Richard Nixon: I think we all know too much already

If I had a mansion and an unlimited government budget, I'd build a bowling alley in my house too. So impeach me!

Richard Milhous Nixon was one of four sons born to a Quaker family in California in 1913. A sickly child, he was not a great athlete, but excelled as a debater in school, was a good student, and helped run his dad's grocery store. Though he earned a tuition scholarship to Harvard, Richard stayed close to home to help take care of his family because of sickness/death/obligation. He went to Whittier College, where he was originally snubbed by some literary douchebags and had some girflriend or something. He then earned a full scholarship to Duke University Law School. He competed with his classmates to successfully to keep his scholarship, became a school leader, and graduated third in his class. He was a try-hard to say the least.

The Richard tried to join the FBI, but eneded up being admitted to the bar and working in corporate and probate law in California. He did not want to do divorce cases, though, because single ladies who were sexually active apparently made him uncomfortable. Shock, shock. Richard M.  met his wife Pat Ryan in a local theater production. (Undubitably a less sexy situation than Who Am I This Time?) But after he wore her down, they finally got married in 1940 and later had two daughters, Tricia and Julie. They moved to D.C. and R.Nix joined the Navy in 1942 because that's what you did then. He wanted some action but ended up never seeing any combat in the South Pacific.

Then he was chosen by some smoke-filled room to represent the California 12th District in Congress, a seat he won on an anti-Communist campaign. In the House of Representatives, Nixard was on HUAC (also shock), and served a key role in the Alger Hiss case. Tricky Dick was reelected in 1948 and subsequently used more of his Communist scare tactics to win a Senate seat in 1950. He and the infamous McCarthy were totes buddies. Nixon criticized Truman's Korean War policies. Then, in a sudden promotion, Nixon was chosen as Eisenhower's running mate in 1952, and was totally willing to do all the campaign dirty work. At one point, though, he was driven to give his famous Checkers speech about the family dog in order to ward off allegations that he was accepting unauthorized campaign funds. Or something. So Dick and Ike were successful and won the executive branch that year.

Remember when dudes unironically called themselves "Dick"? Me neither.

mysterious white-ish film. BUT ANYWAY: RNix was all set to run for prez in his own right in 1960. But he had the tragic misfortune of running against one of America's most attractive presidential candidates (besides his brother who was hotter but got shot earlier in his career, if I may be so crass/complimentary). Then they debated on TV, and words no longer mattered, only the activity of one's sweat glands, and Nixon did not look cute with a 5:00 shadow and blahblahblah voter fraud and Kennedy won.

Losey McLoser Nixon moved his family back to California where he practiced law and unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1962. After Alger Hiss said some shit about him on TV, the public gained a little bit more sympathy for the DickNix, and he took the opportunity to move back East to NYC where he practiced law some more. He wouldn't run again for president in 1964, but instead supported other Losey McLoser Goldwater in '64 and Republican congressional candidates in '66. I don't know if you guys know this, but some shit happened in America during the '60s. (DUH. Didn't you watch that terrible Julia Stiles and Jerry O'Connell-starring miniseries from the '90s that Isaac used as an excuse to ask me over to his place to hang out during the one week we were only "hanging out" before we become an official couple on Facebook and everything?! Because from what I remember between disgustingly strong cups of Kamchatka and some sort of unimportant mixer is that it was terrible.) Anyway, there was some escalation in the 'Nam and RFK got killed and Johnson though it best not to run again, and basically it was the best time ever to try to be president again.

So Rilhous became the Republican nominee on the first ballot and chose little-remembered but totally resignatory VP Spiro T. Agnew as his running mate. Nix-O ran against former MACALESTER COLLEGE Poli Sci professor Hubert Humphrey and used phrases like "peace with honor" and "law and order" (totally not racist dog whistle terms about urban unrest) and something about a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam to win. Also, there was George Wallace who I read a biography about in a 20th century American history class a couple of years ago and he was crazy but later pretended not to be racist but seriously he was never actually going to win but was surprisingly successful but managed not to spoil this election anyway, and Nixon won. FINALLY.

