GWB Nat Geo 9/11 Interview Live-Blog

Ten years later, George W. Bush tells the Nat Geo channel about his "personal" 9/11 story. His face still makes me want to punch something. Mostly his face.

GWB tells us about his 9/11 morning run in Florida. His Secret Service wear little running shorts, and he's got knee-length shorts of some kind (BROOOO). How has he not aged in the past three years?  It probably helps not being president anymore.

Georgie talks about sitting in the classroom and getting news of the second tower. His job is to protect people like children from attacks. He didn't want to freak out the kids, so he kept reading the goat book until he could make an escape. I love how he never calls our country the United States. It's always "'Merica." He tried to say "horror" just now, and it came out "horah." I think that's a subliminal reference to the clear Jewish conspiracy surrounding 9/11. Oh, the third plane was a "declaration of war." On American architecture. Oh, the stewardesses on Air Force One were sad and scared. Luckily, Bush gave them Presidential Hugs. He had to get back to D.C. to "make the decisions to protect the homeland." They wouldn't let him go back right away, though.

He just referred to the hijackers as "the enemy." There was a "lot of sadness on Air Force One." OMG picture from the plane that day and his ridiculous belt buckle. He told the Air Force to shoot down commercial planes that didn't respond. Isaac (local expert) says Cheney gave that order and that it was later. Bush keeps talking about being a "wartime president." Now he's talking about DECIDING in "the fog of war." There are few things he loves more than decisionating.

GWB felt a lot of frustration that day. God, I should be playing a drinking game for "decision" or "decide." It was "awesome" to hear Laura's voice from a secure location and know she was okay. AF1 finally lands in Louisiana for some reason. The "kid" who drove him at the AF base there was driving too fast! He just said "in-u-un-dated." Apparently there were too many images of Alaskan natives on TV that day. Bush records his speech. Remember "faceless coward"? This is less an "interview" than only GWB's words, though presumably in response to somebody's questions and then edited later. They next flew GWB to another base in Nebraska. Even faceless cowards don't want to go to Nebraska. CIA director George Tenet first mentioned Al Qaeda as possible perpetrators. But Bush insisted they let him go back to Washington because "I damn sure wasn't going to give [orders] from a bunker in Nebraska."

Giorgio finally gets back to D.C. He talks about flying past the Pentagon in Marine One. There's footage of him swaggering across the White House lawn. 'Cause COWBOY. He's like, "Everybody wanted me to declare war that day, but I totally restrained myself, bitchez." His evening speech needed to be equal parts touchy-feely and nakedly aggressive. Both of which sound sexy, so that's basically perfect. Poor Bushie tells us how he had trouble sleeping. He was told late that night that the White House was under attack. He is sure to tell us that he grabbed Laura and their dogs to go to the bunker. It was but an errant F-16. He knew some pretty "consequential" days were about to unfold.

Now it's September 12th. He called the terrorists "thugs." Nice. That has absolutely no racial connotations. Apparently, oceans don't actually protect us from attack. Who knew? He says going to the "site of the death" was part of the healing process, which was apparently a day or so long. God, footage of him at the WTC site with Rumsfeld. Fucking Rumsfeld. They started talking about Iraq being involved on September 15th. (Isaac claims this is also untrue, BTWs.) Bush was again "determined" to send a blunt message about justice and also pursuing justice and achieving justice. 9/11 caused him to "make many decisions." DRINK. Wartime president again. ANOTHER DRINK.

Bush is now talking about heading down into the WTC site by helicopter. I think he's getting a little bit choked up. For some reason, he feels like he must shake everybody's hands. Ew gross, first responders "U.S.A." chant. The pile of rubble he got up on was a destroyed fire truck. How apropos. He's groping that firefighter. Totally off-the-cuff megaphoning. The crowd can't hear him, but HE HEARS THEM.  Jingoistic chanting continues. "The terrorists never won." Then why did you keep saying liberals were helping them do so? "They just didn't understand us." Apparently America is an angsty teenager.

President Obama called Bush personally to tell him about Bin Laden's death. Bush did not feel any jubilation, however. Just more justice. Blahblahblah cowboy president. I don't miss you. The end.

In which I just use a Gchat I had with Isaac to fill up a post with our tasteless, America-hating jokes

Isaac: It's never a bad idea to have cupcakes on hand.
I think they're trying that in Afghanistan to short circuit the insurgency.
me: how's that working out?
doesn't sound very manly
mcchrystal must've hated that shit
Isaac: It's just more of that faggy French crap, but apparently Obama is all about the baked goods.
me: gross
that shit softens you
like a flaccid you-know-what
Isaac: Srsly bro.
You know what doesn't?
Killing civilians.
Also, landing on aircraft carriers.
me: let's go run 0198734 miles before sunrise
and then insult our powerful boss in a music magazine
Isaac:Woah, that shit was off the record.
Where is your sense of journalistic ethics?
me:don't got 'em
not a real man
my word don't mean shit
Isaac: I usually beat my stories out of people, but apparently that's frowned upon.
me: limp wristers
Isaac: I KNOW.
This country was founded on robustly wristed men.
me: the founding fathers spent their time chopping down fucking cherry trees, writing constitutions, and doing wrist curls
Isaac: Also, 12 oz. curls.
me: 12 ounces of BEER?
Isaac: AMERICAN beer.
I think their brand was Old Milwaukee, actually.
me: even before the city existed, that's how badass they were
Isaac: "Yeah, we'll conquer that shit soon enough. Name it that."
me: I know, right?
Isaac: Such foresight.
Does that mean there's an "Old Baghdad" coming out soon?
me: oh, it exists
manufactured and available only in the green zone, though
Isaac: Fucking Green Zone.
That seems like it should be a limited edition patriotic version of Mountain Dew.
me:comes in red white and blue stripes
!
Isaac: I'm a little concerned about those hippie socialist extreme sports kids on their roster, though.
me: srsly
in my day, we played baseball, football, or lynching
none of these namby-pamby "board" sports
Isaac: Donald Rumsfeld was actually the captain of his high school lynching team.
me: obvs
Isaac: He was also part of the Blackface Revue show choir, I think.
me: it's a national tragedy that those competitions are dying out
I think "Glee" should cover this important issue
Isaac: I think Finn would look sharp as a Sambo character.
me: oh god
btws, today's chat is pretty awesome and I'm thinking about using selected passages as a blog post
Isaac: Use away.

Zachary Taylor: Army Guy, Probably Not Assassinated

General Zachary Taylor, in uniform, all "Rough and Ready" to kill Indians and Mexicans, be a slaveowner, and die of contaminated cherries or something.

