One of the best books we've ever read is When the Cheering Stopped, by Gene Smith, about the final decade of Woodrow Wilson's life.
Smith chronicled Wilson's second marriage to Edith Bolling Galt, his triumphant visit to Europe to forge peace after World War I, and the shattering stroke that he suffered 100 years ago next month as he campaigned across the country for America's entry into the League of Nations. It was the stuff of novels, and it read like one.
Smith makes it clear just how much the White House deceived Congress and the American people about Wilson's physical condition from late 1919 until the end of his term. Did Edith Wilson essentially play President? Yes, when circumstances warranted, but what she mostly did was fiercely protect her husband. Nobody, especially Wilson's enemies, could know how disabled he was and interfere with his recovery.
More recently, the acolytes surrounding Ronald Reagan in his not-great second term surely helped conceal his advancing Alzheimer's. But we'll probably have to wait for another historian — hopefully with the writing talent of Gene Smith — to ferret out the details and set it down. More time will have to pass in which the concealers will feel willing to talk. (Maybe soon, though, now that Nancy is dead.)
Which leaves us with Benedict Donald. He's given this #Sharpiegate story legs for days now. But we're not sure what it's about. Does he have syphilis? Dementia? Or does he just live in a demented world?
Whatever the answer, this White House has been concealing more nefariousness than the amount of ice that's melted in the Arctic. And it's got to be far scarier than Edith Wilson signing Woodrow's name to a few letters. Assuming the Trump nightmare will ever end — and we're cautiously confident it will — the stories we'll hear in the decades to come will stand all our hairs on end. We cats HISS.
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