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August 06, 2006
Casting Call
Wanted: A presidential impersonator.
The body politic of the United States of America is in need of a president. According to Constitutional rules, however, an actual president is not even a theoretical possibility until January 2009. Until then, the nation must do the best it can without a real president. (Although, it's clear, the nation should do the best it can to establish processes for qualifying potential holders of the actual office in order to avoid repeating the mistake of having an empty office for another four years beyond January 2009.)
This casting call, then, is for men (or, if remarkably talented and physically able, women) who bear a sufficient resemblence to George W. Bush and have the requisite skills to impersonate George W. Bush. The job, however, is not -- I repeat NOT -- to be a comic. The comical aspects normally associated with impersonators are specifically not asked for and all who audition with that in mind will be rejected. Simply put, we are long past the point where there is anything even remotely funny about the emptiness in the office of president.
Instead, we are looking for a serious, sober and responsible impersonator. Someone who can pretend -- credibly pretend - to actually perform the functions of a president. Once selected, we will ask this presidential pretender to travel the nation engaging citizens in dialogue and discussion about the major challenges facing our nation. This will demand that the person selected be willing to dedicate the time needed to read and otherwise learn about the contexts, backgrounds, principles and related materials and thoughts normally associated with what the holder of the presidency is accountable for knowing. Among the first such briefing materials will be succinct background memoranda on the rule of law, the Constitution, having an open mind, asking for thoughts from those who disagree and mastering the basics of the actual subjects on which the presidential impersonater will speak.
In requiring this preparation, we are asking the presidential impersonator to recognize that his or her job is not -- again NOT -- to impersonate George W. Bush. Rather, in the physical guise of looking like George W. Bush, the presidential impersonator is requried to act like a president. This will at first be difficult for audiences to comprehend because it will demand them to observe two seemingly contradictory phenomena: (1) a person looking and talking like George W. Bush; and, (2) a person looking and sounding like a president.
Still, we must work with what we have. Our hope is that the presidential impersonator will soon enough overcome the difficulties of audience expectations upon seeing "George W. Bush" and find some credible space within to portray an actual president. We do not demand that the presidential impersonator have an extraordinarily high IQ or any other 'special' talents. All we ask is that the presidential impersonator actually take the responsibilities of that high office seriously -- to seek through engagement with citizens to actually pretend to be interested in governing a nation instead of ruling it, to lead by helping to increase shared and real understanding instead of destroying the possibility of such things, and to seek to discover and exercise wisdom and accountabilty for choices instead of operating on unschooled instinct and ideology.
Put differently, we are seeking someone who actually would like to be a president and to take a responsible, sober shot at doing the job. We hope to provide audiences the experience of what things might be like if we had a president. This, too, will demand audiences to give the presidential impersonator a chance -- to avoid shouting and storming and uncivil actions. But, it is our hope, that if a persidential impersonator actually showed the willingness and capacity to speak to real audiences instead of artificially controlled and selected audiences, that the audiences and the citizenry will remember how they can contribute to civil discourse even in the face of disagreement.
We expect the selected person to spend the next three months or so preparing for 'going on the road'. Once the presidential impersonator is ready, we will implement a marketing plan that takes the presidential impersonator to venues in which he (or she) can interact with citizens every single day until January 2009. We will enlist the support of both new and traditional media in covering these appearances. And we expect a series of books, documentaries, movies, musical numbers, etc as well as sponsorships and advertising to support the entire enterprise.
In seeking the qualified presidential impersonator, we hope to provide the appearance of leadership as a 'second best' alternative to the absence of leadership that necessarily results from the fact that the office of President of the United States is now empty.