So, you know how all the early presidents were, like, the sons of wealthy plantation owners from Virginia? Well, so was Zachary Taylor, our twelfth president and second cousin to James Madison our fourth president and distant relative to thirty-second president FDR and also future Confederate General/God/Hero Robert E. Lee! Also, Taylor was a direct descendent of some Mayflower passenger guy. So we're talking pedigree here, people. Pedigree.* All this according to the 'Pedia, obvs. Anyway, he was born on a farm in Virginia in 1784 and his dad totally served with Washington during the Revolution. Zachary was one of nine children and actually spent most of his childhood living in a family cabin on the Kentucky frontier. (Suck on that log cabin authenticity, William Henry Harrison!) He never really had much of a formal education, just tutors his father hired from time to time. Rumor has it that he was not a very good student anyway, so when he was grown up, he did what all good functional illiterates do: join the military. Luckily, Taylormade had family connections (again, Madison), and got a sweet commission as a first lieutenant.**

In the army during the War of 1812/various Indian wars, he led some troops and stuff. He served in Indiana fighting against Tecumseh either with or very near to the aforementioned WH Harrison. Our boy Zachary actually personally accepted the surrender of Chief Black Hawk at the conclusion of the creatively-named Black Hawk War which basically stemmed out of Harrison's prodigious "land-stealing through sketchy treaties" abilities while the territorial governor. Later, TayTay became a brigadier general and led troops against the Seminole in Florida upon the orders of King of the Jackasses Andrew Jackson. But Taylor didn't become a big-time war hero until our friend James K. "Manifest Destiny" Polk sent him to guard the Texas-Mexican border in 1845.*** He fought and defeated Santa Anna's troops at the Battle of Buena Somethingorather and became famous for riding around his aptly named horse "Old Whitey."**** His military nickname, "Old Rough and Ready" not only sounds like it should be the subject line of penis enhancement spam, but also spawned (heh) clubs across the country that sought to "draft" him for the presidency. Because that worked out so awesome with our friend Tippecanoe.

Taylor's pre-politics politics were basically non-existent. Like, he never voted before he ran for president. He considered himself an "independent" or some shit (What is he? fucking Ike?). Though he leaned toward the Whig party, apparently. Though Zachariahhh was actually a slave owner on his Louisiana plantation, he was mostly anti-slavery expansion into new territories. Sounds a little wishy-washy to me. But whatever. Oh, also he was married to a lady named Margaret in 1810 and they had six kids. Their son Richard went on to serve as a general in the Confederate army. Also, one of his daughters was briefly married to Jefferson Davis in 1835 until she died of malaria. So... awesome. But back to politics! In 1848, the Democratic Party basically split over slavery and some dude who got the nomination was like "Let's just not talk about it," but then washed-up former prez Martin Van Buren led a faction of "free soilers" who believed that the expansion of slavery into the western territories should be stemmed.

This incomprehensible cartoon depicting the 1848 presidential election either means the artist was on crack (or opium AKA "antebellum crack") or politics have just always been this ridiculous. BTW, who is the fox? Is that Van Buren? Is the turkey the presidency? WTF? I shouldn't bother to try and understand.

Whatever, so our Whig-nominated friend Zack Attack won the election blahblahblah. While in office, he helped organize the Department of the Interior and encouraged California and New Mexico to write anti-slavery clauses into their constitutions when they applied for statehood. There was some sort of controversy with Britain over control of a possible canal through Nicaragua that never got built (obvs), and they signed some important treaty or something about it. Congress at the time was of course consumed by slavery issues and were debating the various merits of the (disastrous) Compromise of 1850 when the unthinkable happened: President Zachary Taylor suddenly fell ill and died July 9, 1850. Supposedly from "gastroentiritis" or something. It may have involved milk and cherries or something. The doctors did apply their best bleeding, blistering, opium-doping, and other sweet contemporary medical procedures to try and save him; but to no avail. But OF COURSE not everyone believes it was just a real bad stomachache that killed him. Some people think he was POISONED. By a constituent at a Fourth of July picnic. Which actually would be kind of awesome if they had pulled it off and nobody ever found out (in the abstract--assassinations are only for foreign leaders). So in a move that (retroactively) pleases X-Philes the world over, some professor lady got permisison to exhume his body back in 1991. Take a drink!***** They concluded that he probs wasn't poisoned but died of some cherry/milk/open sewers in the D.C. summer/cholera somethingorather. Anyway, that's not that exciting, except for the part where they dug him up. He was reburied in the national cemetary named for him in Kentucky. Zachary Taylor also holds the honor of the being the last president to own slaves while in office. So, that's prestigious.


*Haha, see? The dog food. Right?
**BTWs, I just recently realized why that word is spelled so funny: its etymology is showing! It means an officer who is in charge (the tenant) in LIEU of the presence of someone of higher rank. See? Words are crazy, ppl.
***You GUYS: I started U.S. Grant's charming memoirs and he talks about serving under Taylor in Texas. Though Grant respects Taylor as a general, he was pretty down in general on the whole "let's provoke a war with Mexico so we can have Texas and fill it with slaves" aspect of the Mexican-American War. So, like, the whole thing.
****I don't know why this is supposed to be apt, except I guess for Taylor being an "Old Whitey" himself when elected president like every other president except that Muslim guy we have now.
*****X-Files Drinking Game "exhumation" rule. There is also one for any time somebody says the word "exsanguination." I think it's time to start that series over and watch it all the way through again.

Woodrow Wilson: I think I might've dated that guy in college

So I polled people on the next presidential post, like, three or four years ago, and Wilson totes won, despite Kelly's well-reasoned arguments in favor of William Henry Harrison AKA America's Most Temporary President. I had to stick to democratic principles and take on Mr. Wilson, who received a whopping four votes. Anyway, without further ado, the return of the Blonder and Thinner Presidential Post:

 Doesn't he look dapper trying to broker international peace?

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (why the hell did he go by Woodrow?) was born in Virginia in 1856. So his memory of the Civil War was probably about as good as mine is of Operation Desert Storm. Wilson was of Scottish and Scots-Irish ancestry, which basically means that his insides were plaid and his heart beat in a lovely brogue. His parents soon moved further south and owned some slaves. During the Civil War, the opened their home to injured Confederate soldiers, so basically they were big fatty fat racist traitors. The senior Wilson was a Presbyterian minister and moved his family to South Carolina during America's Favorite Era, Reconstruction. Wilson's mother was a hypochondriac. So I'm sure that was good for a totally well-adjusted childhood.  Some people have speculated that Woodrow Wilson wasn't very good at reading when he was little because he may have been dyslexic. I am going to perpetuate this rumor. Eventually he ended up at Princeton, though, from which he graduated in 1879. He was in the Phil Kappa Psi fraternity, because that's what future powerful dudes do. I wonder if 19th century Princetonian frat dudes played Cornhole.

