The Sexiest Presidents, or, James Madison Is Kind of Hot

Nerve magazine ranks the presidents according to their sexiness.

The top 5:
1. Theodore Roosevelt
2. John F. Kennedy
3. Barack Obama
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Franklin Pierce (which is kind of interesting I guess. It'll certainly be the only time Pierce is ranked in the top 5 of any presidential list). 

The bottom 5:

39. Grover Cleveland
40. Benjamin Harrison
41. Warren Harding (more on this in a second)
42. William Howard Taft
43. Richard Nixon (as if this wasn't totally self-evident)

Not to take this list too seriously, but the history is terrible. For one, Rutherford Hayes did not botch Reconstruction. OK, whatever.

But I do take umbrage at disparaging the sexiness of some of our presidents.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this.

Anyway, Warren Harding was a horrible president, but he was also a massive womanizer. Nerve claims, "He had a face like putty and a dour look only a banker could love. Also, his name was Warren. Unsexy"

The 1920 election marked the first time women could vote throughout the nation. And people openly wondered whether this hot young Warren Harding would win because of his sex appeal. They didn't use those words, but his attractiveness for the supposedly non-intellectual female voters made very serious commentators wonder whether American elections hadn't been permanently cheapened. 

Moreover, Nerve itself should know this, having placed Harding's affairs at #9 in the history of American political sex scandals:

Warren G. Harding (a.k.a. Warren G Unit) is the only president whose affairs led to the extortion of a major political party. To wit: his fifteen-year romance with Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a friend, who the Republican National Committee reportedly paid on a monthly basis not to erupt, bimbo-style. Once in office, Harding allegedly took up with one Nan Britton, thirty years his junior. According to Britton, Harding introduced her to a small closet in the White House, where they exchanged kisses and made sweet presidential love. Britton claimed to have had an illegitimate child by Harding as well. In 1923, Harding died unexpectedly from ptomaine poisoning. Rumors ran rampant that his wife, Florence, had poisoned him.

Almost as egregious is slamming on James Madison, who comes in at #34 with a single sentence dismissal: 

Sure, he's the father of the Constitution, but he was only five-foot-four. 

 That's like saying, "Sure, Prince can play some mean licks, but he is only five-foot-one." 

No. James Madison totally overcame the short men can't be sexy hurdle. And he did it because he was a freaking genius. The guy could speak like 6 languages, was widely seen as one of the most intelligent men of an era of very intelligent men, and had strong leadership skills. Women don't like this? Also, Exhibit A is Dolley Madison, who was considered pretty hot in her day. 

Sure, Madison might be a tiny little dude, but he was also magnetic to those who knew him, both men and women. 

So I don't mind that we rank presidential sexiness, but let's get our facts straight. James Madison was the Prince of the late 18th century.

And I guess Warren Harding was basically a decent businessman type who sleeps with his secretaries--like a much dumber Don Draper.

Note: While Harding's election was not the American cultural apocalypse many predicted, this post might be.

Worst. "Art." EVER.

I'm pretty sure this is what hell will look like.

And incidentally, I'd like to point out that Lincoln, the least "Republican" of these men in terms of what "Republican" actually means now, is the only one with his back entirely to us. Clearly, the artist was uncomfortable with his own lie that Lincoln and Reagan were of the same ilk (nevermind Nixon), and couldn't bring himself to make that association face-to-face.

And my favorite comment: "'But honestly, I really did care about the plight of the Negro' Lincoln said, as the room erupted in laughter"

I Hope Taft's Not On Top

The link is probably inappropriate for work, but artist Justine Lai is working on a series of paintings showing her having sex with the American presidents, in order of succession. She's as far as Grant I think. Here's her explanation:

In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.

I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that's strictly pornographic—the lurid and hardcore, the predictably "controversial." One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its "Fuck the Man" symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.

While I'm not really qualified to judge Lai's work from an artistic standpoint, I like the principle of it. Humanizing presidents is a valuable service, particularly the most mythologized. The painting of her and Lincoln is probably my favorite because of its shocking humanization of a man that seems so unlike us. It reminds me of the greatest bit in John Stewart's book, the pin the clothes on the naked Supreme Court justices. That was one of the most juvenile jokes, but also the most profound.

Via Tomasky.

Presidental Rankings

Noon says most all of what needs to be said about the C-SPAN presidential rankings. It's a pretty worthless exercise to begin with and when you include William Henry Harrison and James Garfield in your count, both of whom served less than a year, it's hard to take it very seriously. These lists also tend to glorify popular presidents over a realistic analysis of what these people did in office in the context of what opportunities and challenges they had. On top of that, most of the voters are presidential biographers and often love their own subject. It would be more useful I think to poll a bunch of non-presidential historians, but people who would take the job seriously.

