Puttin' out fires...

I sometimes wonder, and have for many decades, why anyone wants to be the leader of a country. And to be the leader of the United States, arguably the most important and powerful country on the planet.

I was perusing the news and caught, on a sidebar, a blip about President Obama putting "security higher on [his] agenda." Higher than what? Isn't that the first and foremost duty of a nation's leader? Nothing else matters if that is weak or non-existent. Well, it would seem to me that it is. the truly interesting thing was that blip had a headline:

"Bomb attempt puts security on Obama agenda"

Which begs the question... did the writer think it wasn't anywhere on his agenda before this?

The blip was next to a story about how the stock markets are fragmented and how this increases the chances of events like the late afternoon "meltdown" on the NYSE Thursday. Even though I took a fair sized "hit" that afternoon (I got most of it back on Friday), I am not quite ready to see a single global stock market.

But I digress...

My main thought is about why someone would want to be at the center of the chaos that is our world. Think about it. The last few presidents seem to have been bouncing from one "main priority" to another. And each jump is linked to some event like the car bomb attempt in Times Square. Or a hit on the economy. Or an oil spill. Or a law passed in Arizona. Crisis after crisis. Top priority takes precedence over the last top priority.

It's no wonder presidents' hair turns gray so quickly. Or maybe they just stop dying it once they get into office.

The last thing I ever wanted to be was president. And you all should be thankful for that.