MISSOURI WATCH: TRASHING THE OVAL OFFICE GOES QUITE A LONG WAY BACK

American presidents since the hapless Martin VanBuren administration have cost taxpayers millions of dollars in their search for acclaim and popularity. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was relatively unworried about his personal popularity, had a group of friends who advised him on political matters. Jefferson referred to his pundits as the "cadre," but public relations hacks are still hacks regardless of the name.

Franklin Roosevelt gave a fresh name to political advisers, calling them his "kitchen cabinet," and Harry Truman used the same term, although with considerably less enthusiasm than FDR because HST's arch political enemy, Missouri governor Lloyd C. Stark, had a kitchen cabinet of his own.

Sometime after Truman returned to Independence and something resembling a normal life, U.S. presidents began employing not only political advisers but Madison Avenue types who were little more than glorified publicity flacks for commercial products ranging from Excedrin to Edsels. It was believed that if a journalism school graduate could convince consumers to buy and actually eat cauliflower and broccoli, surely they could convince a lethargic voting public at least to choose the lesser of two evil politicians.

By the time -America had enjoyed Jimmy Carter to the point of desperation that it was willing to elect Ronald Reagan, presidents were not only employing people on Madison Avenue who sold laxatives but television writers who were flooding the airwaves with hilarious stories about people who were Rotarians by day and Transvestites by night. If you could transform people as brain damaged as the Beverly Hillbillies into national icons, you could certainly elevate the status of the man occupying the highest office in the land from a blood-sucking parasite into someone no more obnoxious than your brother-in-law. Or so the experts thought.

Eventually, of course, a president's popularity was based on how voters themselves were feeling. In an era in which people constantly focus on what they're experiencing, presidential popularity became less and less dependent on how the White House was performing. This transcendence was a gift to America from the angst-ridden Boomer Generation.

If a president like Gerald Ford accidentally bumped his head one time too often, Chevy Chase entertained millions on Saturday Night Live with mindless pratfalls that emulated the commander-in-chief of the nation's armed services. Jimmy Carter's cornpone manner of speaking and his thrilling tales of man-eating rabbits made him an ideal target for a nation that seemed to respect neither history nor honesty. In the minds of millions of Americans, Ford stumbled through his term, Carter talked himself out of re-election, Reagan slept through eight years in office and George Bush became the nation's preppy president. By 1992, the country met Bubba Burger, and Bill Clinton's image continued its downward path, reaching a reverse nadir with the printing of bumper stickers that called the President of the United States the "Dope from Hope."

I have no idea what the next president will be called or what human frailty will be attributed to him, but I can guarantee that one will be forthcoming and the only question is how long it will take. Derision, disrespect, insulting remarks have become so prevalent that they are now ubiquitous.

Americans have heard, and some have even voiced the sentiment, how difficult the job of president really has become. It was a cut-and-dried occupation in the 1940s and 1950s, and by the 1960s, job pressures were building out of control. Richard Nixon had his faults, God knows, but he had more problems than you would assign your worst enemy. If you're running a war half way around the world that you didn't start and if the kids who had been deferred from fighting the war were rioting on college campuses here at home, paranoia is just one of many symptoms you could be experiencing.

Before the era of anything-goes, the qualifications were well known. A candidate had to be 30 years of age, a native-born American and the guy who won the most votes on election day. Modernity has added lots of qualifications that aren't mentioned in the Constitution, and some of the requirements we now impose would never have been sanctioned by the founding fathers. In fact, we have placed so many qualifications on the office that it's unlikely we'll ever see another president as popular as Martin VanBuren. We've made it an impossible job, and we've attached so many strings that even a candidate as popular as a Big Mac can become an Edsel overnight. Trashing leaders now makes up part of our Gross Domestic Product. Now that's really gross.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.