It’s a-hard and it’s hard, ain’t it hard
From Charles Pierce (writing at Altercation):
So it’s a hard job being president, is it? In all my days, which go back to the end of Second Ike, I have never heard an incumbent president mention how difficult the job is. They’re always “honored by the trust” the American people — or, in this case, Antonin Scalia — have placed in them. I mean, as I have learned in this big old new book of political history that I brought with me, FDR served for 16 years, through the Great Depression and World War II, and it was only at the very end that he even made mention of the fact that he was in a wheelchair. That C-Plus Augustus made (by my count) nine references to the difficulty of his job last week is the best measure that he was coming a little unstrung. What did he possibly hope to gain by it? The sympathy of some laid-off sheet-metal worker? The understanding of some wounded vet? A pat on the head from Karen Hughes?
It’s supposed to be hard, as Tom Hanks says in that women’s baseball movie. If it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it. And, as we’ve come to learn, not everybody can.
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