Old Woodlestein enrolled in law school at the University of Virginia after he graduated, where he participated in glee club ("You don't deserve the power of Madonna.") and debating. Unfortunately, he had to drop out after a year for some unspecified health reasons.* He moved back in with his parents, now in North Carolina, to recover and continue studying law. He passed the Georgia bar eventually and set up a fledgling law practice in Atlanta. Soon however, Wilson realized that the lawyering business was a little too practical for his taste, so he enrolled in graduate school like a true neurotic. In 1883, he earned a Ph.D. in history and political science from Johns Hopkins University because apparently he is my ex-boyfriend from college. Two years later, Wilson married Ellen Axson, also the offspring of a minister, with whom he eventually had three daughters. Ellen died in 1914, once Wilson was already in the White House, but Woodyface became the first president to be (re-)married while in office when he hooked up with Edith Galt a year later. Supposedly Edith Galt was a direct descendant of Pocahontas, which means she probably looked something like this.

Wilson's hobbies including driving cars (totes hated the earth), baseball (because he was boring), biking, and playing golf because he's extra-boring. Apparently during the winters of his presidency, the Secret Service would paint golf balls black so Wilson could practice his swing on the snow-covered White House lawn. He played something like 1,000 rounds of golf (on proper courses, I assume) during his eight years in office, which means he was almost as prodigious as George W. Bush at doing things besides Being President while president. In grad school, Wilson learned German, which I imagine came in handy while he was, you know, fighting the Germans. Eventually he got a teaching position at Princeton. His academic work talked about how parliaments ruled and U.S.-style legislatures DROOL! Wilson was appointed (elected? who cares, I'm not going to check) the president of Princeton in 1902. Woodrow Wilson was NOT  popular administrator. See, he wasn't really into the whole aristocratic culture of that Ivy League school he went to and now was president of, and tried to abolish the "Gentleman's C," which GWB would NOT have liked. At the time, former prez Grover "Sesame Street" Cleveland was one of the elite Princeton trustees who were pissed about Wilson's elitist anti-elitism. By 1910, though, Wilson had moved on to the presidency of the American Political Science Association.

Wilson continued his streak of unpopular executive decisions when he got elected Governor of New Jersey that same year and immediately moved to deconstruct the state party machinery. Then he decided to run for POTUS. His "New Freedom" campaign was good enough to triumph over the mess in the Republican Party in 1912, which was split between bathtub enthusiast incumbent Taft  and the Jay Leno-esque third term seeker Bull Moose MAN Teddy Roosevelt. So due to their spectacular failure to unite behind a single candidate, the Republicans lost the presidency for only the second/third time since (Cleveland again, he is confusing) before the Civil War. Also, Wilson was America's first Doctoral President! It's just him and fake president Jed Bartlet. Wilson was all anti-trusty, and held the first modern presidential press conference in 1913. He kind of shut that shit done during the war, but for a while he actually took live questions and answered them extemporaneously. He signed into law the Federal Reserve in 1913, and did a bunch of shit with economic issues. He wanted to try and "mediate" the European situation AKA World War I, or the Great War as it came to be known in those days (it would have been awfully pessimistic to call it that in the first place), but they weren't having it. Despite earning large proportions of African-American votes in places where blacks weren't murdered for trying to go to the polls, Wilson didn't care so much about civil rights issues. He pretty much reversed himself a shit-ton of platform issues like people do when they get elected.

 You do NOT want to lose your wallet with this inside!

In 1916, the Wil-man ran for reelection against another white man I'm too lazy to look up. His campaign motto was "He kept us out of the war," which is kind of funny considering, you know, the future. He barely won reelection, and the outcome was in doubt for days. So kind of like 2000, but slightly less sketchy. Anyway, by April 1917 there had been that Lusitania nonsense and the U.S. entered the "war to end all wars." There was fighting in Europe and scary stuff with German submarines, blah blah blah. In anticipation of the close of the war, Wilson proposed his famously infamous 14 Point Plan. He wanted to have a peaceful postwar and to set up the League of Nations (the weak pre-U.N. that failed because the anti-Wilson Republican U.S. Congress refused to ratify the country's membership). They did give Wilson the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, besides the ultimate failure. Apparently they just hand that shit out if you try hard. Wilson embarked on a speaking tour that year to promote the League of Nations, when he suddenly had a stroke. His wife Edith became his "steward" or go-between for official business, effectively meaning that she was probs the president for awhile. CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS! Anyway, after he left office in 1921, Wilson retired to his home in Washington, D.C., which is a museum, which I should totally visit one day. He died in 1924 and was buried in the National Cathedral (been there, bitchez). There is now a Princeton Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs kiss-asses and try-hards can go to. In 1929, his face was printed on the now non-circulating $100,000 bill. Luckily we have electronic money transfers now so we don't have to worry about people absconding with those particular sacks of money. Wilson's anti-isolationist and pro-international community and interventionist shit was not recognized as genius by politicos and wonks until the Cold War, when they used "Wilsonianism" to justify every military incursion into every third-world country evs.


*Isn't that the reason they give when Mormon dudes can't go on/come home early from their missions, but really means they are depressed or slutty or gay?

The President talks about Afghanistan, I contribute nothing

Live bloggin, bitchez! 8:01, right on time. A crowd of cadets is even more boring to look at than a crowd of congress costumes. The prez is getting grayer these days. 9/11!! Why does Barack Obama love Islam so much? NATO apparently works. "The decision was made" to start the war in Iraq. Nameless sources of decisionry. Go ahead and clap for yourselves, uniformies. Who consults with allies? Wimp. Watching Sarah Palin talk is way more entertaining. 30,000 new friends to the Afghan people are on their way! Hillary Clinton, woot! Giving Pakistan nuclear weapons was, like, an awesome idea. He is so freakishly good at talking. JEALOUS. No blank checks anymore! Best movie ever, BTWs. Mr. Macintosh? Waterslide from inside the house? Remember? Afghanistan has cancer! Also, Pakistan. Maybe we should try some visualization techniques to shrink the tumors. PAH-ki-stahn. Tah-li-bahn. But Afghanistan is pronounced normally. These is totally not Vietnam, you guys! McChrystal has a very colorful uniform and a terrible haircut. HRC's hair is looking nice. Eisenhower quote! "We failed" = George Bush sucks! Let's be nimble like Jack and watch out for the candlestick of diffuse enemies. Why does Barack Obama hate America's awesomeness at nuclear weapons? FDR reference! Um, sorry Mr. President, but America don't make mistakes. I've become obsessed with trying to spot the interpreter for the deaf. I keep just seeing security guys standing in front of the stage? Does West Point no admit the hearing impaired? Let's all get united! Why is the president's being made up of fibers? My being is made up of liters of vodka.

