Respect for Presidency Once Transcended Politics

Originally appeared in the Mercury News

In 1951, when I was 8 years old, our family drove from San Jose to the old San Francisco airport -- then called Mills Field -- to see Grandma Jenny off on one of her biennial trips to Hawaii. After watching the Pan American Stratocruiser lift off into the clear afternoon sky, Dad said something like, "We're going to stick around for a while to watch President Truman's plane land."

We saw the plane, "The Independence," only from a distance. It touched down and taxied to another part of the airport, not visible from our vantage point.

It was, however, my first direct exposure to the American presidency, albeit from several hundred yards. Yet I was thrilled -- we all were -- to be that close to history and to a uniquely American institution.

I recalled that day as the controversy over Barack Obama's back-to-school speech erupted.

Sputtering and sometimes tearful parents, egged on by blogosphere and broadcast blowhards, attacked President Obama's motivations and worried aloud that America's children would somehow suffer irreparable harm if they listened to the President of the United States talk about education.

My recollections were sharpened as I watched the president's speech on health care.
There we witnessed many Republican members of Congress acting like churlish adolescents. Their disrespect for the president was offensive.

Of course, neither today's congressional Republicans nor their more rabid supporters are plowing altogether new ground.

Democrats have also gone overboard on occasion, including when they booed George W. Bush during one of his state of the union addresses.

Unfortunately, political coarseness is a bipartisan affliction. But the recent episodes have been more glaring and more egregious.

So why the reminiscence? What possible connection could there be between Harry Truman landing in San Francisco in 1951 and contemptible political and social behavior today?

It's quite simple. My father was as conservative a Republican as one could possibly be. While not a nut by any means, he was a genuine right-winger and darned proud of it!

Dad couldn't stand Harry Truman. He thought him corrupt and incompetent. I don't know that Dad ever harbored a moderate political thought in his life.

To say that our political philosophies grew divergent as I traversed adolescence into adulthood is an understatement.

But despite all of his criticisms of the then-incumbent, we watched Harry Truman's arrival in San Francisco because he was president of the United States.

Dad believed that the office, and symbols of the office, deserved our respect.

In our home, active citizenship and patriotism meant reading the newspaper, watching the evening news, holding strong opinions, engaging in spirited arguments (oh my, the arguments), attending political gatherings and walking precincts for one's favored candidates and causes.

It also meant cherishing our nation's history and demonstrating respect for its institutions of government.

Many years after the Mills Field experience, Mom and Dad drove just a few miles to watch another president of the United States, also a Democrat, land at San Jose's airport.

This time they didn't have to witness the arrival from a distance, but rather stood in the receiving line to shake Jimmy Carter's hand, exchange pleasantries and give their son, by then a presidential aide, a hug as he came off the plane behind his boss. Dad was still very much a Republican, still quite conservative -- and still intensely respectful of the presidency.

Merely a sentimental recollection of the "good old days"? Perhaps. But are these principles vital to the conduct and preservation of our democracy? I have no doubt -- ranting of the bloggers and birthers notwithstanding.