As American As Apple Pie

 

The gifted French writer, essayist, and philosopher, Francois Marie-Arout, AKA, Voltaire, was known for his wit, unconventional philosophy, and defense of civil liberties. Many quotes have been ascribed to him, but experts in literature constantly raise the question of whether he said or wrote all that he is credited with. 

One of Voltaire’s alleged quotes is “History is nothing more than a pack of tricks the living play upon the dead.”  Ironically, the very fact that historians cast doubt on the authenticity of the attribution of the quote, proves Voltaire’s premise.

Actor/comedian, Robert Wuhl, becomes a modern-day Voltaire as host of Assume The Position, an HBO special with a live audience of college students and amusing visuals. The program’s underlying mantra: “Stories that made up America and stories America made up.”  

In the latest Assume episode, Wuhl divulges information that may have been omitted from conventional studies of our American presidents. He contends that if you closely examine the lives of some of our past leaders, the Bush administration is not so different from those of former presidents—merely forgotten or suppressed, and let’s not forget, he says, that “lousy leaders are as American as apple pie.”

Little known facts emerge from Wuhl’s Assume 201 that parallel, labels of “the worst president ever.”  Our country’s 14th president, Franklin Pierce, for example, was a dark horse until author and friend of Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) wrote a biography on his college friend called The Life of Franklin Pierce. 

“Books were the media of the day,” Wuhl points out, and Hawthorne’s book catapulted Pierce to fame, portraying him as America’s savior, despite Pierce’s pro-slavery position and excessive indulgence in liquor. The book was released in August and by November, Pierce carried 27 of 31 states in the country.

Pierce, according to Wuhl (and several other sources) was such a bad president that he was the only incumbent who did not get his own party’s nomination for a second term. In addition, his over-indulgence in alcohol once resulted in a wild horse ride in which he ran over a woman, “thus becoming the first president to receive a DUI.”

By the way, Barbara Bush, mother of George W. and wife of George W.H., was born Barbara Pierce—a direct descendant of Franklin Pierce, thus bringing us full circle from one of the “worst” presidents in recorded history to another.

Aaron Burr served as the third Vice President of the United States and was so incensed with the inflammatory writings of Alexander Hamilton that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton, it is said, aimed high but Burr went straight for the heart.  He was arraigned for treason four times. Cheney’s shooting incident was, at least, accidental (or we assume that position.)

Millard Fillmore, America’s 13th president, who took over the Presidency after the death of President Zachary Taylor, did not smoke, drink or gamble (a values-oriented president by the standards of the time) but he left a legacy of ordering enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law and  ended his career heading the Know-Nothings, a party formed to oppose immigration, especially of Irish Catholics.

Warren G. Harding, 29th president, signed peace treaties which formally ended World War I but because of  multiple scandals involving others in his administration, Harding is ranked by most scholars as the worst President ever to serve. In fact, Harding himself is often quoted as saying, "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here." There is a rumor that he lost the White House china in a poker game.

And if American scholars feel Mr. Bush is verbally-challenged, consider these words uttered by critic H.L. Mencken about Harding:

"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; of tattered washing on the line; of stale bean soup, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.”  When Harding died,  poet E. E. Cummings said "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.”

I could be wrong but in the upcoming 2008 election, it is possible that we may have a woman and an African American on the same ticket.

But it won’t be the first time.

Victoria Woodhull, a white woman and suffragette, and Frederick Douglas, the famous Black abolitionist and orator were nominated for President and Vice President by Equal Rights Party in 1872. Woodhull was an outspoken supporter of sex education and free love. She ran a newspaper that advocated a woman’s right to vote, short skirts, spiritualism, vegetarianism, and licensed prostitution. Douglass, an eloquent speaker, writer and advocate for racial equality, was a freed slave and a self-proclaimed Republican.

The burning question I have always asked is “Who in his right mind (or left) would want to be president? Stewart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, answers part of it for me, saying “I fear we have confused power with greatness.” And though it’s been said many times, many ways, Gore Vidal put it best when he declared “Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.”

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
--Thomas Jefferson