I contemplate why this comic would never happen

Is anyone else confused about this timeline? According to something actually reputable I read here on the internet, smallpox vaccinations were routine in the United States until 1972. Up until then, it was recommended for all children at the age of one. So technically a person born in the U.S. as late as 1970 or 1971 could have been subject to routine vaccination. That would be make said person nearly forty years old now. And while, obviously, it is possible for a forty year-old or younger person to be a grandparent if they had children young and so did those children even without having gotten pregnant while technically still in high school, I do not think this is usually the demographic Pluggers is meant to represent (they're supposed to be OLD). Also, which "war" would we be talking about in this case? The Persian Gulf War? I'm pretty sure that never happened. Let us consider a different timeline. When someone asks "Grampa" about the "war," I myself think of World War II. Both of my grandfathers served in the Navy during that conflict, and one of them also served in Korea. I know a bit about my maternal grandfather's war experiences in the Pacific mostly because my mother is both nosy and a gossip, which I love and is incredibly valuable in picking up family history tidbits. However, I NEVER would have asked my grandpa about the war or where he got a specific scar. Maybe that's because we don't talk about personal things in my family or maybe because I'm pretty sure I was never in the room while he was shaving because that would be weird and we don't do that and also my grandparents are all dead. But really, to be a WWII vet, this dog-man would have to be, at the youngest, about eighty years old. And if his family reproduced later in life, he could perhaps have a grandson about eight years old or so (I'm guessing from this illustration, I don't actually know how Plugger men-beasts age). But do eight year-olds know much about WWII? Maybe if they watch the History Channel a lot. I mean, I remember reading stuff about the Holocaust in about fourth grade or so, so I'm not really sure. But would a child of that age really have a good conception about what it means for a man-dog to go to war and possibly be injured, and transfer that association to his own family member, when it happened several decades before his birth?* But what is probably most likely in the generational timeline featured here would involve a grandfather who served in Vietnam, in which case, unless you are the grandchild of great American Hero John O'Neill who I know way too much about and who just can't stop talking about Vietnam, I don't see a kid knowing that much about it. See, even in my AP U.S. history class in high school, we covered the Vietnam War by reading a couple chapters and watching some TV specials about the sixties or something. Because, you know, it was all controversial and we lost our national manhood by losing there and blah blah blah. Not as many heroic movies made about it. So what I'm saying is, what child of this age would be all cognizant of all those issues listed in the WWII example and connect them to their own grandfather who probably doesn't really want to talk about "the war," if anyone ever mentions it at all? These are the various assumptions I'm bringing to the table here about why this scenario is unlikely in the first place. Also, Gramps' response doesn't really make sense. And it's not funny. Also, dogs can't get smallpox, though they can go to war. *I will concede that if a Plugger-child were to have an immediate family member CURRENTLY serving in one of our current overseas military clusterfucktastrophes, he or she would likely have a better grasp of these issues than the average child.

Andrew Jackson: Old Dick-ery, if you know what I mean

You're an Indian and no one's completely disenfranchised you yet? Here, let me take care of that.

Andrew Jackson is one of our country's most beloved asshole-presidents. He displayed many of the qualities so admired in people of the masculine persuasion: blind prejudice and racism, sleaziness, gun-savviness, general douchebaggery, aggressively violent tendencies, a terrible temper, and a complete inability to comprehend a situation in which he might be wrong. Even a little bit. Born in 1767 in what is now North or South Carolina to a Scots-Irish immigrant mother (his father died shortly before he was born), Andrew was the youngest of three brothers. I'm sure Andrew Jackson was always so naturally manly that not having a father and having two older brothers to compete with abuse him act as shining examples and also being super-skinny his whole life never made him feel like he had to prove his masculinity constantly. Andrew Jackson didn't have much formal schooling because he lived out in the sticks, and besides, reading is for girls. At age 13, Andrew became a courier for a local regiment fighting in the Revolutionary War. He and his brother Robert were captured and held as prisoners of war. He developed a great hatred towards the British during his captivity, as the enemy forces starved him and his brother and also infected them with smallpox, of which Robert died while still a prisoner. Andrew had a temper even then and got slashed with British blades for refusing to shine somebody's shoes:

Apparently the war somehow also finished off his mother and other brother, so 14 year-old Andrew Jackson was left to fend for himself. He worked for a bit at saddle-making, then teaching, and eventually studied law as all good incipient assholes do.* He passed the bar and began working as a country lawyer in North Carolina. He practiced "frontier law," which is superior to prissy citified law because it deals with land disputes and drunken assaults and the like. He took part in the Tennessee Constitutional Congress in 1796 and was elected as a U.S. Representative once statehood was achieved. Then the next year he was elected U.S. Senator by the legislature, but he resigned after a year or something. U.S. Senate: BORING. Not enough "rough-and-tumble" for the likes of Andrew Jackson. So from 1798 to 1804 he served on the Tennessee Supreme Court, which I assume regularly held court in a rustic cabin and each of the justices wore the most luxurious of coonskin caps. Also during this time Andrew Jackson bought his plantation The Hermitage, where he eventually owned over one hundred human people! In 1790, Andrew came to be acquainted with a lady named Rachel Donelson Somethingorrather, who was separated from her asshole husband.** The ex was like, "Yeah, we're totally divorced now," so Rachel and Andrew got married. Turns out, not so much. The Jacksons were fake-married--que scandaloso! They got real married in 1794. They adopted one of Rachel's nephews and named him Andrew Jackson, Jr. and also a eventually a Creek orphan boy named Lyncoya who died of tuberculosis before he could fulfill Jackson's manly military aspirations for him. Apparently they also served as guardians to eight other children who just happened to be orphaned relatives. Which is, like, a lot. 

But huzzah! Life on the frontier can't be all fun and frippery sitting on the legal log bench and keeping black people like animals! No, there were Indians about. Indians who were, for some weird reason, not so pleased about the white settlers stealing all their lands and generally hating them and killing them and whatnot. Andrew Jackson was appointed a colonel in the Tennessee militia in 1801, the beginning of his illustrious military career. He led the fight against Tecumsah's forces during the Creek War sub-war to the larger War of 1812. Under his command at that time were other professional historical manly men Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. He helped screw over the Creeks with the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which pretty much stole 20 million acres of land from its native inhabitants. He was then promoted to the rank of Major General! He totes became an American military hero while commanding forces against the hated British in New Orleans. Supposedly he was all "tough as old hickory wood," which sounds less like a good nickname than a reason to visit a dermotologist to me, but whatevs, I didn't live in the 19th century for a reason. Jackson continued his Indian screwing-over career in Florida during the First Seminole War. At that time, President James Monroe was like, "Yeah, you should keep Spanish Florida from being a runaway slave refuge, and also, if the Indians and/or Spanish give you shit well, you should, like, *cough cough* you know." Anyway, Old Barkskin took that to mean that he should burn down Seminiole villages and crops, depose the Spanish governor, execute British allies of the Indians, and become Florida's military governor for a while in 1821. 

At some point the Tennessee legislature appointed him to be a U.S. Senator again, but he only stuck to it for like a year, and then ran for President in 1824. Jackson got a plurality but not a majority of the Electoral College votes, the election went to the House of Representatives, and in what Jackson would later call the "corrupt bargain," JQ Adams was ultimately elected. Anyway, Jackson teamed up with snazzy dresser and political strategeryist Martin Van Buren and they revived the old Democratic-Republican party as the Democratic Party, leading to a decisive win in the 1828 presidential election for Jackson with creepy, creepy John C. Calhoun as VP.

