Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Stannard, an author, musician and former lobbyist. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
No one knows you at all
And you’re alone at the ball
You’re all alone at the ball
– Neil Diamond
[I]magine you’re the first lady waking up, turning on the TV and seeing your husband standing with a porn star with whom he had an affair shortly after you gave birth to his fifth child. While you were nurturing your new baby the father of this child was sneaking around behind your back with many other women. What emotional stages do you go through? Shock? Disgust? Hate? Loneliness?
Now imagine you’re the president turning on a TV in a bedroom other than your wife’s as you haven’t shared the same bedroom in quite some time. You see the same picture your wife sees but your reaction is much different. You know the truth, but your sick, twisted mind tells you that you are not to blame. It is the porn star who is lying; not you. Just like the other 19 women who have accused you. They’re all liars … every one of them. You’re in too much of a rage to even give a nanosecond of thought to how your actions might impact your wife in the other room. Your narcissistic condition prohibits you from thinking about that little baby who is now an impressionable 12-year-old boy. What does the boy think when he sees the “real” news?
Any love that might have existed between the president and the first lady vanished some time ago. Sure, she knew who she was marrying and that the likelihood of him ever changing was slim. Everything would’ve been fine had he simply lost like he was supposed to. He wasn’t supposed to win. That wasn’t the plan. He was supposed to lose; declare the elections were rigged; make himself out to be the victim, as he’s done so many times before, and go off into the sunset.
His unlikely victory (thanks to his old friend, Vlad) ruined everything. He had no idea how to BE president or presidential. He had no comprehension of issues and/or real solutions. All he knew is what he’s always known, which is how to con people. Miraculously he conned his way right into the Oval Office; perhaps THE loneliest room on Earth.
This new job requires a great deal of thoughtful reasoning, temperament, restraint and character, qualities that even through his narcissistic haze he could see he did not possess. In the fog that is his mind he had no choice but to surround himself with breathtakingly inexperienced people who he thought he could trust. He demanded loyalty, but never gave any in return. Previously he enhanced his persona by declaring emphatically “YOU’RE FIRED.” In reality, his fear and insecurities won’t allow him to face the nearly 60 people he’s let go. Instead, he cowers in his lonely room, with his cheeseburger(s) and diet Coke(s) with Fox News on his TV (they were much kinder to him regarding the porn star) and fires people via Twitter.
The presidency defines the person. We’ve learned that the person is a very troubled soul. His painful insecurities handed down to him by an authoritarian father, a man who he could never please and never best, have not served him well. He’s become an island. His life is in turmoil. He’s never trusted anyone and is now in a job where historically people don’t trust each other. Do his own daughter and son-in-law really love him or will they give him up if forced to by a special prosecutor performing a criminal investigation? Already many people whom he thought he could trust have turned against him. His own lawyer recently quit, because the client was too hard to handle.
The image of him leaving Air Force One without his wife after “60 Minutes” aired “The Interview” spoke volumes. Our president is all alone … and that’s a very dangerous place for any president to be.