As president, Ricardo Nixono went to China and made out with Mao (diplomatically), he bombed Cambodia and invaded Laos, which was totally a de-escalation of the war if he said it was. He totally overreacted to the 1971 publishing of the Pentagon Papers, interfered in Chile (sorry, Chile), signed the SALT I treaty, and let the draft end in 1973. He had some sort of doctrine in the Middle East, but sold people arms, reluctantly supported Israel, and helped bring about the first of many oil crises. He didn't object to the EPA/save the earth hippie shit brought before him, but he didn't so much like Ted Kennedy's "universal healthcare" ideas. While those one dudes were on the moon, they called President Nixon and had what was an assuredly awkward conversation. He totally did not benefit from that alleged "Southern strategy" which never existed, but he did claim his 1972 opponent George McGovern was totally for "amnesty, abortion, and acid." Though if that were true, I have to say he'd have gotten my hippie-ass vote. Unfortunately I was not to be born for over a decade.

ANYWAY: RMN got reelected HARD. But not so long after, there was this weird hotel scandal of some kind. Nixon ended up resigning over it, but luckily his handpicked successor Gerald Ford was able to pardon him for any crimes he totally unknowingly may have or have not committed. After a short but serious illness, Nixon participated in what would become political movie porn for Aaron Sorkin fans, the 1975 Frost/Nixon interviews. (Listen, if The Damn United or 30 Rock  wasn't enough to make you love Michael Sheen [not a brother of Charlie], this will. Who knew 1970s TV host smarm could be so attractive?) Anyway, he knew he'd been a sleaze. At least on some level.

Then Richard Nixon wrote a bunch of books and supported that totally obscure Reagan guy, attended the funeral of the notorious Shah of Iran, and eventually died of a stroke in 1994 in New Jersey. Richard Nixon has been played by many actors. Since I was in fourth grade when he died, two decades after he left office in disgrace, these fictional depictions are my strongest memories of him as a president. It is strange to me that though he was such an important person in recent U.S. history and our lifetimes overlapped, I don't remember anything about him outside of his historical or cultural legacy. But seriously, did I mention how fucking good Frost/Nixon was? Because I just saw that recently. He's almost a sympathetic character--who DRUNK DIALS. Not that I would ever do anything like that. Would I, friends?

Jimmy Carter will beat us all to peanut heaven

Several months ago, I did research on former United States President James Earl Carter! I never wrote a post. Now I will do so. My last presidential post was many moons ago with my write-up of Millard Fillmore. There aren't that many left, but if I actually get back into regular history posts, I may move on to vice-presidents. Maybe! No promises because of me being lazy. Ahem. Anyway:

I would wear this shirt so hard.

Jimmy Carter was born in 1924 in Georgia. He was the first president to be born in a hospital. Fancy! He was the first of four children. His dad was a business owner, and his mom was a nurse. Jimmy Carter has deep American roots! He has ancestors that came to North America from England in, like, the 1600s and one of his great-grandfathers served in the Confederate Army. As a child, our friend Jimmy was a smarty-pants, always reading, being good at basketball, and participating in the FFA when the letters still stood for something. Jimmy went to a regional college for a few years, and eventually was accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1943. He served on ships and submarines in the Atlantic and the Pacific in WWII, originally planning a naval career. In 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith, and they ultimately had four wholesome children. After his father's death in 1953, though, Jimmy resigned from the Navy and went back to Plains, GA to help run the family business. Sounds like somebody wasn't so committed to the navalling business after all.

The family business was PEANUT FARMING. For serious. Somehow Carter messed up one of his fingers in an "agricultural accident." I think we should spread rumors that he fucked it up while doing something far more sordid (dog-fighting? illegal wrestling? lusting in his heart?). Anyway, Jimmy Carter also loved Jesus A LOT. During the '60s, he worked on a local political career, challenged fraud, and became a Georgia state senator for awhile, but failed to get the Democratic nomination for governor in 1966. But then in the 1970 gubernatorial campaign (GUBER like GOOBER like PEANUTS! I am so funny.) he was more successful. He called his primary competition "Cufflinks Carl" (this is clever!) and was elected even though he was not a segregationist (all though still kind of racist). He was a relatively progressive governor considering it was early '70s Georgia what with public desegregation, not hating ladies who get legal abortions, and making social justice-y and ethical-type programs a priority. He even eventually stopped loving the death penalty.

Anyway, he was a near miss for McGovern's VP in 1972, but got the presidential nomination in 1976. And he won! And my fellow Macalester alum Walter Mondale was his vice president.* Jimmy Carter is largely famous for reporting a UFO sighting** and saying uncomfortable, ungrandfatherly-seeming things to Playboy magazine. But whatever. He was the president during a terrible time. A terrible time for fashion, for politics, and for Jimmy Carter. He granted amnesty to Vietnam War draft dodgers, brokered the Camp David Accords, and suggested people use solar panels and wear more sweaters to save on energy costs (these all sound like good things to me).*** Also though, there was that unfortunate Love Canal incident, we had oil and energy crises, we were still all Cold Warrish and boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of that whole Afghanistan situation that we would totally end up taking over in like 20 years, also there was that thing called stagflation, which is a stupid way of saying that the economy was shit. Although shitty in a different way than it is shitty now.

