Presidents Day

In honor of President's Day I thought I would toss up a post about my hometown one, good old Warren G. Harding...

Sure, Warren gets a bad wrap for running an executive branch full of scandal, graft, cronyism and blatant disregard for standing laws.  His presidency is often couched as the worst ever, by historians.  Plus he was kind of a sell out Republican, in a manner that sort of set the tone for the following bunch of yahoos, though they might be loath to admit it.

He wasn't all bad though...

The dude was pretty tolerant for his time, both racially and religiously.  First president to openly advocate equal civil rights for black folks, for example.  In a 1921 speech in segregated Birmingham, no less.
And, uhm, he liked a drink in the evening in spite of prohibition?
Reportedly, he was a fairly affable man...
He put lots of Ohioans to work, though usually through appointments to positions that they then used to steal/extort lots of money.  That may be a commentary on the nature on people from Ohio more than one on Harding, perhaps.

I don't know if my feelings for Harding are positive or negative.  I think his presidency bears semblance to our current national politics, honestly.  If elected, I could see Mitt Romney going into history as the modern Warren Harding quite easily.  That is a whole other ramble though, I suppose.  Harding's presidential story reads very much like what the current Grand Old Party is selling.


I grew up in the area where Harding did.  Lived life in the same landscape, in my formative years, in many of the same small towns Harding did.  I have seen family pictures of my youthful grandparents visiting the Harding presidential memorial, shortly after it was erected.  I have walked around that same memorial and through the house where Harding lived.  I also spent a few years working in the location of his death, in San Francisco.  Strange coincidence...


Anyway, it is Presidents Day.  Ponder what that means, 'cause I am not really sure any more.  Since we are entering into another absurd election season, think about what you want from a presidenct and how much of that you have actually gotten out of the ones whose terms you have lived through.
Alternately, you could just be annoyed that some people got the day off and you didn't/needed to go to the bank/needed to buy stamps.