Pre-bargain 1824 election shenanigans. Explanatory notes.

But not before JQ Adams was like, "Your wife's a bigamist!" Which, as you'll recall, was true. And also which really pissed off Jackson, because he was devoted to his wife and was willing to defend his property her honor in up to thirteen separate gun duels, in which he was injured several times and once killed a man. But whatevs. It's not like he had an anger problem! He was just really romantic! But he was all popularly elected and the like, was nicknamed "King Mob," invited the public to the White House's inaugural ball, and also had access to incredible amounts of cheese. Rachel's poor health finally failed soon after the election, and she died before her husband made it to the White House. He was kind of upset about that. His niece and later his daughter-in-law would serve as White House hostesses in Rachel's stead. Andrew Jackson was against the Second Bank of the United States (fuck you, Alexander Hamilton!), and did everything in his power to abolish, including taking all the government's money out of it and making everybody have lots of physical coins on hand and blahblahblah whatever Congress censured him in 1834, and he totally caused the Panic of 1837. Andrew Jackson had interpersonal communication problems, and had some issues within the administration and eventually just started keeping his advisors in a tiny kitchen cabinet or something like that. Also, John C. Calhoun (a supreme asshole in his own right), was like, "Federal tariffs are oppressive, the Southern states are just going to not do them, mmkay?" Jackson attempted to solve the Nullification Crisis by threatening to send federal troops into South Carolina to force them to enforce the tariffs, which went over really well and resulted in Martin Van Buren's ascendency to the Vice Presidency in Jackson's second term in Calhoun's place. Fuck "states' rights."

But being POTUS isn't all fun in games, people. Sometimes you have to use your power and position to fuck over more Indians and remove them from their native lands so that more white people can live there. What was that? They tried to "civilize" themselves by giving up their native cultures and assimilating to mainstream white culture? TOO BAD: TRAIL OF TEARS AND BTW, FUCK YOU, SCOTUS. Also, during his terms of office, Andrew Jackson was assaulted by some guy and also was the victim of an incredibly unsuccessful assassination attempt by a dude who thought he was King Richard III of England.

I AM A MAN ON A HORSE, DAMMIT.

Anyway, Jackson anointed Van Buren as his successor and eventually died of chronic TB, dropsy, and also heart failure (he was REALLY dead) at The Hermitage in 1845. Many equestrian statues, cities, counties, parks, and federal monies have been dedicated to/are named after Andrew Jackson. Including the Confederate $1000 bill! He probably would've shot somebody over that, had he still been alive.

*I know some very fine non-asshole lawyers and law students, but I am saying it is a stereotype for a reason, people. If it doesn't apply to you, move along. 

**Her ex must have been, like, Joe Francis or Newt Gingrich bad if Jackson was a step up.

Andrew Johnson: Impeachably Lame

Did your wife teach you to read that book, eh Andy?

Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina in 1808. His father died when Andrew was very young, and his mother was forced to WORK as a seamstress or something or rather until she remarried. Little 'Drew had no formal education, and taught himself to read and write. His mother sold him off, by which I mean totally gave him a great opportunity as, an apprentice tailor. At age 17, Johnson ran away from this apprenticeship and worked as a tailor on his own. A year later, he married Eliza McCardle, who helped him along with his education and also taught him math. Andrew and Eliza eventually had five kids. The first four were born at nice two-year intervals, but the youngest one was, like, WAY younger. Little Andrew, Jr. was eighteen years younger than his closest sibling. SURPRISE! So apparently at some point Johnson decided that tailorin' wasn't his business, and he opted for politics. He became a Democrat (because it was the South, duh) and held a number of local offices in Tennessee. He served in the Tennessee State House and Senate, then the U.S. House of Representatives, as the Governor of Tennessee, and then eventually as a U.S. Senator. Evidently there was no one else in the state of Tennessee running for these offices. Either that or he was the best campaigner ever. Wikipedia gives me no evidence of such things, however; thus, it must not be true. While doing all that legislating business, Johnson would advocate for farmers and shit and try to get the government to not screw them over too much. I have a feeling not much else was going on in antebellum Tennessee besides farming of various sorts. So yeah, there was that whole, like, Civil War thing that was about to happen, and Johnson was an anti-secessionist. He was pretty states' rights-y, but was the only Senator from a Confederate state to continue to serve his term in the U.S. Senate. Which I'm not really sure is legal, considering that technically Tennessee had chosen to withdraw from the Union and you'd think that would/should prevent it from having congressional representation. But whatevs, they let him hang around. So, he became a War Democrat (as in, he was in favor of the Union's side of the war). Dear St. Abraham appointed Johnson as some sort of military governor of Tennessee in 1862, which apparently entailed trying to shoo out the Confederate forces and whatnot. He may or may not have voluntarily freed his own slaves in the summer of 1863. Generosity that knows no bounds, people. Anyway, apparently Abey McLincolnlogs had gotten bored with his super-sober first-term VP Hannibal Hamlin, and decided it best to recruit Johnson on for the 1864 wartime reelection campaign. Now, of course, Lincoln was a Republican, and Johnson a Democrat, but his Southernality and whatnot would be an asset to the ticket, so they made up some sort of "National Union Party" and won! Back in those days, as discussed in this incredibly well-informed and -written post, the Vice President was sworn in in front of the Senate. Some people claim that at the time of the inauguration, Andrew Johnson had "typhoid fever" and was drinking to numb the pain or something. WHATEVER, he was totes drunk and that is awesome and I bet it was the best speech evah. Don't deny your hedonistic ways, Andrew. Johnson was supposed to be assassinated along with President Lincoln, but the guys who were supposed to do Johnson, Grant, and some other folks in never followed through. So he became the POTUS in Lincoln's place after his death (Lincoln's, duh--though Zombie/Ghost President Johnson would have been pretty sweet and just what the war-torn nation would have needed). There was this thing called "Reconstruction" going on in the South because the Union Army had pretty much "destructed" everything down there. Also some nice luggage-carrying Northerners had moved down to Dixie to take over the governments and give black people rights. However, Johnson was like, "Hey, let's get on with it, this reunion of the nation thing" and totally tried to rush Reconstruction along when it's obvs that what America really needed was a nice, healthy Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but since it would eventually be black people's idea, they probably wouldn't have done it anyway. But so Johnson vetoed one of the first civil rights bills. Again with the boundless generosity!

Oh, that Freedmen's Bureau! But seriously, it's not like former slaves needed federal protection or whatever, anyway.

