With the current level of dementia in the White House, we sometimes forget that we used to have competant presidents.
What might that look like? Well, here’s a little-known story that gives us a snapshot of what we’ve had in the past and no longer have.
I was having a conversation with someone about how really diminished Joe Biden is and how that makes our country far less safe than it otherwise might be. Her response was that presidents have never had much power and therefore never needed to be competent and she used the example of Ronald Reagan, who she considers to have been a complete imbecile fit only (maybe) for the Hollywood screen.
So, Caroline, this one’s for you.
1984 - Fairbanks, Alaska
Ronald Reagan, then-president of the United States, wanted to meet Pope John Paul II on American soil. The two men and Margaret Thatcher were instrumental in undermining the power of the Soviet Union, but Reagan and the Pope had only met briefly at the Vatican a few years before.
It turned out John Paul was going to be in Fairbanks Alaska (my hometown) for a brief stop while headed to South Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Thailand and this stop coincided with Reagan returning home from an important visit to China. Because Fairbanks is a more direct stop on a North America-to-Asia stop than Anchorage, both men’s flights had been scheduled to land here for refueling, but when Reagan realized it would allow him to meet with the Pope, he extended the stop overnight…which is when this story comes into play.
Obviously, the President of the United States couldn’t just book a room at the Westmark Hotel. He’s got an entourage and special security. And Fairbanks was still a frontier town lacking 5-star hotels.
Frank Murkowski was the junior Senator from Alaska at the time. His home was in Fairbanks. He’d just built a brand new house on the banks of the Chena River. Because Murkowski and his wife were in Washington D.C, no one had stayed in the house yet. Of course, Frank offered it to Reagan and the Secret Service deemed it safe enough. Working under deadline, Frank’s son Michael hurried to get the house ready for such auspicious guests. In the days before the arrival, he worked on the hot water, which wasn’t working, and he thought he’d fixed the problem.
The next day, Reagan was asked how his stay went. He thought it went fine until Nancy wanted to take a shower and discovered there was no hot water. So the Leader of the Free World—a 73-year-old actor and rancher with an economics degree—didn’t bother his Secret Service detail with this problem or call up Michael Murkowski or even disturb Frank with this problem. At midnight, he wandered down into the garage, found the hot water heater and a toolbox, traced the pipes up into the house, found a valve that was closed, bled the air out of the pipe, got the hot water flowing, and then went to bed while Nancy enjoyed her shower. He was pleased to awake the next morning to find there was plenty of hot water for his shower. And according to people who were there, he told the story with a twinkle in his eye. He had the time of his life fiddling with the plumbing and didn’t think it was beneath him at all to fix a problem that affected him. He knew how to do it and he had the means to do it. It was only practical for him to deal with it.
Presidential Competence
Does anyone believe the Muppet Joe Biden would take care of a plumbing problem if presented with one? Does anyone believe he could handle this? My take on what I’ve seen of him is that he’d get lost trying to trace the pipes and then forget what he was doing. I also suspect that, like a lot of college-educated offspring of working-class people, he was never introduced to the finer points of home maintenance and so would call the Secret Service to deal with plumbing, when their job is to keep him safe.
Even if he weren’t senile, he’d be incompetant on this issue, but he is senile so….
And to be absolutely fair, does anyone think Donald Trump would or could fix this problem? In his case, it might not be diminished capacity, but simply that plumbing is something he has people to handle. He’s always had people to handle that sort of thing. So, again, there’s no practicality in this area.
And, since he’s in the news — Robert Kennedy Jr. also is probably wholly ignorant of plumbing, more for the same reason as Trump — rich boy who grew up with people to get their hands dirty on his behalf.
It’s Not About Plumbing
It’s about competence…of which the ability to handle a plumbing problem in the middle of the night is a hallmark symptom.
Did Reagan do everything as president that he gets credit for? Probably not. But, yes, he showed signs of being involved in many, possibly most, of the decisions at presidential level. And being able to handle a midnight plumbing problem suggests he had the mental acuity to handle negotiating detante with China.
Does anyone see Joe Biden, who keeps running into the presidential curtains like a defective Roomba, actually making decisions involving American diplomacy abroad? I’d love to hear some examples of why you think he’s competant. Do you think he can handle actual hot wars? I think he might have been involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. That would explain the insanity of closing Bagram Airforce Base before the actual withdrawal, which led to the disaster. And since we know he can’t possibly be making decisions of the magnitude of Israel, why would anyone want to vote for him? You have to know there is some sort of shadow cabal standing back of him pulling his strings.
We have no idea who is actually making decisions in our name.
This was never the way the United States of America was supposed to work. Sure, there were Founders who wanted a monarchy (read Alexander Hamilton’s private correspondence), but they ended up crafting the US Constitution instead. Under the US Constitution, the people are sovereign and our government is supposed to represent us, not tell us how we will be.
So why are we electing elites to the highest office in the land who cannot even handle a simple plumbing problem? The last truly competant president we had was likely Ronald Reagan, who absolutely could turn his hand at something practical without requiring the help of anyone else. Since he’s died, perhaps we should look around and try to find someone who is actually competant to handle real life and try that person in the Oval Office.
Lela Markham is an Alaska-based novelist and commentator who remembers when Frank Murkowski was a local banker.
Oh, thanks. I've got to add this to my collection of Reagan stories. I'm going to excerpt and print the Fairbanks story out, make copies, and insert them into my books "Ronald Reagan in Private" by Jim Kuhn, "An American Life" the autobiography, "When Character was King" by Peggy Noonan, "Reagan Inside Out" by Bob Slosser, ", "Speaking my Mind" by Reagan, "The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagan" a Newsmax book, "The Wit and Wisdom of Reagan" edited by Carol Kelly-Gangi, "Ronald Reagan - A Man True to His Word", edited by James Brady, and several videos, my favorite being one on Reagan's best jokes.
You may have guessed - I'm a Reagan fan. He was a pretty ordinary guy, not a genius, but became the greatest president in our history. Even his enemies couldn't help but like the guy. How I miss him.
A fitting qualification — THE ABILITY TO FIX THINGS!!!