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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe ghost of James Buchanan is celebrating.
Late at night, in the bowels of the White House, a spectral meeting is taking place. It's the weekly poker game of the ghosts of James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding and Richard Nixon. The Worst Presidents Ever.
"What do you think, gentlemen?" said Buchanan as he cut the cards. "Do you think this Trump will be joining us soon...? You know, I'm no longer the worst president ever. All the historians think he's the worst and he's not even dead yet."
"I expect he might be, what with this bug that's going around," said Harding. "You know, I've been getting grief now for almost a hundred years for my corrupt administration but we were a bunch of Boy Scouts compared to him. It'll be nice to finally move down a couple notches on the Worst Presidents list."
Nixon lit an ectoplasmic cigar. "When I lived here I did have a few problems. It's nice to come back and haunt the place but I hate to see it occupied by such a bunch of low-life grifters. Shit, I never made a nickel off Watergate."
Buchanan dealt the cards. Pierce looked at his hand and shook his head. "Crap, I never had much luck with this game when I was alive, either."
"I got impeached," Johnson said. "I didn't deserve it and I was acquitted. Trump got impeached and acquitted, too, but he committed more impeachable offenses than I ever even thought of. He's damn lucky this Senate had even less balls than mine did. Hell, all I did was try to fire Edwin Stanton. I kind of fucked up Reconstruction, too, but..."
"You were a terrible bigot," said Nixon.
"You should talk," Johnson replied. "I heard those tapes of yours. I wish I'd had tapes in my day."
Fillmore sipped his spectral whiskey and remarked, "Harry Truman once said I was a 'weak, trivial thumb-twaddler who would do nothing to offend anyone.' I'm still not speaking to him. But at least I was never a fucking Russian spy."
Nixon said, "We were all shitty presidents. But when Trump arrives I don't think I want him in this game. He'll cheat, for one thing. And he's an asshole."
Buchanan said, "Not only that, but he'll bluster and brag. The man has no class. I don't mind if that little Bush fella joins us someday; he's dumb and he's probably a terrible poker player but he knows some good jokes. By the way, Dick, you were an asshole, too."
"When Bush comes maybe I'll get to win once in awhile," said Pierce.
"Let's have a toast to me. I'm no longer considered the worst president in American history. Trump's got me beat by a country mile. I look like fucking Abe Lincoln next to him," said Buchanan. At that moment Abraham Lincoln briefly materialized and said, "No, Jim, you really don't," and vanished just as quickly. Buchanan sighed and muttered under his breath, "Damn, Abe still thinks he's all that..."
"I fold," said Pierce. "Trump. What a dick. He's already turned out to be way worse than any of us ever were. We merely sucked. He's....."
Nixon said, "That fat fucker is a disgrace even to us, the worst presidents ever. I don't want to wait until he's dead to tell him what's what, since none of the Republicans are gonna do it. Honestly, even the ratfuckers who worked for me aren't as bad as these guys. Too bad about my old pal Roger Stone, though. You know, I don't even want to play poker with Trump when he croaks. We should haunt him now."
Harding replied, "Brilliant! Let's do it!" He tried to fist-bump Nixon, but because he was made of ectoplasm the gesture was futile.
And so the ghosts of the Worst American Presidents started appearing to Trump in various places in the White House. Pierce tried to moon him but because he was transparent the gesture was not very effective. Although they enjoyed slipping through walls and making obscene gestures, after awhile the ghosts gave up and went back to their poker game because Trump was going batshit crazy without their help.
Freddie
(9,231 posts)Is a nice day trip if youre in central PA (Lancaster). Very well preserved, guided tour by the historical society. Considering all the relatives and servants that lived with him the house is not all that big. Descendants of his nieces and nephews oversee the authenticity of furniture etc. Poor guy even lost the title of Worst President in History.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)I would say, though, that Andrew Johnson did deserve impeachment, and I have never been able to work up a good hate for Mr. Harding. He had a few redeeming qualities, especially compared to Wilson, who does not get nearly the credit he deserves for the ghastly events of the twentieth century....
StevieM
(10,499 posts)The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)I will try and keep it short, as it is late for me just now, and contemplating the wretch angries up my blood.
Most of the harm he did flows from the United States decision (his decision) to enter the Great War. Had the United States not done this, it is quite likely the European powers would have come to a peace of exhaustion by the end of 1917. The French Army and the Russian Army both had come to the point of widespread mutiny. The English and German Armies were not far behind, and the Italians and Austrian were in wretched shape. The promise of fresh American troops kept France and England upright and moved Germany to send Lenin to Russia as a sort of human missile, to clear their eastern theater so troops could be amassed for a last effort in France to finish things before fresh manpower from the U.S. arrived. Had Kerensky taken Russia out of the war in the summer of 1917, which without much Allied pressure he may well have done, or been forced to do by the soldiery, Lenin could not have contrived the Bolshevik revolution in the autumn. There would never have been a variety things, far too extensive to summarize here, which ensured the Great War, fought past the point of exhaustion, would spawn a second world war, and directly fed the terrible form in which it did come. Also omitted are social consequences of the prolongation of the Great War, such as the starvation in Germany under the blockade, and the consequences of carving up the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires.
The man's racism fed into all this. He accepted without reservation the idea that Bolshevism was a Jewish plot, aimed at punishing the Czar for pogroms and ensuring victory for Germany, and guided by this view he sent U.S. soldiers to intervene in the Russian Civil War, at Archangel and in Siberia. This was a man who famously said 'Birth of a Nation' was history written in lightning, and who insisted negro employees of the Federal government be sacked, and no more hired. That should do to be going on at this late hour. Not a man to be remembered fondly, in my view.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...he was also clearly paranoid at the Paris Peace Conference, and greatly enjoyed exercising almost dictatorial powers both during and after the War--indeed, the closest thing we've ever had to a dictator. And had he bothered to compromise even a little, on non-essential points, he would have had his League of Nations. I have never understood the esteem which he's held by the Schlesinger school of liberal historians...
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)"God contented Himself with ten."
Sunriser13
(612 posts)Eventually traced to a military base in Kansas, then others throughout the country. Our soldiers carried it overseas. It quickly spread worldwide.
More combatants in WWI died of this flu (H1N1) than from direct war action, especially since younger people (20 to 40) were the most frequent victims. The horrible conditions the world's soldiers faced, as well as the civilians directly affected by war actions, compounded the problem.
Vogon_Glory
(9,084 posts)Very enjoyable.
If you wrote this piece, you did a fine job. If you got it from somewhere else, thanks for posting it anyway.
Capt. America
(2,477 posts)Brother Mythos
(1,442 posts)not fooled
(5,791 posts)like red don's presidency, but in a good way.
jg10003
(974 posts)As a navy officer in ww-2 he would play poker with the other officers during their off duty hours. By the end of the war he had amassed $8000 in winnings (over $100,000 in today's money). He used that money to finance his first run for congress.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,276 posts)Sunriser13
(612 posts)Kick
malaise
(267,804 posts)demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)he was horrid