President Warren G. Harding was a damn freak

I agree.

What's even more ridiculous is the tomb the man we're talking about has. Harding has a giant tomb in Marion.

Image from Wikipedia:

 

True story, Buchanan is a distant, distant relative of mine, according to my uncle. Probably explains the shittiness of most of my posts.

 

Don't shortchange Rutherford Hayes. He is a hero in Paraguay. His birthday is a national holiday.

 

I think Buchanon was a prisoner of his time and age. Remember, he is the oldest or second oldest man elected Presdient. He and Pierce were moderate Democracts trying to negotiate with the younger, post-Jacksonian leaders who wanted to secede. Hence, both of them have bad reputations.

 

Buchanan was also almost certainly homosexual, which probably added another level of stress to the job.

 

I guess this thread is OK because Harding was a Republican.

 

"Don't forget about me. Non of those guys were impeached for
getting freaky with an intern.

 

I think this is a fair assessment of both Pierce and Buchanan. They were elected in a time when the Whigs were falling apart and the Republicans were in their infancy, hence they had no real opposition in the general election, but both presided over a badly-divided Democratic Party that was in the process of splintering over slavery.

Pierce's presidency was scuttled almost before it began when he and his wife watched their 12-year-old son die in a train accident on their way to his inauguration. He was never the same after that tragedy. Buchanan was a go-along-to-get-along guy who tried to walk a middle ground in the mounting storm, when there was essentially no middle ground to walk.

And here is a basic point that I think gets lost in 20-20 hindsight. America had muddled along on the slavery issue for more than three decades without it devolving into open hostilities, and Pierce and Buchanan probably believed if they just left well enough alone this issue would resolve itself in time.

An interesting sidebar is what might have happened in 1860 if the Democrats had been able to come together behind a single candidate. Remember, Lincoln was elected with well under 50 percent of the popular vote, so his presidency was not a slam-dunk, and of course, his election was the catalyst for the Southern states to secede. Would they have seceded if a Democrat had been elected? Probably not, but it almost certainly would have simply delayed the inevitable.

End of threadjack.

 

He also had the incredible bad luck of preceding one of the country's greatest leaders.

 

I remember one of my high school history teachers singing this little ditty about Harding, who was said to have illegitimate children.

"Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?"
"Off to the White House, Ha ha, Ha ha."

 

That was Grover Cleveland.

http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/ye-olde-sex-scandals-grover-clevelands-love-child

 

At least Clinton had the good sense to just get head. (For the most part, anyway.)