A Presidential Reality Check?

Grandpa just chuckled as he was reading a site on the computer, then said;

" You know, boy, people are making a big fuss over the fact that the President bowed to someone and shook the hand of Mr. Chavez. What they don’t know is that our very first President never shook the hand of any visitor but he bowed to each one.

Then you hear of all of the scandals in Washington but what is rarely known is that one of our Presidents ran around in the nude at times. Well, actually, he didn’t run around in the nude. He went skinny dipping in the Potomac River in the early morns when it was warm. His name was John Quincy Adams. Think about how’d that would go over in today’s politics.

Talk of patriotism, they say that voting is an act of patriotism in this nation and you hear a whole bunch belittling those who do not vote. However, while I’d have to admit that I’d agree but we need to remember another little thing also. One President never even voted once in his life. His name was Zachary Taylor.

People are always speaking about the qualifications needed of a president. That was a big issue in the last election. Both, the President and the vice presidential nominee for the Republican party were accused of this. I wonder if people would consider that anyone without the proper education as being unqualified and if so what would be considered as the proper education? We had one President who never went to school in his life. Who was he? You’ll have to answer this one on your own. A hint though, he was impeached by the House.

You heard a lot about President Bush going back to his ranch for a time and most of what was said wouldn’t be considered as very nice words. The opposition hasn’t been very charitable towards President Obama’s trips back to Chicago. I wonder how the people of today would look upon a president who spent half of his time in the White House doing nothing but sleeping? Then again, maybe that is one reason that Calvin Cooledge isn’t held in very high esteem as a president. He slept 10 to 11 hours a day then added a nap on top of that in the afternoons.

One last thing to think about. Talking about dynesties which we are not suppose to have in this nation. You might need to take into consideration one president before coming to any conclusions. He was related in some manner whether by blood or by marriage to 11 other presidents. I'll let you guess who this was also. A hint on this would be that his rule over this nation was directly responsible for one of the amendments to the Constitution.

So, boy, be careful of what you say about people, especially in politics. It may come back to haunt you in the weirdest of ways."

Grandpa found these little trivia facts at the Encarta site. There were more but grandpa and I found these as being most applicable and humorous for the politics in practice today. Hope they brought a little smile to ya to start or end the day with. Does make you wonder though, about what exactly it is that a President does while behind the closed doors of the White House and what a man needs to "possess" to be considered as qualified to hold that title.