If you could have any president in American history for our next president (the two term rule being waived), who would you choose, and why?
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- Kirby Olson
- Upstate, NY
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21 comments:
Teddy Roosevelt.
He would shoot the corporations AND the protesters, nuke any country that sneezed, and annex Canada--all within 15 minutes of being inaugurated.
Teddy For Life.
Another question might have been: you could be someone else in all of history for ten minutes. Having been that person, you can remember what it was like to have been them. You want to write a history of Napoleon? You could be him for ten minutes. You wonder what it was really like to be Lawrence Welk? You could see. You want to find out why Hannibal didn't attack Rome? You could check. You want to feel what it would be like to be Poe and write the Raven? Off you go.
But you only get to be one person, and only for ten minutes. After that though you get to remember what it was like to be that person.
I'm not sure if you should get to choose the ten minutes. What if you wanted to be Lincoln as he gave the Gettysburg Address. Wouldn't that rob Lincoln of the experience? Maybe you just get to be Lincoln, and then the ten minutes are a question of the roll of the dice. What if you asked to be Lincoln, and were only Lincoln as a baby, being washed in a basin? That would be pretty useless.
GM confuses me, since he seems to like Teddy because he'd be violent against people, corporations, and countries... And GM's supposed to be virulently anti-violence.
Right?
I'll go with Grover Cleveland, the only president elected by securing the support of the Mugwumps.
since when do we take gm
all that seriously
i've always thought he was a bit of a clown
o but then kirby
what if we could transcend the confines fo time and intersect the eras as in perhaps imagine ginsburg interviewing lincoln for ten minutes imagine him being real pointed like pressing lincoln on the ggggg i can't een say it ggggggg ggg g g g ayaya gg i can't say it can't type it sorry you know what i mean what if some queer dude jsut accosted lincoln and said i want to make slurpy on your chest hairs then write a poem about it wht would lincoln do
my mother thinks i have too much time on my hands
she may be right
well this is what steve jobs has left us
we can work all this out on the screen
we are children of the screen
tap tap tap image image image
wow wow wowo
half thought hal though h tho
a soma in time saves nine
i'd vote for john f kennedy
that guy needs another chance
deep seeded vicious american anger killed him dead
one more time for john f kennedy
no wonder this country is so messy it's a culture that squanders and munches on and digests and shits out its ass the best and the most beautiful we make monsters of them and then assassinate them and that we call entertainment
bring back the friggin mugwumps
jh
TR would be hilarious. The country needs the kind of kick-in-the-balls jolt he'd give it.
And Brett: the state isn't a person. Engaging in violence is what a state does. I think we are called not to participate in the that violence.
JH: nyuck nyuck nyuck
As far as people: if I can't be Jesus I'd be Dante, Aquinas, or Dr. Johnson.
Well, a state isn't a person - but the state is comprised of people, and its laws and decisions affect people, and when it declares war it's a declaration made by people that means real people will go out and kill other people.
People people everywhere!
And in the past you've used your whole peace thang to denounce war at pretty much every turn -- This is the first time I've gotten the 'it's okay for the state to do it but not the individual' line from you, as opposed to more of the 'all war is bad' line that's the principle for your whole Lincoln-was-a-terrorist soapbox and similar stuff ya' said.
I wondered if GM wasn't just joking about the government's possibility of doing anything decent?
George Washington. We need someone who remembers the whys and wherefores of our country's founding. Plus we need someone who can rise above the politics and see the bigger picture.
From Wikipedia:
"The unanimous choice to serve as the first President of the United States (1789–1797), Washington presided over the creation of a strong, well-financed national government that stayed neutral in the wars raging in Europe, suppressed rebellion and won acceptance among Americans of all types. His leadership style established many forms and rituals of government that have been used ever since, such as using a cabinet system and delivering an inaugural address."
I especially like the phrase:
"presided over the creation of a well financed national government that stayed neutral in the wars raging in Europe."
I think we could use a little of that now, even though the wars in Europe today aren't physically bloody, just monetarily and rhetorically bloody.
And if I could be someone for 10 minutes I would chose John or James. Not Peter. Don't think I could live with the burdens. But I would give anything to have seen Jesus at some point in his ministry, any point. Close up and in person.
Toddler and Hubby are both asleep, and that means I get a small chance Ato post.
Kirby, how can you be so prolific in blog postings with 4 kids??? I only have 1 (ok, maybe 2 counting hubby) but I have zero time for stuff like this.
Wendy
Aye, but G.M. can be hard to pin down - when someone argues as sincerely and seriously as he has from the sometimes-ridiculous positions he's taken, it's difficult to see where on earth a joke could begin and end.
That being said, I'd be cool with Bill Clinton being president right now -- We need someone with fiscal discipline, and he's the only pres. of the past 30+ years to show it.
