Her Majesty has witnessed, right beside myself, a dozen Presidents.

~~

She became Queen just past one month after my birth and:

~~

She has been a most dutiful Queen and a wonderful example to us all.

As have I, Queen has witnessed, one dozen American Presidents.

~~

Here Queen lifts a glass to:

~~

Barack Hussein Obama II.

~~

 

IN ONE WORD:

~~

ALGERAN.

~~

Exposition:

~~

I have met all of the one-dozen Presidents covered in these Epistles, save for the young incumbent, commencing with Mr. Truman, whom, I am told, I met when I was a very small baby in swaddling clothes:

~~

 

https://johndanielbegg.com/2013/07/01/one-dozen-enigmaspresidents-i-have-not-knownjohn-daniel-beggletters-to-myself.

~~

 

Health prevents my meeting the young incumbent as I am now, largely sequestered, away.

~~

I have never heard the young incumbent speak and would not know his voice were I to hear it.

~~

Nor Have I read a word he has written and would not know his words were I to read them.

~~

I am amused to say that everyone I meet appears to be an expert on the young incumbent President.

~~

And most vociferously so.

~~

People demand to know:

~~

Who is the man behind the mask!!

~~

To which, my readers are by now, well-prepared to answer:

~~

Who is any man?

~~

Ask any housewife:

~~

How well do you know your husband of fifty year’s time?

~~

Housewives will answer in loud unison:

~~

“I’ve no idea at all who this man, my husband, is.”

~~

The Americans most readily accept that one can never really know anybody, most especially so those most close to us, and yet:

~~

The Americans strike me as desperate to know any and all about the dozen men we have briefly examined in these Epistles.

~~

But of course, we can never know very much at all about any of our Presidents.

~~

Part of this is down to what we call, here in our club:

~~

The Fallacy of the West:

~~

A fallacy that removes from the Americans the tactile relationship of lifelong connection with a Royal Family:

~~

A Royal Family:

~~

With whom, the subjects are familiar from the time they are babies and on into the next generation.

 

~~

 

https://johndanielbegg.com/2014/04/06/i-rent-out-the-only-thing-the-bidder-wants-of-me-temporary-access-to-my-mind/

 

~~

 

 

American Presidents come and go like dry leaves:

~~

Four years in and gone, perhaps eight years in and gone.

~~

No long-term relationship with the people of America such as is afforded the English by their Queen, who, right beside me, has witnessed one-dozen American Presidents come dashing into the life of America:

~~

And just as quickly:

~~

Dashing back out again without ever leaving any real or true impression.

~~

So it is that the young incumbent came to us, some say out of the clouds and altogether, unknown.

~~

I say to those who say that:

~~

How precisely, is the young incumbent different in that respect from his eleven predecessors covered in these Epistles?

~~

How?

~~

Precisely, please?

~~

The fact is that the Americans know none of their Presidents, but for a quick flash of very short, and largely mirrored, recognition followed by:

~~

Evaporation:

~~

And then:

~~

Replacement by another,

~~

Utter stranger.

~~

To those who are, to my mind, unduly alarmed, by the young incumbent, I say simply this:

~~

All Presidents are utter strangers.

~~

The young incumbent is but the most recent and:

~~

Very soon enough, he will be replaced by yet another:

~~

Utter stranger.

~~

All that aside, about young Obama, we ask this:

~~

Is it the singer to whom we are drawn:

~~

Or is it the song he sings to us?

~~

The young incumbent I understand has caused a fair amount of ink to be spilled concerning both himself and the songs that he sings to the citizens.

~~

What if the singer sang a different song?

~~

Would that matter?

~~

That is:

~~

If he were to sing songs pleasant to my Party:

~~

Would my Party endorse him?

~~

Would his Party reject him?

~~

Conceded that this is a loaded question.

~~

But consider that in the stream of history:

~~

None of the dozen men whose stories are briefly recounted here have been in that stream of history long enough to yet be dispassionately dissected.

~~

Men, who many may intensely dislike, may later develop bromidic,

~~

Evenly good and kindly:

~~

Reputations:

~~

In history books.

~~

While others, loudly cheered in their day, may vanish altogether.

True it is that my great, great, great, great, grandsire’s people were run out of South Carolina on a rail, and barely escaped the hangman, our Royal sponsor having lost the war:

King George III spoke to trees and gave them names:

~~

King George III fought a rather silly war with His American Subjects, which He lost.

~~

For his perceived follies as a Monarch, King George III spent the last 20 years or so of a 60 year reign, in almost total sequestration, largely stripped of His Authorities.

~~

Her Majesty’s Son and Heir, The Crown Prince Charles, speaks to trees and gives them names.

~~

I speak to trees and give them names.

~~

I like trees.

~~

I find trees a great comfort.

~~

Trees listen attentively, despite one’s rambling on, for hours.

~~

Trees are polite.

~~

Trees are true and trusty friends.

~~

Trees are shady, true.

