Read Online Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun by Jeffrey Sackett - Free Book Online
Authors: Jeffrey Sackett
Tags: Humor
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anti-Clinton sticker: DRAFT-DODGING PHILANDERING POT-HEADS FOR CLINTON.
1996: Democratic sticker: HILLARY'S HUSBAND FOR PRESIDENT
2000: Democratic sticker: DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE BUSH IN 1988. WON'T VOTE FOR THE SHRUB IN 2000.
2004: Pro-Al Gore sticker during the Democratic primaries, referring to the disputed election of 2000: RE-ELECT PRESIDENT GORE.
2008: Democratic sticker: YES WE CAN.
2010: referring to the unfortunate condition of the country: NO YOU COULDN'T.
Another sticker: DON'T BLAME ME. I VOTED FOR THE OLD WHITE GUY.
Two final comments, the first from Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams, writing in the 1870s: "Any study of the American presidency from George Washington to Ulysses Simpson Grant disproves the theory of evolution."
The second is from Mark Twain, who, surveying the dismal procession of politicians, congressmen, senators, presidential candidates, and presidents during the Gilded Age, commented that, "The Government of the United States was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots."
VICE-PRESIDENTS
Â
Contemplate, dear reader, the following question: which of the following people were vice-presidents of the United States ? Elbridge Gerry, Hannibal Hamlin, Garrett Hobart, John Breckenridge, Charles Fairbanks, Schuyler Colfax, Garret Hobart, John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, or Alban Barkley.
Answer: all of them, which is why you have probably never heard of any of them. The vice-president (or, as our first VP named it in 1789, "His Superfluous Excellency") is only important if the president dies, which has indeed happened eight times (Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, F. Roosevelt, Kennedy), elevating eight VPs to the presidency (Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, L.B. Johnson.) And four vice-presidents (Van Buren, Nixon, LBJ, and G.H. W. Bush) were actually elected president on their own. But otherwise, the VPâs only constitutional role is to preside over meetings of the Senate, in which he has no vote unless there is a tie. (And you can imagine how often that happens!) FDR's first VP (Cactus Jack Garner) put it this way: "The vice-presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss." (The delicate and sensitive media of the age bowdlerized this into "spit.") And one journalist observed that âBeing vice-president isnât exactly a crime; itâs more like a disgrace, like reading other peopleâs mail.â
Â
Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, used to tell this joke: There were once two brothers. One went to sea and the other became vice-president. Neither of them was ever heard from again. The point, of course, is that the vice-presidency is usually a shortcut to obscurity. When, for example, the dynamic, reforming young governor of New York , Theodore Roosevelt, butted heads with the Republican political machine in his state, party leaders helped arrange his nomination for vice-president primarily as a way to get rid of him. Mark Hannahâs reaction when the assassination of McKinley elevated TR to the White House has been noted above.
Â
Though this is not generally known to most Americans, the Capitol building in Washington contains busts of all the vice-presidents, placed in niches in the Senate Chamber. (The vice-president, remember, is also the presiding officer of the Senate.) When Alban Barkley, Truman's VP, saw his newly placed image, he was upset by it. "They've carved me without my glasses!" he exclaimed. "I always wear my glasses. No one will recognize me, no one will know who I am!" His entourage was too polite and deferential to point out that, after his generation passed away, no one would know who he had been anyway, glasses or not.
Â
Upon learning of his election, our first vice-president, John Adams, lamented to his wife Abigail that, "The people, in their wisdom, have devised for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination
1996: Democratic sticker: HILLARY'S HUSBAND FOR PRESIDENT
2000: Democratic sticker: DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE BUSH IN 1988. WON'T VOTE FOR THE SHRUB IN 2000.
2004: Pro-Al Gore sticker during the Democratic primaries, referring to the disputed election of 2000: RE-ELECT PRESIDENT GORE.
2008: Democratic sticker: YES WE CAN.
2010: referring to the unfortunate condition of the country: NO YOU COULDN'T.
Another sticker: DON'T BLAME ME. I VOTED FOR THE OLD WHITE GUY.
Two final comments, the first from Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams, writing in the 1870s: "Any study of the American presidency from George Washington to Ulysses Simpson Grant disproves the theory of evolution."
The second is from Mark Twain, who, surveying the dismal procession of politicians, congressmen, senators, presidential candidates, and presidents during the Gilded Age, commented that, "The Government of the United States was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots."
VICE-PRESIDENTS
Â
Contemplate, dear reader, the following question: which of the following people were vice-presidents of the United States ? Elbridge Gerry, Hannibal Hamlin, Garrett Hobart, John Breckenridge, Charles Fairbanks, Schuyler Colfax, Garret Hobart, John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, or Alban Barkley.
Answer: all of them, which is why you have probably never heard of any of them. The vice-president (or, as our first VP named it in 1789, "His Superfluous Excellency") is only important if the president dies, which has indeed happened eight times (Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, F. Roosevelt, Kennedy), elevating eight VPs to the presidency (Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, L.B. Johnson.) And four vice-presidents (Van Buren, Nixon, LBJ, and G.H. W. Bush) were actually elected president on their own. But otherwise, the VPâs only constitutional role is to preside over meetings of the Senate, in which he has no vote unless there is a tie. (And you can imagine how often that happens!) FDR's first VP (Cactus Jack Garner) put it this way: "The vice-presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss." (The delicate and sensitive media of the age bowdlerized this into "spit.") And one journalist observed that âBeing vice-president isnât exactly a crime; itâs more like a disgrace, like reading other peopleâs mail.â
Â
Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, used to tell this joke: There were once two brothers. One went to sea and the other became vice-president. Neither of them was ever heard from again. The point, of course, is that the vice-presidency is usually a shortcut to obscurity. When, for example, the dynamic, reforming young governor of New York , Theodore Roosevelt, butted heads with the Republican political machine in his state, party leaders helped arrange his nomination for vice-president primarily as a way to get rid of him. Mark Hannahâs reaction when the assassination of McKinley elevated TR to the White House has been noted above.
Â
Though this is not generally known to most Americans, the Capitol building in Washington contains busts of all the vice-presidents, placed in niches in the Senate Chamber. (The vice-president, remember, is also the presiding officer of the Senate.) When Alban Barkley, Truman's VP, saw his newly placed image, he was upset by it. "They've carved me without my glasses!" he exclaimed. "I always wear my glasses. No one will recognize me, no one will know who I am!" His entourage was too polite and deferential to point out that, after his generation passed away, no one would know who he had been anyway, glasses or not.
Â
Upon learning of his election, our first vice-president, John Adams, lamented to his wife Abigail that, "The people, in their wisdom, have devised for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination
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