Jeff Daniels

Because being able to tell the truth should be the first requirement for becoming president of the United States

George Washington said, “I cannot tell a lie.”

Apparently, when he said it, he was standing next to a fallen cherry tree holding a hatchet, after  his father—who was a big fan of cherries, not to mention the tree that bore them—asked why his prized possession was lying on the ground. When young George owned up to his misdeed, instead of becoming angry, his father embraced him, proclaiming his honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.

Now, let’s imagine what Kamala Harris would say if she were standing there with that hatchet, looking down at that same tree, her mother beside her waiting for an answer. “I cannot tell a lie,” she might say, “For it was I who chopped down your favorite cherry tree. And you know why? Because it was in my way. But not just in my way. It was in the way of all those who stand behind me, looking for that path forward to a new America; the path for those who have been told they don’t matter, for those who have been ignored, overlooked, undervalued; the path the majority of people are ready to embrace, the one where the only race that matters is the human race and leads, at long last, to the constitutional promise of peace, prosperity, and opportunity for everyone.”

Now, let’s imagine Donald Trump standing over that same tree with that same hatchet, his father beside him asking why the tree—for which he had paid an arm and a leg—was not only cut down, but why all the cherries had disappeared. And there, dripping down young Donald’s defiantly orange chin, was the red stain of cherry juice, still falling from his face onto his white golf shirt, one drop at a time, and leaving a trail of sin from the Mar-a-Lago logo  on his ample left breast all the way down to the rounded rise of his oceanic belly, with the scattered scarlet splatters resembling an abstract painting Jackson Pollock would have tossed in the trash. Donald would turn to his father, and say, “Daddy, I cannot tell the truth.” And then he would throw up all over his father’s shoes.

Being able to tell the truth should be the first requirement for becoming president of the United States. Kamala can do that.

Trump, not so much.

Jeff Daniels is an actor, playwright, and musician.