I'll Buy A President's Day Alex

Hey peeps. It’s President’s Day. Whoopee Skippy eh? Sam and I are wearing our party hats and dancing with joy. Okay, let’s just serious up here a little.

According to About.com Presidents' Day is intended to honor all American presidents, but most significantly George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. 

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732. Lincoln’s birthday fell on February 12th. “Prior to 1968, having two presidential birthdays so close together didn't seem to bother anyone. February 22nd was observed as a federal public holiday to honor the birthday of George Washington and February 12th was observed as a public holiday to honor Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.'

In 1968, Congress created a uniform system of federal Monday holidays, voting to shift three existing holidays to Mondays. As a result, Washington's Birthday holiday was changed to the third Monday in February. But as usual, there was not a uniform holiday agreement among individual states. Some, like California, Idaho, Tennessee and Texas chose to name their state holiday "President's Day." From that point forward, the term “Presidents' Day” became a marketing phenomenon, as advertisers sought to capitalize on the opportunity for three-day or week-long sales.”

Now Sam and I don’t mean to make light of this important holiday, we just think it’s kind of sad that we celebrate the P-Day primarily by buying stuff. You noticed all the “President’s Day Sales” circulars in your Sunday newspaper right? It’s like our nation has set aside one day a year so our retailers can clean out all the junk they no longer want to inventory rather than celebrate our Presidents.

Sam and I wonder what it would be like if our presidents themselves cleaned out their garages and sold their junk to us? Let’s see, what presidents do we have alive today? Obama, Clinton, two Bushes and Jimmy Carter, right? By the way, are two Bushes worth one bird finger from the hand? Never mind.

Let’s just imagine for a mo, if you will, what our living presidents might want to sell us. We’re all pretty familiar with Obama’s offerings: universal health care, gun control, immigration reform and John Boehner and his Republican cohorts in a wheelbarrow (with rusty wheels).

My GAWD! Did you get a look at Boehner’s face during Obama’s State of the Union address? How do YOU spell stubborn and determined not to get along?

G.W Bush sold us a bill of goods that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. He sold us that “No Child Left Behind,” legislation (which didn’t seem to work so well). He sold us big tax cuts, which combined with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have almost left our country bankrupt.

The elder Bush sold us the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), which actually turned out to be a good thing. His administration tried to sell us the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which became law under Clinton and which to this day critics say screwed American businesses. If the elder Bush tries to sell you a used parachute, don’t buy it. He jumped out of airplanes with it on his 72nd birthday, 75th, 80th and 85th. How many more jumps does that thing have left in it? I personally ain’t wantin’ to find out.

Bill Clinton, that slick, silver-haired son-of-a-gun tried to sell us on the idea that he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or . . .. R-i-i-i-ght. He overturned the Reagan-Bush era restrictions on abortion (Hmmm?), tried to sell us Universal Health Care, de-regulated telecommunications industry and failed to sell us on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Jimmy Carter tried to sell us on the idea that he was going to return government “to the people.” He tried to sell peace in the Middle East but never convinced Iran to release the hostages it kidnapped. He did sell us airline industry de-regulation, which Sam and I are convinced has caused utter chaos in that industry. Carter also tried to sell us on the fact that a rabid rabbit attacked him one day and he had to beat it off with a boat oar. Anybody remember that?

But Carter also tried to sell us on the idea that too many of us worshipped self-indulgence and rampant consumerism, which provided us with false happiness. Could he have been talking about our current President’s Day sales do you think? Sam and I think so and we say three bags of poop on President’s Day sales. Besides, we’re both broke.

GOP Power Qwest Weakens US

Monday is President’s Day. Sam and I wonder what ol’ George and Abe would think of all the retail sales in their honor. Bet they’re ticked off that they missed out on the car sales because horses, as beautiful and noble as they are, can be a real pain in the butt, even with their leather seats.

Here’s an even bigger question. Do you think any of the current GOP presidential candidates will ever be worthy of a holiday in his honor? Not likely is it? I sometimes think we should have a holiday to honor Watergate though because that helped us dump Tricky Dick. But let’s not be so partisan. Nixon was Republican. In the interest of fairness, why not have a day to honor a Democrat too? We could call a Democrat holiday National Intern Affairs Day in honor (or would that be dishonor?) of Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. I don’t see why Clinton can’t be honored for “giving it up for his country.”

Sam and I thought it would be a good idea to read a little history regarding George and Abe. According to American History ala Wikipedia, George Washington “accepted the fact that it was natural for people to organize and operate within groups like political parties,” he also argued that other governments had recognized political parties as an enemy and had sought to repress them because of their tendency to seek power.

“Moreover, Washington makes the case.” Wikipedia says, “that the alternate domination of one party over another and coinciding efforts to exact revenge upon their opponents have led to horrible atrocities, and is itself a frightful despotism.”

Wikipedia says that “Washington argued that political parties needed to be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies among groups and regions, raise false alarms amongst the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they could impose their will upon our country.”

Right on George!

The seven Abraham Lincoln-Steven Douglas debates of 1858, when Lincoln ran for the U.S. Senate, have been called the most famous political debated in American history, but the present-day GOP debates sure are trying to outdo them.

Again, quoting Wikipedia, “Lincoln warned that "The Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. The debates had an atmosphere of a prize fight and drew crowds in the thousands. Lincoln stated Douglas's popular sovereignty theory was a threat to the nation's morality and that Douglas represented a conspiracy to extend slavery to Free states. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.

Right on Abe.

In the current GOP debates you don’t know from one day to the next who is going to destroy whom or who is going to say the stupidest thing of the night and wind up on the losing end of a state caucus the next day.

Sam and I hope the debates end soon. Three bags of poop on political parties fighting for power and seeking to exact revenge on each other. Like George said, that “provides foreign nations and interests (terrorists) access to the government where they could impose their will upon our country.”