Okay, so maybe he's not perfect, but still pretty awesome.

Because I am a liberal hippie communist, I tend to think that while it seems maybe Jimmy Carter was a little bit too nice to be president, he inherited some pretty nasty shit. I mean, the guy before him wasn't even elected. And I actually feel bad that the Iran hostage crisis became all about fucking over Jimmy Carter and then that cowboy movie star guy totally rewarded them with secret weapons that he totally "didn't know anything about" after defeating Jimmy in the 1980 election. Not that I'm bitter on Jimmy Carter's behalf. But Jimmy Carter would never be bitter because Jesus and peanuts keep him on the straight and narrow.

Like Taft, Carter's greatest achievements came post-presidency. Jimmy and Rosalynn started the Carter Center, which helps people and works on eradicating illnesses that sound really gross like Guinea worm disease. Carter also won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for being awesome. He is frequently called upon to serve diplomatic missions around the world because people outside of America don't hate him too much. He also likes building houses for poor people, occasionally publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy, hanging out with the first (and slightly less douchey) George Bush, teaching Baptist Sunday school, solving problems in Palestine, riding bikes, winning awards, speaking up for ladies in the church and generally beating everybody at getting to heaven. So maybe the late '70s were a disaster for America, but I refuse to (completely) blame Jimmy Carter. I think if we were all a little bit more like Jimmy Carter, the world would be a better place. AND I NEVER SAY SHIT LIKE THAT SO TAKE MY SINCERITY VERY SERIOUSLY BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHEN IT'LL HAPPEN AGAIN.


*We can't all be Kofi Annan or Peter Berg, but VP is still a pretty sweet achievement for a fellow Scot! Can you tell my reunion is coming up? Five years, bitchez! I think I'm finally accepting that I am this old.
**I don't know why this is a big deal. UFO literally means an unidentified object in the sky. Surely we have all seen these and not necessarily been convinced they are alien spacecrafts, no matter what the quacks on Ancient Aliens try to tell you.
***"I mean, Jimmy Carter would have an electric car by now." -Tommy Corn, I Heart Huckabees. LOVE!

Herbert Hoover: Not Actually a Fake Name

Herbert Hoover was one of the few one-term U.S. presidents in the twentieth century. Little Herbie was born in Iowa in 1874, the first U.S. president to be born west of the Mississippi. His parents were Quakers, his dad a blacksmith. By the time he was nine, both his parents were dead. SAD LONELY ORPHAN BOY HERBERTICUS. He lived with a grandmother, some uncles, attended what is now George Fox University as a teenager or something, but eventually was part of Stanford University's very first class of students in 1891. He managed the baseball and football teams, because apparently he couldn't actually play any sports himself, and graduated with a degree in geology in 1895. His soon-to-be-wife Lou Henry got the same degree. She never really used it, but she had it, dammit. Herbie became a mining engineer, went to Australia and China, mining gold, zinc, whatevs. He wrote geology textbooks and made money. While in China, Herbert and Lou picked up some Mandarin, and according to the 'Pedia, used it in the White House later when they didn't want those nosy aides to hear what they were talking about. Herb & Lou had to sons, Herbert, Jr. and Allan. During the first world war, Hoover helped with food distribution in Europe. He was based in London and helped those people not starve as much. In 1917, Wilson recruited Hoover to be the head of the U.S. Food Administration so Americans could have food too when they joined the war. He helped with food relief in Europe after the war too. The Hoover Institution at Stanford was originally set up with Hoover's WWI records and is now, like, awesomely conservative. In 1920, Hoover rejected the Democrats' overtures and decided to run for his first public office, the President of the United States (no big) as a Republican. He lost his adopted home state of California, but later became Secretary of Commerce under Hardinghead. As the secretary of a relatively newly-formed bureaucracy, Hoover was, like, super-popular. He expanded its role, usurping other departments just 'cause he could. He partnered with business interests, and promoted progressive ideals of efficiency in all his efforts. He was also pumped about promoting Hollywood films abroad (even before they had talking!), and held radio and traffic conferences to help promote the latest technologies and begin to build up federal oversight of them. He became pals with Harding and was with him as he died (suspicious?).