A.John was in a bit of a spot since he'd been elected by a nonexistent party. The Republicans didn't like him because he wasn't one, and since they were in power while the South still wasn't allowed to vote for shit, they didn't really allow him to do anything much. The Democrats didn't like him because he was supposed to be one but was totes a traitor to the South and went out with Lincoln and how do you think that made them feel when they saw those two together? What I'm saying is, is that he didn't have a lot of political support in Congress, or anywhere else for that matter. He was more lenient on the South than many (Republicans) wanted him to be and he ended up helping screw over freedman quite a bit. Some shit went down with conflicts about Reconstruction and whatnot, and Congress tried to remove him from office not once, but twice. The second vote, in the Senate, succeeded in impeaching the President but didn't have quite enough votes to remove him from office. So it was like one of those fun "nonbinding" resolutions they're always passing in Congress, like to declare something National Potato Week or to posthumously honor the victims of the Great Titanic-Iceberg Atlantic Showdown of 1912 that just make people feel better and really do nothing else. Anyway, Johnson hung in there, but ultimately couldn't get the Democratic nomination for reelection. Some other guy got it and lost to our drunkest bearded president: U. S. Grant. As a lame duck, Johnson granted Confederate amnesty on Christmas Day of 1868. He's like St. Nicholas or something, people, I swear. After leaving office, he tried to run for the Senate and House a couple times. Eventually he won a Tennessee Senate seat and served for a few months before he died from a stroke in 1875. Many people rank Andrew Johnson high on the list of worst presidents. This is probably fairly accurate.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Are Totally Pluggers (Slightly epic middle-of-the-night finals week procrastination post!)

This video's border is red in remembrance of the blood of Christ John Kerry this guy (ew, sorry). Hey, remember those guys? Well, apparently I can't do ENOUGH remembering! By which I mean, I didn't pay that close of attention back in 2004, at least not until we moved into our sweet campus-owned apartment with cable because one of our roommates was a Wheelchair-American who got sweet preferential housing treatment, but then we religiously watched Jon Stewart every night (and Colbert starting the next year when he got his own show). Although I did vote for Kerry Not Bush. Anyway, last fall I did a project for my War and Gender history class where I got all John Kerried-up and read about 509868976 biographies about him and got obsessed and then wrote a paper about how the Swift Vets totally used Kerry and 9/11 and gendered bullshit to remasculinize their images as Vietnam Vets. It was awesome. At one point, after far too many energy drinks and who knows how little sleep, I composed an impromptu tune called "John O'Neill Is an American Hero." Isaac still remembers it fondly, but my taurine-addled brain cells have only managed to retain a few lyrics that may or may have not gone something like this: "John O'Neill. John O'Neill. John O'Neill is an American hero. Also, did I mention that he gave a kidney to his wife? Yeah, John O'Neill. John O'Neill had a really extreme side part back in 1971. Yeah, John O'Neill. John O'Neill has a bizarre, lifelong obsession with taking down John Kerry. It's actually kind of creepy. By creepy I mean heroic." Anyway, the John O'Neill tune is in the queue for songs to be written as soon as this semester is over oh my god how is it not over yet? I am up reading, reading, reading about SBVT and the 2004 election and trying to figure out how to write a 10-12 page paper for my Theories and Methods of American Culture Studies class about this horrible awesome self-published victory lap book that doesn't just read:

Hahahahaha This book is full of quotes from random conservative blog commenters from 2004 and crappy screenshots from the group's own website. hahahahahaha (Chesnut, 2009). Scott Swett's name is like 'sweat' and he refers to himself in the third person throughout the book. hahahaha Did you know that the "nonpartisan" vets saved America from John Kerry in 2004 by utilizing* that Magical Series of Tubez everyone's talking about (SBVT, 2008)! .... Let's not talk about what happened to the conservative netroots in 2006 and beyond, even though this book came out in 2008. Ha. Ha. Ha. It's really good, I swear (Some Guy at Amazon.com, 2009).

I suppose if I write out the John O'Neill lyrics, that'd take up some more space. Anyhow, I'm going to go back to reading the glowing reviews of the book on Amazon after this and pretend it's legitimate research. You can wait, two more books about the 2004 election! It's only, like 3:30. Paper's not even due until slightly more than 36 hours from now. Duh. Anyway, now I will make fun of some Pluggers I recently picked out for the mocking. I just realized that John O'Neill is probably best friends with Gary Brookins, as Gary Brookings is also an American Hero who would give his kidney to his wife and also Tell the Truth about Lying Liberal Liars who don't understand Real Americans who wear flannel just like Jesus Intended:

Hahahahaha. Women's unpaid labor, right? Love it! Also, why can't anyone in this family find anything? Is it their bear(?) penises that prevent them from doing so, or are they all just too high (as per usual)?

This is because they hope someone will feel sorry for them and hook them up with a fresh prescription. "Oh, my HMO cut me off the pain killers because our plan doesn't cover it, and we can't afford a better one what with us being all working-class and salt-of-the-earth and OHMYGOD do you have any VICODIN?!" That's totally why Pluggers are so diehard in their support of privatized medicine; if we got a government plan, there'd only be one drug company in town: the U.S. Government. All the doctors and pharmacists would have access to the same computer records, and they'd have to try harder to game the system in order to fill their astonishingly well-documented and wanton drug addictions. Or, you know, learn how to use the internet. *Recently, I had a delightful professor tell me that this is a "puff word," and that I should just use "use" over and over again. Or a synonym of "use." You mean, like, "utilize"? This same professor wrote on the same paper--after having written "syntax" next to a number of sentences--"SYNTAX = SENTENCE STRUCTURE." REALLY? It DOES? If only I could go back and retake that semester of English Syntax I had while earning my bachelor's degree in linguistics. That would've really cleared a few things up. WHAT.EVER.

Double Disappointment of the Day

Tragically, many young Americans are now too fat for the Army. This combines two of my greatest concerns in this world: TEH OBESITY EPIDEMIC and fulfilling military recruitment quotas. I shake my fist at you, modern America! What would George Washington say if he had been able to talk with those wooden teeth he had to wear because of all the scurvy and malnutrition back in the day? (Jezebel)

DDE: Looks like a Roman numeral, but is actually a U.S. President!

Eisenhower training tank troops during WWI, where he never saw combat or left the U.S. Much like WWII, where he became a hero without ever going to the front lines.

Dwight David Eisenhower (born David Dwight, but switched at West Point, just like Ulysses "not Ulysses" Grant) was born in 1890 in Texas. He grew up in Kansas, the third of seven sons, which is a lot, in a Jehovah's Witness home. His mother used to be a Mennonite before that, and later used the Eisenhower family home as the local Kingdom Hall while Dwight was growing up. He and most of his siblings left the church as adults (they don't like the "war" or the "patriotism" so much). He got his nickname "Ike" after being appointed to West Point. His ancestral last name, Eisenhauer means "iron worker" in German. Interestingly. After graduating from WP and marrying Mamie in 1916, Ike trained tank crews in Pennsylvania during WWI. The future president had dreams of becoming a pro baseballer when he grew up, but sucked too much even for the West Point team, and got into football instead, which he later coached. Ike served for awhile in the Panama Canal Zone, and on some battle monument commission, and in the Philippines before WWII. Apparently, Dwight D. became, like, an awesome general and saved the world during WWII. Then he was in charge of some stuff in Germany and then later became the Grandmaster Super Supreme Commander of NATO (and the World). There was an effort to "draft Eisenhower" in 1952, when he got the Republican nomination despite no previous public service experience, and beat nerd and perpetual loser Adlai E. Stevenson in the presidential election. During his term, Ike helped expand Social Security and instituted the Interstate Highway System. Hooray, road trips!

