Respect for the US Presidency?
-Some Reflections on Gary N. Gray's Essay-
Frank A. Jones

I respect and love my friend Gary N. Gray.  He is a prolific and fine writer for Gibbs. In this week's essay, he advances a certain notion that we discussed and disagreed on. But being educated men, we laughed as we discussed our differences.

Gary suggested in his essay that the behavior of Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery and former President Jimmy Carter did not respect the presidency, as they attacked the policies of President George Bush, who was also one of the attendees at the funeral of Mrs. Coretta Scott  King. I could agree, somewhat, with my fine friend Gary Norris Gray, had he said that using the occasion of Mrs. King's funeral as a platform for targeting the policies of George Bush was wrong and disrespectful. But that was not his point. 

Whereas Gray offered much discussion of the funeral, his essay turned on the need for the US Presidency to be respected, a separate concept. And on that concept, I address my comments. 

It is one thing to argue that Blacks should respect the office of the presidency (an argument I have heard too often by untoward and sinister church  ministers who bastardize the ministry through unsavory behavior and still want others to respect them*) when that office is respected by all others in the nation and by the person who occupies that position. But it is quite another to call for respect of the position and office by Black Americans when the vast majority of America has disrespected the position by placing  someone in that position who is all that position should never be. That act itself is a repudiation of the notion that the presidency should be respected.

To respect the position is to place the most highly qualified and intelligent person that can be found into that position. Certainly the election of George Bush comes nowhere near that criterion. Furthermore, the actions that George Bush has taken in the name of the office of the presidency dishonors the office itself.

I am aware that the American people claim to be concerned about the integrity of the office of the presidency, especially when Bill Clinton was in office, but Bill Clinton only had sex in the White House with someone not his wife, an act many married presidents have engaged in repeatedly. Bush, on the other hand, has used the presidency to start a war that has killed and wound thousands of innocent Iraqis and American soldiers; he has used the office of the presidency to spend almost a half trillion US dollars in a needless war; he has used the office to wiretap American citizens' telephones, violating the very laws he swore to faithfully execute and uphold; he has used the office to fatten his friends and associates. That is a gross disrespect of the office of the presidency. And the American people, by and large, have allowed him  to continue that disrespect. 

To attempt to place a code of behavior on Blacks concerning the office of the presidency that no other Americans regard is unfair, Mr. Gray. Furthermore, why should such an office be respected by Blacks when that office has disrespected Black people in mass? Need we again summon to mind Hurricane Katrina and the words of Kanye' West to crystallize that point? 

If Blacks surrendered their right of  free speech and thought because of an office, they would be the only ones in this nation to do so. President Jimmy Carter, a past occupant of that office, certainly did not give up his free speech rights in the light of the opportunity of that pregnant moment--a moment to catch the cat that has swallowed the canary and beat it out of him, if at all possible.

At Mrs. Coretta Scott King's funeral, Former President Carter's comments were as scatting as Rev. Lowery's were. It is an American sport to castigate our political, public and elected figures. It refreshes our understanding that these are only men/women, just as we are. And that is  good to know and keep in mind.

Senior George Bush complained the next day of the comments and the sense of respect for the office only because the present office holder is his son. But does his son or anyone have a right to disrespect the office while serving in it and then raise the notion that others should respect that office? I think not.

President George Bush has made the office of the US presidency and this nation disrespected around the world; using the office of the presidency, he has made this nation an outlaw and pariah nation that has and will violate duly constituted treaties and international laws. We have lost all sense of honor we may have had, and Americans  seem to think that is okay.

No, Mr. Gray, my fine friend, Blacks should not respect the office of the presidency when the nation has grossly disrespected it by placing in that office such an odious-acting fellow who has had no respect for the office itself and the laws he is obligated by sworn oath to faithfully execute and uphold. 

______
*A married minister in Oakland has been scandalously arrested twice for picking up prostitutes in his church bought car, and he still remains pastor of a significantly large church. What can be his argument? Respect his pastoral position?

Frank A. Jones
2.20.06

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