PHOTO: Do these men look happy?
I wouldn’t want to be President. Seems like a lot of people end up thinking you’re an idiot.
So I have no idea why Americans feel compelled to celebrate ‘Presidents Day’. Just to rub it in?
Basically, I’ve never liked Presidents Day, from the git-go. A nd this year was a bad as the previous ones. The library was closed, the banks were closed, the post office was closed, the town hall was closed. What?… does everyone think the world should stop turning just because America decided to have a President instead of a King?
And also, I don’t like Presidents, from the git-go. Every one of them has left me disappointed. You, too?
Take George Washington, the guy on the one-dollar bill. Military hero, father of our country, the very reason we even have a ‘Presidents’ Day’ in the first place, because he happened to be born in February and the banks and post offices and libraries wanted an excuse for a three-day weekend.
Apparently, the American people in general — those who could vote — ended up hating President Washington. Near the end of his second term, he was so disliked that the House of Representatives voted against adjourning for 30 minutes to wish him well on his birthday. John Adams — who had the misfortune to be elected the second (unpopular) U.S. President — wrote of Washington after his death:
Too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation.
The famed revolutionary Thomas Paine wrote, in a letter to Washington:
The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
Ouch.
According to what I learned in high school, Washington was a slave owner, so it isn’t surprising that he helped write a Constitution that specifically legalized slavery — a really stupid decision that ultimately resulted in an American Civil War to undo the mess that Washington and his buddies created in 1787. Now, 236 years later, we’re still dealing with the fallout of a decision to officially define certain races of people as non-citizens.
Thanks, George, for nothing.
And Lincoln? Nobody liked him while he was President, including members of his own Republican Party. Republican Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan called him “timid, vacillating and inefficient.” Ohio Republican William Dickson wrote that Lincoln “is universally an admitted failure, has no will, no courage, no executive capacity … and his spirit necessarily infuses itself downwards through all departments.”
Lincoln’s commanding general, George McClellan, called him “a coward,” “an idiot,” and “the original gorilla.”
Ouch.
Let’s face it. We don’t much like our Presidents. Joe Biden’s approval rating looks to be about 42% this month, which is about the same as the average approval rating for Donald Trump. Barack Obama averaged about 48%.
Now, I’m not claiming to be liked, myself, by a lot of people. I suspect my approval rating among people who know me well — like, my ex-wife Darlene — is probably around the 42% level.
But then again, I’m not the President, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.