Widow-Stepmother: Even though he is gone, you can certainly refer to me as Mom!

Stepdaughter: Are you kidding me? You sat behind me in 8^th grade French!

(L&O last night, I think?)

GEORGE WASHINGTON

JOHN AVLON

The original Founding Father, George Washington, is remembered as enduring example of character and virtue—and so we often assume that he was similarly respected by contemporary countrymen. But when our first president presided over the shaky young republic, newspapers like the Aurora (edited by Benjamin Franklin’s grandson) obsessively attacked him, calling on Washington to abruptly resign the office while declaring that “that the mask of political hypocrisy has been alike worn by Caesar, a Cromwell and a Washington.” Washington’s one-time ally Thomas Paine turned on him in vicious fashion after the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, writing, “the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any.” Pamphlets published by early partisan opponents like William Duane denounced Washington’s “tyrannical act,” ‘Machiavellian policy,’ and “monarchical privilege.” The former general of the Continental Army was unused to being attacked in the press with such impunity, and he proved to be surprisingly thin-skinned, complaining in one last letter to Thomas Jefferson that he was being slandered “in such an exaggerated, and indecent terms as scarcely be applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a common pickpocket."

Mr. Avlon gets on my nerves but not so much the last year or so.

I think the right wing of the Republican Party finally got to him.

Anyway, back to Ole George.

Our First President was THE RICHEST MAN in America at the time for two good reasons.

First he married the richest woman in America, which helps.

Second, he made a living (originally) as a surveyor working for the Colonies and the Brits and used his knowledge and contacts to purchase the choicest lands he came across in that professional capacity.

Like Mitt Romney, George was a slave owner, but my point here is that the more things change the more things remain the same!

Just as in the beginnings of this great nation, the rich controlled everything!

Now Avlon's historical squib makes some good points, including the fact that Ben Franklin's grandkid was one of Washington's most vociferous critics. Hahahahah

And Thomas Paine was not that happy about the course of Washington's Presidency either!

POST MORTEM

 

[2] Accurate insomuch as he did share their ideology, but not accurate to the point where he publically endorsed Federalism. His timeless farewell address, after all, warned of partisanship. And since that speech also warned against running up a national debt and messing around in other countries’ business, you can see that we took our first president’s words straight to heart.

•  

JOHN ADAMS

I had thought that Adams I had been a shoo-in for the 1796 election. But as soon as George W was saying his bye-byes, Jefferson put his hat in the ring?

A nice essay on the 1796 election here.

Besides pursuing the first Patriot Act in 1800, Adams was pissing off a lot of folks in his own party during his presidency.

Much like today’s primary campaigns, the partisans went to work against a member of their own party. Hamilton circulated a letter entitled “The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams.” In it, he relentlessly maligned Adams as a Federalist, president, and man, even calling him “unfit” for the office (3 a.m. phone call, anyone?). Hamilton’s blistering assault of his president was meant for a closed circuit of Federalists. This, however, led to another familiar modern facet of presidential politics: the leak. Soon, Republicans across the country obtained copies, further hurting the President’s chances at re-election.

•  

Adams' retort:

President Adams, of course, was furious. “Hamilton is an intriguant,” Adams told a cabinet member, “The greatest intriguant in the world—a man devoid of every principle—a Bastard.”[2]

I have a bad memory at times but I swear to The Almighty that I have never come across the epithet intriguant during my entire 63 years on this planet? Wonderful word, really! On the other hand 'bastard'; now that is a word I am well familiar with.

Now I still kind of like old JA. I mean he was the first non slave-holding President and he certainly was not the richest man in America.

But the guy knew nothing about politics and he had no love for the Bill of Rights as far as I can tell. Of course few Presidents really gave a damn about the Bill of Rights anyway.

But the Federalists, as much as they despised JA, really, really detested Jefferson.

To combat the claim that the Federalists were too “British” in their approach to a strong central government, Federalists characterized Jefferson as a “Jacobin,” implying that Jefferson endorsed radically anarchistic French acts such as those during France’s “Reign of Terror” of the mid-1790s. One Federalist claimed that Jefferson was “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squad, sired by a Virginia mulatto father, raised wholly on hoe-cake made of coarse-ground Southern corn, bacon and hominy, with an occasional change of fricasseed bullfrog.”[5] The Columbia Centinel in Boston started a series called “The Jeffersoniad,” which repeatedly scrutinized “the crooked character and principles of the Jacobin PRETENDER to the Presidency.” The sixteenth in the series highlighted Jefferson’s “insatiable ambition,” “contempt for commerce and commercial men,” “gross tergiversation and inconsistency,” “departure from his old principles,” “rooter antipathy to the Federal Constitution and his fixed determination to overthrow it,” and his “deadly opposition to Great Britain, and his violent and ridiculous attachment to France.” Most pointedly, the Connecticut Courant warned that if Jefferson were elected, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will all be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with 

• crimes."

Burr's hand in the 1800 election.

The only point of this post is to underline that Americans have hated Americans for a long, long time...decades before our Civil War.

The Cruz's and the Gohmerts and the Trumps and all the other nutso's that are now part of America have always been here.

I mean Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will all be openly taught...hahahahaha (I can read this type of diatribe in the Wall Street Journal for chrissakes!)

Were dems as bad in their vitriol against GWB as the right wing bastards are currently in their vitriol against Obama?

I probably was, although I never questioned GWB's birth certificate or his religious tendencies (although I certainly questioned his motives in maintaining that God was on HIS side!).

Hell, my hero Al Franken called for GWB's impeachment all the time—although I did question this advocation since Cheney would have been made President.

The fact is that Americans love to hate.

Now, everything is relative according to Einstein.

I mean Europe as an entity was involved in hundreds of wars perpetrated by its constituents against its constituents over the centuries; at least ours was 'Civil'.

We lost six hundred thousand folks in our Civil War.

Europe lost hundreds of millions of human beings over the centuries!

CONCLUSION?

My damn keyboard was on the fritz for ten days or so and so I am just happy to type again. hahahahah

So I am a little late for this Presidents Day celebration. hahahah

But my conclusion is that this MELTING POT always has hated, does hate and will continually hate its constituents.

And there is not a damn thing we can do about it.

the end