Commander Cream #4

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Fortunately, I have about the same chance at becoming president as I do at becoming Spiderman. That said, if I did manage to finagle my way into executive office, I would quickly become one of the least popular presidents of all time. Let’s ignore all of the campaign promises that I would immediately break since their only purpose was to get me elected and look at what I would actually do.

But first, a little background. My first trip to Washington DC was my sophomore year in high school. The Anti-Defamation League invites a number of interested students every year on a trip to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Since I had always been interested in WWII, I applied and to my surprise I was accepted. Washington DC was lovely. On my arrival, the cherry trees were in bloom and to my naïve eyes the entire city was a glorious exhibit of neo-classical architecture. The next couple of days thoroughly disillusioned me. Visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum was one of the most moving, disturbing, experiences of my life. Even the skewed architecture stood in stark contrast with the rest of the city. Since I was a child, I was told that crying serves absolutely no purpose and that I should “suck it up.” So I rarely cry. But I cried for nearly my entire trip through the museum. I cried looking at the shoes. I cried reading the letters. And I cried most of all at the medical experiments conducted using American-made scientific equipment. I left DC with the firm conviction that the United States was grossly amiss in failing to intervene earlier.

Given the world we live in, as president, I would engage in war, after war, after war. Self-defense is pretty obvious, but I would be moved to intervene in any genocide, and hang the political consequences. I wasn’t even alive during the Holocaust, and I still feel vaguely guilty. Having real power and not stopping the repetition of the holocaust would weigh on me for an eternity. Then again, given my massive guilt complex right now, I would probably be struck by the deaths that would inevitably result from any military engagement. And, paralyzed between two terrible options, I would probably curl up in a ball and let my Skeletor-esque Vice President dictate my foreign policy from an undisclosed location.