(Though H.W. wasn't all bad there).
Washington et al. would have to spend the entire four years figuring out what the hell this facebook stuff and communism are.
I'll go with Calvin Coolidge, who could with some facility read Aeschylus, Cicero, and Dante in the original languages.
(And who presided over the executive branch of government with prudent restraint.)
Silent Cal was unlike our current Pres, who's apparently monolingual in spite of his privileged Ivy-League education, but who's not embarrassed to chide other monolinguals for their want of foreign languages.
Didn't talk and spin us to death like Obama. Modest. Frugal.
Silent Cal.
Cal's my favorite president after Lincoln. I've meant to read his autobiography, which is apparently wonderful. Have you read it?
No, Kirby, I haven't, but I'll try to get it next visit to the public library. Thanks.
Coolidge didn't spend nor did he interfere with the robber barons and speculators as they led the country into the Great depression. Probably one of the worst presidents in US History--Woodrow Wilson while not perfect had read the classics as well (--and modern science and economics--and not always blessing laissez-faire) was quite superior to the likes of Coolidge and Hoover, as statesman, and...man.
Cleveland married the daughter of a deceased client whose estate he had managed as a lawyer. They were married when she turned twenty-one during his first term in office. Prior to that he'd been a confirmed bachelor, though he did have one child by a woman who was unsure of the paternity as the woman also had relations with two of Cleveland's law partners, both of whom were married. When Cleveland failed to win reelection to a second term the first lady informed the housekeeping staff at the White House that she would see them all again in four years when her husband became the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms in office.
I never answered Wendy's question as to how I have time for posting. I just like it I think. I do have four kids and run them all over two counties for activities, but they are relatively large, compared to yours, Wendy, and relatively therefore independent. Plus I feed off of the conversations. I don't have a very normal social life. I have a few friends, and enjoy seeing them, but really like to write to people, especially those who think differently from me, so I can laugh. I like to laugh at the way people form thoughts. It's not as if I am mocking them. I just think the whole process of ideation is hilarious. However, I also do have to get to work.
The one person I would really love to be a for a few minutes is the poet John Suckling. I love that guy. He's one of the funniest strangest poets and we're not sure about his death. He may have taken poison in Paris after failing in a coup attempt during Cromwell's reign, or he may have died in the Spanish Inquisition, or he may have had a treacherous butler, who killed him shortly after the coup attempt.
I wouldn't really enjoy the pain of the final ending, but right up to that point is what I would like to experience.
One of the things we haven't really settled on in this exercise is how much we would glean from the person we chose to be for ten minutes. If you were Shakespeare for ten minutes presumably you'd pick up his knack for playwrighting. If you were Hannibal, you'd go and lay seige to the closest big city.
Obama may be able to speak conversational Indonesian. He lived there until he was 12. At 12 most of us could speak English fairly well.
Here is a list of all the presidents and their linguistic abilities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_Presidents_of_the_United_States
One of the most amusing is Garfield. He could apparently write in Latin with one hand and in greek with the other (he was ambidextrous). We could do that too if we were him for ten minutes!
If we were Jesus, we could walk on water and come back from the dead!
That would be neat!
I'm not certain that great physical prowess could translate so well as mental abilities. I doubt if I could punch like Joe Frazier, for instance, even if I trained hard for years. I doubt if I could even punch as well as Rocky Balboa. Or take a punch for that matter.
Plus, would we pick up bad habits, too?
What if we wanted to be Shakespeare, but then found out he was actually a child molester!
And became one, with all the proclivities and legal issues pertaining!
I guess this all goes under careful what you wish for!
In terms of bringing presidents back, I wonder if we could somehow equip them with what's happened since their decease.
Clinton is still youthful, as is the second Bush. But even Carter seems antiquated now. Imagine bringing back Franklin Pierce!
John Hanson was head of the Continental Congress -- only Lutheran to ever hold the top office.
We do have two Lutherans in this race -- Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann. I doubt if either will make it around the final turn. Bachmann might be the VP this round if whoever wins decides to make another mistake like the one that was made with Sarah Palin. Bachman is a tad more polished than Palin but is also from a religious group that is far outside the mainstream and yet she doesn't seem enabled with the ability to tailor her answers to her audiences as the Big O can do seemingly without a trace of conscience.
i think i'd be
rimbaud
or prester john
I mean, Cal Cool-edge is the only guy who really did keep us out of war.
But isn't TR hilarious?
Hilarious and effective--something we haven't seen since Clinton.
I like Clinton, but only if we can have Newt in control of Gongress again.
Carl Schurz and Mark Twain were charter members of the Mugwumps. They helped form the anti-imperialist league after the Project for the Old American Century invaded the Philippines.
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