A few points were interesting. George W. Bush starts out low at #36 and despite the claims of Cheney and the boys, he's just going to drop. That one of the presidents below him is Harrison is absurd and should just be thrown out. That leaves us with Fillmore, Harding, Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Buchanan. Fillmore and Harding were bad, but it's hard to argue they were as utterly disastrous as Bush. There are no doubt some conservatives on that list who are probably bumping Bush more than they should.

Wilson has taken a bit of a drop from the last poll in 2000, a direct result of Bush's Wilsonian foreign policy being shown as laughable as Wilson's was. That it's only from 6 to 9 reflects how little these rankings change at the top because of the iconic status of the presidents. Grant is a big riser, from 33 to 23. That's largely a reflection of his attempts to ensure African-American civil rights, which is all fine and good except that he totally failed to do so, that he allowed corruption to dominate his administration, and that he presided over the Panic of 1873 with very ineffectual results. Clinton is also on the rise, from 15 to 10, a nice slap in the face to Bush. I'm not sure I agree with this because on the economic front, many of the problems of the Bush administration started under Clinton. So I wonder how this will hold up in the long run. Still, compared to the last 8 years, the previous 8 look pretty sweet. Interestingly, John Adams barely moved, showing the limited influence of David McCullough to change people's minds. I actually think Adams was a somewhat better president than this, largely because he did peacefully give up power to the opposing party in 1801.

A couple of years ago, I did my own ranking of 10 best and worst presidents. Might be worth revisiting if I want to waste some time.

Worst President Ever?

With the long national nightmare finally ending, many commentators are again talking about Bush as the worst president ever. Here's Bernie Horn's argument.

I think I've discussed this before. And I still disagree. I know that 61% of historians say he is the worst ever, but I think they might be letting their current feelings get in the way of their analysis.

As bad as Bush was, and he was spectacularly bad, I can't say that he was worse than, at the very least, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce. These guys openly espoused policies that would knowingly tear the nation apart. And the Civil War started on Buchanan's watch. He did absolutely nothing.

There are the more marginal cases as well. Are these people better than Bush? Andrew Johnson? He undermined Reconstruction. On the other hand, at least he wasn't elected. Being an accidental president might make a slight difference. The same goes for John Tyler, probably the most despised president in history while he was in office. His decision to be the president of the slave power and his subsequent annexation of Texas set the nation toward the Civil War. Then there's Richard Nixon, who for all of the less than terrible things he did, permanently undermined the office of the presidency. Herbert Hoover was also really bad, but I feel he was more overwhelmed by the circumstances than malicious. I do like Alan Brinkley's comparison of Bush and Hoover.

So Bush exists in this group I think. Better than Pierce and Buchanan, but not necessarily better than Johnson, Tyler, Nixon, or maybe Hoover.

But one thing is for sure. Bush is far and away the worst president to serve for 8 years. The only possible person who might even come remotely close to this bad is Ulysses Grant, but I don't think it's that close.

O-Governance

With Barack Obama, the numbers are always astounding – I mean, they are not just a hair better than the other guy, a whisker away from possible defeat, a tad more than the precedent set last year. They are numbers that make you go wide eyed and open mouthed, fall off your seat in amazement: a $600 million dollar campaign, 1 million plus donors, 70 million votes, etc. The online campaign was no less impressive: 280,000 people created accounts on barackobama.com, over 6,500 grassroots volunteer groups were created, more than 13,000 off-line events were organized through it, and over 15,000 policy ideas were submitted.

And that was the campaign. Less than two weeks after the election, he’s moved on to governance. On his transition site, change.gov (following Sarah’s post below) the new administration is urging people to share their stories and voice their concerns. The Washington Post hails the forthcoming administration as the youtube presidency in light of Obama’s online video address to the nation on its aptly names Clickocracy section. And here’s Christina Bellantoni pondering what a big leap this will be from the current whitehouse.gov site.

The evidence is all there on change.gov. Dr. D.C. Misra, who has studied e-governance for many years, boils down the most noteworthy aspects of the strategies being debated by the new administration here.

Making government data available to citizens is a good start, considering the fact that we’ve had eight years of arguably the closest, most secretive government in U.S. history. These data include federal grants, contracts, and the now infamous earmarks. Taking this one step further, and getting ideas from the people on issues of daily concern to them might be a proposition. London’s mayoral office did such a thing last year, in conjunction with the police department, and harnessed the power of the people to create “crime maps.” The U.S. could also take a page out of the playbook of New Zealand’s government, which is doing some truly groundbreaking stuff through wikis – what could be a better example of distributive government than urging people to change and edit laws online?

