rather than a real estate agent. I vaguely remembered that a Realtor was a little different than a real estate agent, and when I went to check the difference, I found that the online references insisted that "Realtor" be capitalized. Additionally, when I wrote about it in Gmail, Google carped at me as well, insisting that the word start with the proverbial "big R." I'm still not sure why this is so, but suffice it to say that the world seems intent on requiring me to capitalize "Realtor," lest I spend the rest of my online life seeing squiggly little red lines under the word every time I type it. I'm far from a perfectionist, but I have been conditioned to believe that squiggly little red lines are bad and to be avoided, so I will acquiesce and choose to fight the larger battles instead. I will, without fail, capitalize "Realtor."

What strikes me as odd is that years ago as a child, I was taught that the word "President," as in the leader of a country, was to be capitalized, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Today, no source I can find capitalizes the word, lest, of course, it is the first word of a sentence. I doubt that I need to point out the irony: A special form of real estate agent commands the same respect we offer to the Almighty, yet the man who could potentially send the entire world back to the Stone Age rates no special respect.

It seems that in the period of time from when I was a child to when I became a "definitely middle-aged" man, the esteem, the respect, for the Office of the Presidency has been gutted. Understandably, given many of the presidential fiascoes which have occurred in that time, I can see why people have become jaded.

There is a rather well-known phrase "Only Nixon could go to China," and it acknowledged that Richard Nixon was one of the few in the world who had the hard line background, combined with the worldly pragmatism, to allow him to open the door between the US and China. Imagine how different the world would be today if Nixon had not started the normalization of Sino-American relations. We take it as a given that the 2008 Olympics will open in Beijing in but a few weeks, yet barely 30 years ago such a thought would have been unheard of. In spite of this tremendous accomplishment, however, Richard Nixon will never go down in history as the one who opened the door between the US and China, but instead he will be remembered as the leader of a bungled break-in, a paranoid man whose best remembered quote will be "I am not a crook."

To balance the example above, think of Bill Clinton and the Middle East. There were few situations in the twentieth century more thorny, more provocative, more explosive, than the Middle East quandary. The United States, more than any other single country in the world, was clearly caught in the middle of a no-win situation, not wishing to offend Israel as an ally, nor wishing to lose important military and intelligence opportunities in Arab lands, opportunites which could be used against the other superpower of the time. No president was able to bridge that gap, no president could have brokered a peace between the two sides, but I would argue that Bill Clinton was on the verge of achieving that very accomplishment. Clinton understood the Middle East, he was trusted by both sides, and IMHO he may well have changed that portion of the world forever, had a slight distraction in the form of his zipper not gotten in the way. As the world was on the verge of seeing the Middle East situation change forever---presumably for the better---Bill Clinton was vocalizing the quote for which he would be most remembered: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..." The Middle East peace which appeared so close suddenly was derailed, not by missiles or jets or suicide bombers, but by a blue dress.

The true shame of all this is that we no longer respect the office of the president. Both sides, left and right, sneer at the occupant if he is of the other party. Truth, what is best for the nation, what is best for the world, does not matter; what truly is important is playing the party line and smearing with the party's official paint, be it red or blue.

I'll go on the record as saying I support Barack Obama for the presidency, in large part because I feel he may be the first individual who can truly unite the color divide which separates our country. I believe that it is entirely possible that Mr. Obama could bridge the gap between blacks and whites, the gap which began with slavery, which continued through separate but equal, which included the Watts riots and the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I believe in my heart Mr. Obama could help end this divide, but here is the downheartening thought: Even if he were elected to the presidency and even if he could accomplish this miracle, odds are his legacy will be obscured and he will be remembered for some other, as of yet uncommitted, relatively meaningless gaffe. If Mr. Obama does indeed become the US President in 2009, I would live to revisit this question four or eight years later.

I'm not saying we should overlook the foibles of our presidents, but perhaps we should start recognizing the accomplishments of the office. What do we as a society view to be more important: Sino-American relationships and Middle East peace, or bungled burglaries and oral sex? Perhaps we should respect the institution and what it accomplishes, even if we do find failings in the individual who sits in the chair in the Oval Office.