President Obama's Sinister Nature

What do the following people have in common?

Alexander the Great
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Napoleon Bonaparte
Sir Issac Newton
Benjamin Franklin
President James Garfield
Winston Churchill
President Harry Truman
President Gerald Ford
Fidel Castro
H. Ross Perot
Paul McCartney
Robert de Niro
President George H.W. Bush
President Bill Clinton
Senator Al Gore
Senator John McCain
President Barack Obama

They are all left-handed.

When it comes to handedness the only species discovered that develop as righties or lefties are people of all races and chimpanzees.

Only about 10% of our population are lefties yet four of the last seven presidents were lefties (six of twelve since WWII). In 1992 all three presidential candidates (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot) batted lefty. In the field of presidential candidates in 2008 both Obama and McCain prefer their left hands.

Obama is perhaps the most left handed of all the presidents as he uses a distinctive curved hand writing style that allows lefties to almost write upside down and, for many of us lefties, read upside down.

It is even thought that Ronald Reagan started out predominantly left-handed and his natural tendency was changed by a series of strict schoolteachers.

So why at this point in our history are we seeing this predominance of left-handed presidents? Is this all just some evil conspiracy? Chance? Or is there some unequal advantage lefties have in running for the highest office in the land?

It may be in reaching high political office that one of the factors giving left-handers the edge is their ability to think outside the box. This ability has been measured on tests for counter-intuitive problem solving. And I certainly know from personal experience that to get the job done I’ll go around my elbow to tie my shoes. Impractical and ineffective but definitely way outside the box.

A second factor is that right-handers process language in the left side of their brains while 14% of lefties process language on both sides. This may account for Mark Twain and H.G. Wells writing ability and the outstanding speaking skills of Ronald Reagan and Barak Obama.

Other fields where left handers seem to have a natural edge are the related fields of mathematics and music.

So why is our new president sinister? The word sinister is derived from a word meaning left (sinisteris). In Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary the fourth definition used for “sinister” is “of or on the left side; left.” The third synonym listed is “unlucky.”

Only time will tell if Barack Obama is unlucky. In his first week in office it looks to me like he’s making lots of left moves and thinking outside the bun. Maybe that’s what it will take to bring the Democrats and Republicans together. Maybe we need a little sinister to solve some of the daunting problems facing our country as we start the Twenty-first century.

We’ve tried Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and they certainly didn’t get the job done. Last seen Rumsfeld was managing a Sonic drive-in and Cheney was being hauled away in a wheeled cart.

So how is this dark comedy? Not all left handers are famous or think outside the box but two that come to mind that are more than a little sinister – Osama Bin Laden and Jack the Ripper (left-handedness based on crime scene investigations).

And Fidel Castro as a boy came to the United States to follow his passion – baseball. He wanted to be a left-handed pitcher and had a try out with of all teams – the old Washington Senators. How our world might be different if he’d brought the heat and thrown strikes that spring day so many years ago.