Super-creepy smiling buildings and elephants love Ike, too!

Eisenhower had his own DOCTRINE. It involved intervening to prevent the expansion of COMMUNISM!!1!ELEVENTYONE! to decolonized third world states. Ike-ity Wike also supported the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, helped push for the implementation of integration in D.C. schools, supported early Civil Rights Acts in Congress, and of course, intervened in Little Rock with the National Guard in 1957. He also appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, but I don't imagine he really knew what would come of that at the time. Alaska and Hawaii became states during his presidency in 1959. Hooray! He was the first U.S. President "forced" out of office by the newly instituted presidential term limits. He kinda sorta supported his VP Nixon in the 1960 election, but apparently that was not helpful. Up until 1949, Ike smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. That'd be totes expensive with all the taxes we put on that shit these days. He suffered from Crohn's disease, which one of my cousins has, and really sucks (the disease, not the cousin). In 1957, Ike had a mild stroke in the Oval Office after which he suffered from a speech impediment. He died from heart failure at Walter Reed in 1969, probably right around the same time they last updated their facilities, and was buried in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas next to his son David, who had died from scarlet fever at age 3 in 1921, and later his wife Mamie. They also had another son, John who lived to adulthood and whose son, Dwight Something Something David, went by David. Camp David is named after this grandson, who later married Julie Nixon. Yeah, that Nixon. Their children probably have presidential superpowers of some kind with all the red, white, and blueblood flowing through their elite veins. The Gettysburg home Ike and Mamie retired to after his presidency is now a national historic site. He was featured on a $1 coin 1971-78, was awarded a bunch of medals and awards, and has a 36-hole golf club named after him at the USAF Academy and is apparently one of DoD's awesomest golf courses. I'm so glad that my tax dollars pay for that shit. Dwight D. Eisenhower! Five out five-star general, like a great restaurant or movie! He was in charge during America's time of super-awesome political and economic ascendency and presided over that whole awesome 1950s Golden Age of Sexist Stereotypes and Postwar Consensus culture. Hooray! Who doesn't like Ike? Am I right?

Still awake at 8:00 a.m.: random ramblings

Since returning from the west coast homestead, I have been hit with a nasty bout of insomnia. No, not the kind where you can't sleep at all, but the kind where you can't go to sleep until some ungodly early hour of the morning like somewhere between 6:00 and 8:00 a.m. But then I don't get out of bed until 4:00 p.m., and I'm sure the caffeinated alcoholic beverages I hold so dear don't help matters much. I've taken to coming out to the couch to read so as not to disturb the slumbering boyfriend (or sometimes reminding him that he has his own house). Doesn't seem to be working today. Maybe I'm just super-excited that we will be doing a real-life tour of a presidential museum tomorrow (AKA this afternoon)! Have I mentioned that Isaac gave me this awesome 3-CD set, Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies, which is pretty much the best idea ever, if nothing else. I haven't gotten to volume 3 yet, but so far I really dig the songs about Tyler, Taylor, and Arthur. God knows I love me some obscure one-term nineteenth-century presidents! Gaza's burning. So, that's awesome. On BBC news on PBS earlier, we were depressed/unsurprised to learn that not only are the vast majority of casualties civilians, but the Israelis won't let more doctors and humanitarian workers in to help. Luckily (somehow-dear lord, seriously?-STILL) President Bush ♥ Israel! So we're totes not going to do anything until they're good and done defending themselves. In other news, apparently the Frankenmeister has probs won the Minnesota senate race. Douchebag McColeman's gonna sue, but hopefully that won't pan out.

"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?

Semi-Live Blogging of Sarah Palin's RNC Speech

I turned on the TV and saw Sarah Palin givin' a little speech to the RNC. And I decided to respond to some offensive shit while it happened for you to read later. ALMOST-LIVE-BLOG! Apparently John McCain has "sheer guts." How about "sheer ambition?" A better name for a celebrity scent, though, eh? Her son is named Track? But she's down with him getting shot at in Iraq because McMaverick is "exactly the kind of man she wants as Commander-in-Chief." Republicans are bad at chanting "McCain." Her children have terrible names. Have I mentioned this? BTW: Cindy McCain looks like the fucking Grinch. Is her baby's name "Trig?" Like trigafuckingnometry?!! That's worse than fucking Tagg. Standing ovation for children with disabilities. The future Second Gentleman is a world champion snowmobiler or something. He has single-handedly destroyed Alaska's wildlife. Before ANWR drilling! OMG Cindy McCain is terrifying. People in small towns are both more honest and harder workers than anybody else. "They're always proud of America." Always? HOCKEY MOM (dogwhistle--esp. in Minnesota).* "I guess a small-town mayor is kind of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." FUCK YOU SARAH PALIN. Also, we should all start telling working class people that they bitterly cling to guns and religion to their faces. SAN FRANCISCO (dog whistle) She's not a member of the Permanent Political Establishment. Six months only gets you a provisionary membership card, dontcha know? John McCains mother looks confused. And I don't care how old she is (113?), that jacket is a no-no. Cindy McCain looks like a Disney villain. She is always wearing something ridiculous (and expensive). Republicans want to challenge the status quo? Really? Motherfucking pearl necklace. Of course. She put the "luxury" governor's jet on ebay? Alaska has a surplus? Alaska has 15 citizens. But she fucking loves vetoes. Blahblahblah gas pipelane blahblahblah "energy independence." "Dangerous foriegn powers!" IRAN (dog-whistle). TERRORISTS. VENEZUELA. AMERICANS, OWN GAS, GAL FROM THE NORTH SLOPE OF ALASKA. Ow. My ears hurt. American American American American. Barack Obama sucks because he's only authored two memoirs. Lazy bastard. Apparently we should all be claiming victory in Iraq. Still. OMG Cindy McCain just smiled and part of my soul just died. Barack Obama is Captain Planet. America needs more energy. America needs to fucking go on an energy diet. Also, reading suspected terrorists their rights is a WASTE OF TIME. Besides, the only people who can translate the Miranda Rights into Arabic are gay, so it's probably for the best. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Small businesses. Way to mention Ohio, SP. Small farms in Minnesota. Barack Obama wants to raise your taxes, apparently for no reason. And no one will benefit. "Our nominee doesn't run with the Washington herd." Also, he advocates violence. Boo Harry Reid. He doesn't like McCain, so we should. MAVERICK. Blech. "The American Presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery..." AGH!!! CINDY MCCAIN BROKE MY TV!!@@! John McCain was in the military blahblahblah he has a bigger penis than anybody else in America. Except Cheney (this goes without her actually saying this). P.O.W. journey. (Cut to old Minnesotan WWII vet nodding.) They showed a black guy! He looks skeptical. Is he a cameraman? That ho just blew a kiss to a war veteran. Standing ovation! Another black guy. He's totally about to cry. He may be an actual delegate. People who have been tortured are apparently better qualified for everything. We should probably just take everybody at Guantanamo Bay and have them take over a few government agencies. Amiright? JOIN OUR CAUSE. JOIN OUR CAUSE. Cindy McCain is next to Giuliani. A creepy combination, to say the least. A commentator called her a tough cookie. Fuck that noise. "She certainly did talk to small-town America." Okay, I have to get away from these commentators before they dive into the spin room. Also, I need to do some reading for my pop culture class. We'll see how that goes. *I got to help explain the concept of dog-whistle politics to my communications professor tonight. It was awesome. Also, I said so much smart shit about Marx.