Young geologist Hoover in Australllllia.

He continued his cabinet position under lame-face Calvin Coolidge, gaining huge notoriety. Coolidge sarcastically referred to him as "Wonder Boy." When Cal talked, that is. In 1927, there was a big Mississippi flood and it was bad. Cal sent Herbie down to take care of emergency efforts, which is always good, but didn't really help black people so much. Good thing that never happens anymore, amirite? Luckily he worked it out so nobody would hear about that when he was running for prez in 1928. He ran against PAPIST Al Smith who LOVED BOOZE. The economy was booming, so people voted for pro-business Hooverdoover. Apparently Hoover had his own sport to keep in shape at the White House (HOT). He was into "volunteerism" efforts (AKA businesses should just not be dickfaces out of the goodness of their hearts). Pretty much there was this thing called the GREAT DEPRESSION, and all of Hoover's efforts were essentially TOO LITTLE TOO LATE to fix the crisis. Also, there was a Bonus Army of WWI vets who wanted their fucking money, but Hoover was like, "I will send General MacArthur to CUT YOU, bitchez." Which didn't really increase his popularity.

HERBIE'S FAKE SPORT.

Hoover reluctantly ran for reelection in 1932, but was not real successful. At his campaign stops, he was heckled, and standersby threw eggs and fruit at his train and motorcade. HAHA. After he was decisively defeated by Franklin Somethingorather, Herb and Lou went on road trips, and the former prez wrote a fishing book. He though maybe he'd be nominated by the Republicans in 1936 and 1940, but they totes didn't want him. He advocated for neutrality before the U.S. joined up in WWII and called for an American Fortress. FUCK YOU, EUROPE. But then in post-war Germany, he helped feed people again. Hoover loved food. Then he got all anti-Communist and became friends with Truman. He wrote a biography about Wilson, had a dam named after him, and died in 1964. He had, like, the longest retirement ever. Good job being awesome in your pre- and post-presidencies, Herbert Hooveface!

Warren G. Harding: Kind of unimpressive house, in all honesty

See! We were there.

Dear readers, I went to class tonight! History! U.S. history class! Hooray! I just wanted to let you know that though I have been MIA due to not having to work for an entire week and being in an allergy/ineffective but drowsiness-causing allergy drug coma, I am BACK. Or whatever. Here's a post. The I-Man and I went to my third Ohioan presidential historical site, the Harding Home in Marion, Ohio. As a refresher, you may want to visit my write-up from many moons ago on the man himself: Warren G. Harding: Tragically being stripped of his "Worst President Ever" title by the current administration (this is from April '08, natch). Tragically, the Harding Home is underfunded, so they have very short hours. We went in on the Saturday afternoon window and received a tour from a kind middle-aged lady who obviously works with a lot of groups of schoolchildren. I love going to historical sites and looking at the demographics: old people, old people with small children, middle-aged people with children, and us. Anyhow, here is some photographic evidence that we went:

I start my own front porch campaign. Paid for with dirty, dirty local newspaper moneys.

Apparently this is my one pose. Did you know WG Harding was the first president to do the Inaugural Parade thingy in an automobile? And also to have a radio in the White House and to be on the radio? Well, you do now. The Hardings were into dogs and horses and shit. Laddie Boy was very popular during Warren G's term and a stuffed dog toy was modeled after the First Pooch. Move over teddy bears, amirite?

Then we went to the Harding Memorial/tombplace. It was pretty fancy for a guy who only served 29 months as president and is pretty widely regarded as a crappy leader. Also, it was under construction.

HARD HAT AREA.

See? Big. Palatial, one might say.

We guessed that Warren's tomb was on the left with the manly eagle feathers or whatever and his wife had the girly flowers.

"Go home, Yankee scum. BTW, nice luggage."

Moral of this cartoon: donkeys hate Ohioans. Sorry, kids.

So: carpetbaggers. These were the cats who moved to the South after the Civil War to take over the local governments and, like, make sure the newly-freed slaves had some rights. The carpetbaggers were mostly white reform-minded types, as the Wikipedia article so aptly describes the situation: "Many schoolteachers and religious penises arrived in the South, some of them sponsored by northern churches." Yes, that is exactly what it said. Seriously. Apparently they all carried classy carpetbags (Christmas gift ideas, anyone?). Some of them leased or bought plantations and hired freedmen to work on them. Most of them were Union Army veterans.

