BS: How Many USA Presidents?

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 04:25 AM

*Agree*, BrooklynJay. In our house, "politics" is a four-letter word.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 01:24 AM

Born during the Eisenhower administration.

Refuse to talk politics unless I have an airsick bag within reach.

Jay

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 07:02 AM

He was so long-winded he was annoying.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 03:05 AM

Fourteen presidents for me. I missed FDR by 7 months.

I think it's odd that the list of presidents says "Bill Clinton" when his real name was William Jefferson Clinton. I met a man not too long ago who said his job before retiring was taking notes and making a record of presidential speeches. He said Clinton was the best and clearest speaker of them all. It's funny, but I can't remember how I encountered that man. Few of my acquaintances are in presidential circles.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: gillymor
Date: 17 Jul 23 - 09:06 PM

Gotta be Taft, he was a corpulent duffer.

Subject: How Many USA Presidents got stuck in the bathtub?
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jul 23 - 08:47 PM

How Many USA Presidents got stuck in the bathtub?

Only one. He was also a golfer

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 02:48 AM

It's been downhill all the way since then.

Wot? "Since" you were born? You said it PAL.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Neil D
Date: 13 Jul 23 - 01:28 AM

LBJ thought he was a nice guy "but he played too much football with his helmet off.”


I wish I could remember who it was that said Lyndon got it wrong. It wasn't that Gerry played without a helmet: it was that he played center so long he got used to seeing the world upside down.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 10:58 PM

Living in the South (capital S) I've learned a few terms. Like "bless her heart" being just the opposite of what it sounds like. And "hot mess" as a way to describe something that is too awful to spend much time on. Trump is a hot mess. So was Johnson. I have an idea that it refers to something like offal - the steaming insides of an eviscerated animal. My interpretation. :)

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 08:22 AM

Trump was not the first president to deny election results and claim victory.
Most recently chalk that up to W Bush using the Supreme Court.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 07:57 AM

Oh I agree that Johnson was not a person we needed, but I never heard the term 'hot mess' apply to him. I suppose it's just one of those shorthand ways to say what I would probably take an entire paragraph to do. ;>)

(Maybe "A piece of work"?)


"Hot mess is used to describe a particularly disorganized person or chaotic situation."

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 09:24 PM

Andrew Johnson was a hot mess and it's just as well he wasn't.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 06:46 PM

Jerry Ford was sworn in but NOT re-elected. So was Andrew Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 06:08 PM

Maybe this belongs in the Tavern of the Bewildered, but
I recently joined in on a conversation
in which one person was not certain about Lyndon Johnson,
because ... what was it?
He was sworn in but not confirmed?
The rest of us tried to tell this one person that
after all, Johnson was elected to one term of his own,
but noooooo.
Some people are stubborn in their bewilderment.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 03:42 PM

I'm on my 12th, not counting those who were re-elected. Count those in and the score is 19.5.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 07:54 AM

I'd always heard it as "crybaby" but turns out HST actually called Oppenheimer a "son of a bitch" but cleaned it up in the retelling.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 07:48 AM

correctomundo

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 07:36 AM

C

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 06:33 AM

Which President said after speaking with a nuclear scientist "I don't ever want to talk with that cry baby again"?
A. Trump
B. G.W.B.
C. Truman
D. F.D.R.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 05:31 PM

I remember when Roosevelt died. I was 6, and standing beside my mother in the railroad yard in Dalhart, Texas, where we were living in a railroad 'outfit' car. An engineer came up and said something to my mother, and she started crying. I didn't understand it till many years later when I thought about it and asked her. So, I guess it's 15 presidents for me also.... even though I hate having to list the one before this.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 12:39 PM

A number of Nixon's henchmen were tried, convicted and sent to prison while Tricky was allowed to resign without facing trial and with full post-presidential benefits, which are very generous. I guess Ford didn't buy into the notion that no man is above the law. I'm almost certain there was a deal struck that allowed an unknown congressman to become VP, Nixon was corrupt and sleazy but he was no dummy.
No doubt Trump is vetting his own Gerry Ford to throw his weight behind come election time, they're already trying to "out pardon" each other.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 11:34 AM

As historians look back, Gerald Ford's reputation is improving. He was actually quite a smart fellow, from the recent accounts I've read. He knew it wouldn't do his political career any good when he pardoned Nixon, but felt the trial would tear things up. Looking at Trump now, we can see he had a point. There's a book and a podcast out by Rachel Maddow about Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew - what a crook he was! Taking cash payments from people who he was shaking down while he was in office. Bagman, at a bookstore or streaming service near you.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Charmion
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 11:16 AM

Hmmm.

Louis St-Laurent, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Joe Clark, Pierre Elliott Trudeau redux, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau.

So, thirteen prime-ministerial tenures.

Of those, PE Trudeau was the third-longest serving PM since Confederation, with 15 years and 165 days in office; Jean Chretien was the fifth longest serving, with 10 years and 38 days in office; Stephen Harper was the sixth-longest serving, with 9 years and 271 days in office; and Brian Mulroney was the seventh-longest serving, with 8 years and 281 days in office.

Each of the Stephen Harper years felt like three. Sometimes four.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 05:00 AM

Nigel, if Winken and Nod have anything to say about it, it'll never happen.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 04:41 AM

Vote Secretary of State for President.
Just the name, A Blinken, seems to have a presidential ring to it ??

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 04:26 AM

Wasn't Ford the man who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 03:31 AM

LBJ thought he was a nice guy "but he played too much football with his helmet off.”
I go back to the last year of Truman's presidency.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 02:57 AM

I don't care what the rest of you think - I liked Gerry Ford. Nice man, a Michigan man like my dad.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 02:45 AM

I was born when Atlee was in charge. It's been downhill all the way since then.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 12:46 AM

I remember the day that Franklin Roosevelt died.

At lunchtime at school Principal Yoder came in, announced the president's death and asked everyone to stand for a moment of silence.

It was a tremendously moving moment for me. In my lifetime, Roosevelt had been our only president and I wasn't at all sure if anyone knew what to do.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 10:20 PM

I am old enough to remember Eisenhower, who was president when I was born. Since he was #34 and we're now to #46, its 13. But looking at the Library of Congress chronological list, I'm interested to see that in the first term for Lyndon Johnson, sworn in after Kennedy's assassination, I didn't realize he never appointed or asked for approval of a vice president. It would have gone to the Speaker of the House had something happened to him. The same thing with Harry Truman's first term.

Look back through that list there are several occasions when there was no VP, and it isn't just because of a death in office. Perhaps the VP died or quit? Or one was never selected on the ticket? This sounds like a question for Rachel Maddow and one of her interesting political podcasts.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 04:23 PM

I was born when Eisenhower was President, and I don't care who knows it,
but I have yet to do the arithmetic.

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 06:13 AM

Same as G-Force for me apropos of PMs and presidents. Doesn't necessarily mean we're as old as each other. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: G-Force
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 05:50 AM

14 for me, but 17 UK prime ministers (18 if you count Wilson twice).

Subject: BS: How Many USA Presidents?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 02:18 AM

Becoming suddenly curious, I just discovered how very old I am: Including FDR, I've spent my life with 15 (FIFTEEN!) presidents.