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.

Ulysses S. Grant: America's Greekest* General-President

I've got a lot of respect for a guy who was a lifelong adherent of rocking the three-piece-suit + beard combo. Doesn't he look dreamy in his Union officer uniform?

Ulysses S. Grant was actually named Hiram Ulysses Grant, but some douchebag wrote his name wrong while nominating him to West Point, and the military insisted that he now be officially known as that. Lyss (as he was called as a child) was born in a log cabin in Ohio. He fought under future prez Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War, in which Grant showed heroism, but later he was like, "Yeah, that was kind of an unjust war. Too bad we did that. Also, slavery: not really that cool." At some point, Grant was married to a Julia Boggs and they had kids with silly names like "Buck," "Nellie," "Jesse," and "Fred," which maybe aren't all that silly, but taken together sound like they could be some of the Dukes cousins or something. But anyway, Grant was assigned for a while to (dum-dah-dum-DAH!) Fort Vancouver AKA the biggest thing in my hometown/destination of many a school field trip growing up. He couldn't support his family out west, though, so he just hung out and got drunk. Some say that's why he suddenly resigned from the army in 1854 (he got in trouble), others say it was depression. I say, are these two mutually exclusive? Hello! (points to self)

He moved to Missouri to work on his in-laws' farm. They had slaves. That made him feel pretty awkward, and he was not a very good farmer to boot. Then the Civil War happened. Grant re-joined the army and took on the recruitment and training of volunteers. He led some troops, gained the nickname "Unconditional Surrender," and started getting sent cigars by adoring fans. Apparently he had an amazing grasp of militiary strategery, and helped turn the war in the Union's favor. President Lincoln promoted him, like, a bunch of times until he became the General-in-Chief, which is like an Editor-in-Chief, but with more killing. Blahblahblah lots of bloody battles, eventually Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant and hooray! the war ended (a few weeks later once everybody finally got word to stop fighting). Unfortunately, Grant's biggest fan, Lincoln, was assassinated (SPOILER!), but Grant served as one of his pallbearers. He didn't get on too well with default-President Johnson, and was chosen as the Republican nominee for President in 1868. Apparently he appealed to veterans--can you say, "Waving the bloody shirt?"

As the youngest President to that date (age 46), he did his best with the whole "Reconstruction" thing, trying to secure blacks' civil rights and such. He also made Christmas a national holiday. THX for legitimizing Jesus' birthday, U.S., BTW. Re-elected in 1872, Grant did an okay job as President, but there was a bit of a currency crisis during his presidency, and lots and lots of scandals. Grant also helped push the whole Gilded Age spoils system (James A. Garfield has so many people to thank!). After going on a post-presidency world tour with his wife, he lost the nomination to Garfield in an attempt at a third term (serves him right for being greedy, eh?) in 1880. Then he went bankrupt. Then he got throat cancer.** Luckily, Mark Twain (with whom he apparently shared a love of Old Crow bourbon) offered to pay him $$$ for his memoirs, which are supposed to be really good. Then he died in 1885 of that whole cancer thing. Luckily we keep his memory in our hearts by naming lots of streets after him and putting him on the under-used $50 bill. Oh, and supposedly he was tone deaf.*** U.S. Grant: giving alcoholics everywhere a reason to dream.

  *Grant was not Greek. His parents were both of English descent. Apparently they were just creative with his middle name. 
 **Goddamn cigars. 
 ***See Wikipedia for this and every other fact contained in this post.

Linkin' some shit

Sometimes the tubes send me presents. Sometimes these presents involve smart people blogging about the same things that I blog about (more smartly than me, obvs): -I read this sweet post by Shark-fu on that "colorblindness" nonsense I discussed in yesterday's edition of "Shut up, Joe Soucheray." Choice quote: "I know that people think that saying they don’t see color is an enlightened statement, but it strikes me as bullshit." Pretty much. What I hear you saying is.... (Shakesville/AngryBlackBitch) -More directly related to the fist-bump: Melissa McEwan reports on hilarious "terrorist fist jab" claims. Kudos* on finding a way to use Sacha Baron Cohen in a post. Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch Part Forty-Goddamn-Eight. (Shakesville) -Anna McM tackles the whole "WTF is fat now a moral issue?" issue that I touched on last week, especially in reference to the conflicting messages expressed by talk show moguls/role models like Tyra and Oprah. But seriously, watching TV during the day can be a serious punch in the jaw** as far as realizing how much media/advertising/capitalism is tied up in the construction and reinforcement of gender stereotypes. One commercial break during a soap opera or talk show is enough to lower my self-esteem like 3.2 notches. At least. Good things come to those who weight watch. (The Hand Mirror) -A nice review and analysis of one of my recent favorite movies, Teeth, by Matthew Leavitt. Teeth // Is your vagina protected? (Gender Relations at Waving Hand) And some stuff you should read because it'll make you smarter: -Of course, now I'm going to have to add Nixonland to the pile o' stuff I need to read. The book's author, Rick Perlstein, discusses some of his key research: letters to a liberal Democratic Senator from Illinois from angry Chicago-area constituents about local violence over civil rights issues. The conservative backlash of the 1966 election is starkly spelled out in these voters' writings. The Meaning of Box 722. (Blog at Campaign for America's Future) -Especially now with rising rates of self-harm among soldiers trying to avoid having to go back to Iraq, I was particularly interested in the reports that 20% of U.S. military personnel are on anti-depressants (not to mention rising suicide rates). God knows I'm a huge proponent of the happy-making drugs, but it is kind of unsettling to think that they're being used to keep people who are struggling with depression and other mental health issues in combat. Not only is that sketchy in and of itself, but the fact remains that everyone reacts differently to different drugs, and without proper follow-up (which it sounds like military doctors aren't equipped to do in this setting), you don't really know what the effects will be on the people taking them. The whole thing just makes me sad(der). Um, war: not really good for anyone involved. America's Medicated Army. (D.W. Pine at TIME) *I started typing "mad props," but I thought it might come off like I was Joe Soucheray, trying to use the kids' "street language." **I don't care if this isn't a regular metaphor people use; I'm using it.