Along with the backing of the U.S. Army's enforcement of martial law, northern Republicans and black freedmen effectively dominated state and local governments in the former Confederate states until the Compromise of 1876. White Southerners called their cooperative counterparts "Scalawags," which is a pirate-tinged insult that should really be used as much as possible outside the pirating world. White planters were kind of pissed that their economy had been destroyed by that whole "Emancipation Proclamation" thing, and poor whites were pretty pissed about having to compete with blacks for paying jobs. I'd say if I had to sum up postwar Reconstruction in one word it would be RESENTMENT.

Here's some more words to summarize some of the Carpetbagger-era's action:
Industrializing the South was the name of the game
Northern appointees were accused of rampant government corruption
Tennessee was the first Confederate state readmitted to the Union
Every black man was supposed to gain citizenship and suffrage with the 14th and 15th Amendment
Railroad monopolies were a carpetbagger specialty
Leagues of paramilitary whites like the KKK and the Red Shirts tried to intimidate blacks and Republicans
Obama's historic predecessor was elected in Mississippi
Prince of Carpetbaggers Milton Littlefield railroaded North Carolina's economy and government
Economic panic in 1873 helped usher out the era of Reconstruction 
Rutherford B. Hayes removed the troops and left blacks to Jim Crow
Southern experience should have taught us that America is just no good at reconstruction*

One more charming fact: KKK-fighting Republican judge Albion Tourgée once claimed that "Jesus was a carpetbagger." 'Nuff said. Apparently hot, hot Jenny Lewis has a new album where she sings this "Carpetbaggers" song with Elvis Costello:

 

*Have I mentioned that I want to have Naomi Klein's babies?

James "Doughface" Buchanan: Crappy President

Also: maybe gay.

Why do so many people look like Mr. Weatherbee to me?

So anyway, James Buchanan, Jr.: America's Pennsylvanian-born fifteenth President. He was born in a log cabin, the second of ten kids, graduated from Dickinson College (after being expelled and then reinstated. A forerunner of GWB?), and studied law. He was a Federalist who was opposed to the War of 1812, but when the British invaded Maryland, he was all, "Oh no you didn't" and joined up to defend Baltimore. Many residents and most of the people who have ever visited Baltimore kind of wish they hadn't bothered.

Annnnyway, James Buchanan started his career in the Pennsylvania House, then got elected to Congress, was the ambassador to Russia for awhile, and then became a Democrat and was elected to the Senate in 1834. He did that for a bit, turned down a Supreme Court nomination by Eternally Badass One-Termer James K. Polk, but served as his Secretary of State during that whole Mexican-American War thing. He also helped sew up the Oregon Treaty with England, helping determine the northern border of my home state of Washington. THX. He continued to live a busy public life, including serving as a Minister to the Court of St. James (ambassador to England, pretty much). LUCKILY FOR THE DEMOCRATS. Because meanwhile, back at the Ranch AKA the Capitol, there was a bit of a controversy going on over, like, Kansas and Nebraska(?) or something. But when the 1856 Presidential Election rolled around, James Buchanan was conveniently unsullied by the mess and was nominated by his party. Millard Fillmore pulled a Nader for the Republicans, and Buchanan won the White House.

For some reason, things just kept going poorly for old "Doughface" (supposedly this meant a Northerner with Southerner principles or something) during his term of office. There was this, like, "territorial" debate going on or something. The Wikipedia article mentions some things called "Dred Scott," "Bleeding Kansas," "The Panic of 1857," and the "Utah War," to name a few. Buchanan was a supporter of slaveowner's rights. Also, he wanted to intimidate the Mormons, but ended up failing because "winter" happened and kept the army from getting all the way to Utah. Also, this other thing called "secession" happened, so that distraction ended up working out pretty well for the Mormons. Anyway, the Democratic Party split in 1860, one wing of which nominated Buchanan's arch nemesis, Stephen Douglas. That must've burned. States started seceding, and Buchanan really didn't do much about it. In December of 1860, he sent a message to Congress in which he was like, "Guys, you're totally not allowed to secede from the Union. But then again, we're totally not allowed to try and stop you. So whatevs." And he left a mess for Abraham Lincoln (whoever that is) to clean up.

He was also a Freemason, had a niece of his serve in the capacity of First Lady (except for, we hope, that whole "sex with the President" thing), and wrote the first presidential memoir. He died in 1868, living long enough to see that his non-intervention maybe hadn't COMPLETELY destroyed the country permanently. Good job, James Buchanan.* For some reason historians seem to regard him as "bad" at being President.


