Your story with the question "who is the president" reminded me of a different context for that question that my mother experienced. Evidently "who is president" is one of the questions typically asked of accident victims to test if they're oriented and aware. My mother had a (solo) bicycle accident and got knocked out, so the EMTs asked her the standard orientation questions, including, "Who is the president?" Except this happened in the middle of the Bush v. Gore recount fiasco, and her answer was something along the lines of, "That's a good question. Do we know yet?"