I happen to think that the Prez is doing the best he can. He's an intellectual and not a natural politician, and that has been the source of innumerable problems during his first couple of years in the White House. On the whole, though, I'd say he and his administration have done a solid job.

Images of the Prez wandering down to the Lincoln Memorial on a gray Saturday, however, brings back memories of crazy presidents past.

I know, this was the Prez trying to show that he's a man of the people…blah, blah, blah. He's also enough of a student to know the last time a president showed up unannounced at ol' Abe's feet.

Back in 1970, just after the Kent State shootings (and three weeks after my birth), Nixon wandered down to the Memorial along with Manolo Sanchez (his valet) and a few secret service officers at five in the morning. He engaged a few (startled, one must assume) protesters in a debate on the Vietnam War, rambled a bit about surfing and college football and then headed off to Connecticut Ave., where he thought he might find breakfast.

His spot was closed (even for the Prez), but he did get some vittles at the Mayflower Hotel, where Elliot Spitzer was to destroy his own political career more than three decades later.

Here's the thing: Surprising people at the Lincoln Memorial is the sort of thing crazy presidents do. I don't think Obama is crazy, but his people have to know symbolism. It's one thing to grab lunch at Ray's Hell Burger with the loopy veep. That's almost kinda cool. But dropping by to rap with the peeps at Abe's feet? That's a little weird.

Even weirder, I'm writing this as "Good Vibrations" wanders through my iTunes randomizer. I've got to be on to something here.

Or maybe I'm just as demented as the Prez's handlers, looking for symbolism where only madness lies.

On the plus side, the Prez didn't talk about Occidental's football team (which is just as well, since no one pays any attention to Division III). So maybe he knows the Nixon story. And if he doesn't know the particulars, he has to have seen the scene in Oliver Stone's Nixon--a scene which, somewhat remarkably, humanizes Nixon. Stone may be an unrepentant liberal, but his pity for Nixon is obvious. The movie dwelt heavily on the fact that Nixon married the woman of his dreams--a woman who rejected him repeatedly before agreeing to marry him, and then spent the rest of her life rejecting him anyway. Looking at Nixon's life that way, I'm starting to feel bad for the trickster myself.

But not much. I'm more concerned about the current Prez, who did manage to make a (mostly) reasonable deal to keep the government running for a few months. Does he really think that a President wandering down to the Mall gives people warm fuzzies? More to the point, do his handlers really believe that this was a good idea? I just can't believe that. Maybe the Prez just thought it was a good idea and did it on his own.

Wait a minute. That's exactly what Nixon did. Not good. Nixon was a smart man, but he had the common sense of a weasel. I mean that in positive and negative ways. Our current Prez seems to be a good guy (he did, after all, compliment my son on my son's choice of footwear for a visit to the White House), but I'm still disturbed. Only crazy presidents show up at the Linc to act like a man of the people. And the one thing we don't need now is a crazy president. There are enough crazy people at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. to last this country another 200 years.

Jon Worley has met the last three presidents. He has not met the current Prez, but he hopes to do so one of these days.