The new administration has certainly expressed an interest in actually listening to the people – not to private conversations through wiretaps – but to get ideas and suggestions on policies, bills, and proposed legislation. The British Foreign and Commonwealth office started a similar exercise last year, where it invited ideas and suggestions on foreign policy from civilians. That sure would have been helpful for the Bush administration; now, if only Dubya could log onto the Internets.

The appointment of a chief technology officer was mentioned by Obama several times on the campaign trail, and was probably his biggest selling point among technology geeks (not to mention the fact that our future president might actually be capable of checking his own email), and the site elucidates on the roles of such an appointee: overseeing an interagency effort to ensure that all departments use and share the best technology practices. We could get lessons from our northern neighbor, who has been conducting a government technology conference these past two years to get top officers from various public sector departments to enhance the workings of “Government 2.0,” as they call it.

Change.gov’s emphasis on network neutrality had me drooling – not allowing Internet Service Providers to bias Web searches by privileging some sites over others would reinforce open competition on the Internet. The new team also outlines an ambitious plan for next-generation broadband, which if implemented, only portends good things –I don’t have to rely on my studies in technological crowdsourcing (though it helps), to conclude that the one thing hindering the democratic nature of Web-centric participation is the seemingly insurmountable digital divide. People are willing to contribute toward society’s common good (isn’t Obama’s election proof enough?) as long as you provide them a way to do it. The fact that Obama understands how huge this problem is and wants to do something about it sure is comforting after eight years of a president who was clearly on the wrong side of the divide himself.

Regardless of whether these strategies achieve true citizen participation, or allow civilians some role in the legislative process, they are certainly steps in the right direction. E-governance has been implemented in several different countries and I’m curious to see it in the U.S., where the Internet probably has a greater and more widespread influence than anywhere else. Talk of next generation broadband makes the possibilities truly endless, allowing a distributive Internet junkie like myself to smack her lips in anticipation.

(cross-posted)

Does Experience Make a Good President?

One of the big themes of this campaign has become experience, both of Obama and now of Palin. In Karthika's post and comments below, this is a major point of interesting debate.

But does experience matter? To what extent should experience matter when deciding the presidency? Do more experienced politicians make better presidents?

The answer seems to be a resounding no. It just doesn't seem to matter. Some of the most experienced politicians elected president have been disasters while some of the least experienced have been among the most successful.

Look at some of the experienced leaders who became president:

Herbert Hoover--an international hero because of his work against starvation in World War I. He became Secretary of Commerce under Harding and Coolidge. The ultimate Washington insider and considered by all to be a very experienced choice for the presidency when he won in 1928.

Richard Nixon--there are personal issues here of course, but no one can question Nixon's experience. But that experience, which in fact suggested the kind of issues the nation would later face, did not prevent him from being one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Yes, he accomplished some things both domestically and internationally, but he also personally created the cynical nature of modern politics.

George W. Bush--need I go further? 2 term governor of Texas, so he had that "executive experience" everyone talks about. Yeah, that turned out well.

And let's think of inexperienced presidents who were very successful. I am talking here about success on their own terms, not on whether we can look back upon what they did with pride.

Abraham Lincoln. This alone should kill the experience theme. One of the least experienced people to ever take the office. He seemed to do a pretty good job.

James K. Polk. Also a pretty inexperienced politician on the national stage, but he got every single major goal of his accomplished in his one term, even if that included waging a war with Mexico to steal half their nation.

Theodore Roosevelt. I hate Roosevelt with a passion, but he was a reforming guy who took power after McKinley was killed. He was incredibly successful in almost everything he did and helped create the modern regulatory state. There was nothing in his background suggesting he would a successful national politician. I think he spent more time ranching in North Dakota than holding elected office before he took power.

John F. Kennedy. Perhaps the best parallel to Obama. He was a nationally known Senator, largely because of good media relations. But he was young and inexperienced too. I think Kennedy is a really overrated president, but he most of what he set out to do, or was on the way to doing so when he was killed.

So I just don't think we should be focusing on experience as any judge of future success in the Oval Office (or in the VP office for that matter). There is just not enough evidence to make any call one way or another as to whether experience will help any particular politician make the right decisions for the nation, get legislation passed, or have a successful term in office. Experience could certainly be a selling point but a lack of experience can be an equally compelling reason to cast a vote for someone.

Thus, while it might have made OK political sense for McCain to attack Obama for his lack of experience, it is not an argument that should sway people. Moreover, there are many reasons to attack Sarah Palin. She is an corrupt, power-abusing, secessionist extremist who wants to deny you the right of choice that she claims her family just exercised. And Palin is unusually inexperienced, though less so for the Vice-Presidency. But her lack of experience really rings hollow as a line of attack, particularly when she has so many other, more salient, vulnerabilities.

Historical Image of the Day

John Tyler

Historical Image of the Day

James Buchanan, worst president in U.S. history