*Why didn't Charles Lindbergh cite the "Buchanan Doctrine" of appeasement in the run-up to WWII? It totally would've added some cred.

The Articles of Confederation: America's first, failed government & pre-Washington presidency

A while back I made a promise to some friends that I would explore everybody's favorite era of American history: the post-Declaration, pre-Constitution, completely ineffective governing period of 1777-1787! Yes, my friends, it's time to talk about The Articles of Confederation. No, not the Confederate States Constitution, silly, THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. Why don't more people know about them? Because they were shitty. Because they failed. And because, let's be honest, we were all just waiting for James Madison to step in and do this shit right.

So let's set the stage, shall we? Sor far, we've declared our independence, and we're engaged in some seriously sweet guerrilla warfare that totally pisses off the Lobsterbacks what with their fancy European "rules of engagement" and totally-not-camouflage outfits. The Second Continental Congress is hanging out in Philadelphia, and they're like, "Hey, maybe we should, like, organize an official government or some shit, since we're running this whole war thing or whatevs." I mean, that's how I would have said it, but I never would've been invited to Congress anyway due to my extreme dual-lack of penis and real estate. But most of the people there didn't really know how to write a constitution or how to set up an effective national government. They were all from these disparate colonies and were fighting off authoritarian rule, so it's not a huge surprise that what they came up with was essentially a legislative body that kinda sorta holds the states together and runs the army and shit, but doesn't really have that much power, and the states kinda just do whatever they want. Here, look! A chart from Wikipedia:


I know, right? Anyway, the Congress of the Confederation could do the war, diplomacy, arbitration of territorial rights, and money minting thing. That's pretty much it. Some people, or "Federalists," as I hear they liked to be called, thought that not enough central power was given to the government. These people were right. I will summarize the thirteen Articles (numbering may be slightly off due to hyperbolic oversimplification):

1-9: States are awesome! The states can do what they want! Stay out of our way, Congress! Can we have an army, though?
10: The Confederation should take on all the war debts so far.
11: One vote per state in the Congress. Suck on that, bigger states!
12: If you need money to, like, run the war or one of the other things the states are letting you do, you have to ask us for money first.
13: Canada gets pre-approved for membership as a state,* if like, they thought they wanted to hang out with us sometime or whatever.

Here, a better graphic with CLIP ART(!):


Also, there was some stuff about a "Perpetual Union" that the secessionists were TOTALLY VIOLATING in the Civil War. Although it's unclear whether or not the Articles of Confederation can really be considered an enforceable document after the adoption of the the real Constitution. But whatevs. Anyway, things turned out kind of poorly for the Confederation, not to mention the fact that it took four years to be ratified because Maryland was holding out, whining about other states' western territorial claims. Here's what eventually went down:

-No one ever showed up to Congress, not even to ratify the Treaty of Paris, which was supposed to officially end the war in 1783.
-The Continental Army was incredibly poorly managed, but luckily that whole "disorganized and hiding behind trees and shooting at shit" method worked out for us.** But then the veterans got screwed over. An American tradition, my friends.
-Congress never had any money, because they'd ask the states and the states would be like, "What have you been smoking?"
-There was no regulation of interstate trade and conflicts inevitably arose.
-War debts (both national and state) continued to pile up, and no one could decide who should be responsible for them. Not that anybody was going to actually part with any cash to pay them off.
-Technically they had a President of Congress, though he wasn't a chief executive really. The first one (so the first President of the United States, technically) was Samuel Huntington, who heroically served his country for three months in 1781. Then a bunch of other guys, including John Hancock, cycled through the worthless job for the next several years.

So, the Federalists were like, "Fuck this fucking shit. We're making a new government/document that Antonin Scalia can pretend to be loyal to in, like, 230 years or so." So they did. Now we use the Constitution, blah blah blah Living Document blah blah blah Framers blah blah blah. But I don't think we should forget that on our first stab at a national government, we totally fucked up. Go, America! Maybe the third time will be a charm after George Bush dissolves the rest of the Constitution on January 19, 2009, sets himself up as "Señor King President Dubya for Life," and the nation falls into an apathetic television-induced stupor until James Madison 2.0 or somebody really awesome, like Rachel Maddow swoops in, rewrites the Constitution, and banishes the Bushes down to Argentina or wherever it is they have their not-so-secret tax shelter/diplomatic immunity compound, and saves America. Or whatever.




*Also, for an American Express card.

**Plus we had that George Washington guy on our team, who pushed us through to victory despite his tragic lack of a set of real teeth.