Bathroom Monologue: Notes from a 27-Year-Old Political Vigilant

A painful truth has been revealed in this election cycle. Right-wingers have pointed out that we have only recently heard about Barack Obama. The best-informed of us only heard about him four years ago, and I only heard about him two years ago. That is scandalously little time to get to know a candidate. But when we look back on our national history we see a more insidious pattern emerging. I only heard about George W. Bush and Bill Clinton about a year before either man took office. And Ronald Reagan? I only heard about President Reagan three or four years into his term. More concerning, though, is that I only heard about Jimmy Carter after he left office. In fact, I only heard about every candidate for president before Carter after they lost elections or left the White House. I heard about Abraham Lincoln over a hundred years after he died. Maybe if he’d disclosed more about himself sooner he wouldn’t have been shot. George Washington? Andrew Jackson? Theodore Roosevelt? What did these men have to hide that made them remain silent, some for a full bicentennial before I even heard their names? It must have been insidious. That is why I am demanding every president be impeached immediately, until those not cowardly hiding behind the veil of their graves confess their conspiracy.