~~

But trees are not shady in the sense that people are shady.

~~

The affections of trees are ever constant.

~~

Trees never disappoint.

~~

I hope that, what authorities I have, are not later stripped of me, for my enjoying so, the company of trees and for my speaking to them, and giving them names.

~~

But, if it came to it, if I had to choose between my associations with people or with my trees:

~~

I would surely chose my trees.

~~

I like my trees.

~~

Very much, indeed.

~~

True that this is a Catholic and Royalist household, and, by derivation, Republican, as the Americans, very sadly, have no Royal House, anymore:

And true it is that this household has not endorsed or voted for the incumbent, Barack Hussein Obama II, either time we were invited to do so.

 

We do not regret declining either invitation.

~~

That cleared away, I wonder these things:

~~

Are..

 

The incumbent’s most ardent followers new converts to their Party?

President Johnson never got to dance with Our Queen, but he did dance with Imelda and I can testify that, on more than one occasion, I danced with Imelda at Baguio City and that she:

~~

Could rumba:

Little coquette.

Are his most ardent detractors new converts to my Party?

~~

I mean this:

~~

Any priest will tell you that there is no devotion as ardent as the devotion of the newly converted.

~~

I see this in the Catholic Church and in my political Party.

~~

In America, there used to be a saying that had some validity:

“Everybody used to be a Democrat,”

~~

By which was meant, I think,

~~

That the general upward movement through the social rankings that so exemplifies the Americans, causes them to cast off the affiliations they once held when they were not so flush.

~~

I pray that mobility continues, not because we seek more Republican converts but because I seek a better, more fulgent, life for all Americans.

~~

As I am Royalist, and an American Republican by derivation, it is not my place to scold the standard-bearer of the other Party while he holds office but I think it is well within my place to ask my Party this question:

~~

Is not the incumbent the quintessential:

~~

Algeran?

~~

Is he not the very embodiment of  the hero of Horatio Alger, Jr.

That prolific, 19th Century American author, best known for his many juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security?

~~

My Party preaches up by the bootstraps and all that and I must ask:

~~

While it is often remarked that the incumbent came out of the clouds from nowhere at all:

~~

And while I stipulate that he most certainly did not put in much time in the political trenches as is the custom in his occupation, I must ask:

~~

So what?

~~

My readers know that I view all life through the eagle eye of a jockey boy:

~~

Openings, of racing opportunity, come up in a split second:

~~

Ride through them or they will:

~~

Close forever and you will not any win any Derbies riding:

~~

With

~~

Trepidation.

Didn’t the incumbent merely ride his horse hard, sensing that he was against weak opponents and win his races?

~~

Isn’t winning the races of your life the singular preaching of my Party?

Grab opportunity when she knocks, as if you don’t, she will move on to the next lucky house:

~~

If you dally.

~~

That is what I was taught:

~~

Wasn’t that what you were taught?

~~

Kill or be killed.

~~

Eat or be eaten.

~~

Is that not the Republican Credo?

~~

If it is:

~~

Why then, the fierce animus for the young incumbent Barack Hussein Obama II, who, to my eye, merely rode his horse alertly, attentively, savagely, to victory when he sensed his chance?

~~

Didn’t he?

~~

Well?

~~

Didn’t he?

If he did, he is far more the Republican than he is the Democrat.

~~

In the way we learned race riding at this stable:

~~

It appears to us, here in the clubhouse that, if:

~~

Young Obama has made any mistake, it is simply this:

~~

He chose the wrong Party, as, if he had chosen my Party instead:

~~

He would have no opposition at all.

~~

None whatsoever.

~~

So, on removed, sequestered, reflection, we say, simply this:

~~

Barack Hussein Obama II ought to have run as a Republican.

~~

He would have lost none of his supporters and he would have gained all of my own.

~~

He would have been unopposed, made no enemies:

~~

And would have been:

~~

AS

~~

Is a temporary Monarch:

~~

Very much for:

~~

The quiet, ordered, stately, eloquence of Monarchs:

~~

Universally,

~~

Adored.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

POST SCRIPT

~~

This little diary is mine alone.

~~

My musings of long years at a city I know likely better than any man ever has.

~~

By accident of birth I swam into the waters described here this morning.

~~

As with Her Majesty, I have been the constant presence.

~~

Looking out at, through an often cloudy, tinted glass, fairly free of emotional involvement.

~~

Watching:

~~

The comings and goings of the men who have been our Presidents for the past 62, breathless, years.

~~

Through it all, taking all my stories and the many other stories Her Majesty might tell:

~~

All these vignettes together,

~~

These 12 men remain always to us:

~~

Enigmas.

~~

We never really know who they are.

~~

It is likely that most:

~~

Even all,

~~

Of the dozen Presidents, likewise have a very unformed view of who they are, themselves.

~~

Man is far less conniving and calculating than many would have us believe.

~~

Very:

~~

Much of what a man does he could not even explain:

~~

To:

~~

Himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~