It was one of the most comic, presidential moments in recent American history: President Barack Obama’s solitary walk across the South Lawn of the White House. Supposedly it made history.

I would put it right up there with President Bill Clinton’s solitary walk down Normandy beach in 1994. The sun is setting. The great man stands alone (in his baggy suit). The bluffs made historic by our soldiery in World War II are on one side of this famous draft dodger and the sea dotted with warships is on his other side. Bill becomes reflective. Then, ever so perceptibly, he panics. Three network cameras are whirring, dozens of photographer’s cameras are click-clicking, and Bill has completely drawn a blank as to what he is to do next. He glances down in the sand and catches himself. He espies the stones that have been carefully laid in his path by his clever advance personnel and, ah-ha, he falls to his knees! He arranges them in a cross! He composes himself as in prayer! Perhaps he is thinking of a callipygian rump he glimpsed half an hour ago. Surely his advance men had the sense to get her name. At any rate, the columnist Maureen Dowd captured the scene for the New York Times before she too went over to the dark side.