A tale of two presidents (and pitches)

(Photo and story from https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-standing-ovation-toronto)

Barack Obama was not the most popular president the country has seen. His overall average approval was 48%, hitting lows at 40% couple of times in his first and second terms. He came into office with a 67% approval and never quite hit that level again, coming closest in the final polling of his presidency when he reached 59% (these numbers are from the Gallup presidential approval center, other numbers may vary slightly). A notable difference between our current and former presidents is their willingness to go into mixed crowds.

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When our heroes fall

People aren’t perfect. We’re relatively safe when we idolize fictional characters, because they’re less likely to let us down, but when we idolize real people, we run the risk of being let down by their inevitable imperfection. From Bill O’Reilly to Christopher Columbus to Thomas Jefferson, people do unforgivable things, and we’re stuck trying to balance the good with the bad. What interests me is how people react when it happens.

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Will we have our fourth “illegitimate” president in a row?

I’m not a historian, and I don’t know one well enough to ask, but it seems like the illegitimate president is a modern trend. Even if we’ve had one or two before, my guess is that we haven’t had three, could be four, in a row. What do I mean by an illegitimate president? A president who a large swath of Americans reject as the legitimate president because of one thing or another. Clinton, failed to get a majority of the vote. Bush, had a presidency that was decided by a Supreme Court case (which, in my non-legal expert opinion, was decided against the ideology of  every single Justice on the bench). Obama’s citizenship, or fraudulent citizenship, made him illegitimate, and now, the election is rigged, so if Clinton wins, her presidency will have the illegitimate label also. Let’s look at each of these in a rational manner.

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