This morning I studied newspapers and news websites to see what they were saying about presidents on Presidents Day. The best news, from Boxford, Massachusetts, was “Presidents Day—No Delay for Trash and Recycling.”But, given our national malaise, the most appropriate headline came from ClickOrlando.com: “Rain continues into Presidents Day. When will the sunshine return?”
The most common Internet heading concerned “Best Presidents Day Deals,” with particular attention to cordless vacuums and dishwashers, with offers for products made in lower-wage sections of the world by LG, Sony, and Samsung. The official federal name for the holiday is still Washington’s Birthday, so I read some “fun facts” about George Washington: “He was an excellent dancer…. He had no middle name…. He was the United States’ first mule breeder.”
Less frequently mentioned was news of a nationwide survey showing that 90 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans want a president “who promotes a peaceful transition of power.” The survey, commissioned by the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the George Washington Presidential Library, shows the desire for “a leader who is honest, promotes ethical leadership, and sets a standard for those who follow.”
Fox 10 Phoenix’s “Holiday trivia and fun facts” included a paragraph each about the eight presidents who have died in office. That section didn’t seem like much fun, nor is it fun to think of presidents who didn’t die in office but deteriorated. Last year I read Patrick Weil’s The Madman in the White House after first mistaking it for a book about Donald Trump. (It’s actually a very readable book about Woodrow Wilson’s last two years in office, viewed through the eyes of staffer William Bullitt, with analysis from afar by Sigmund Freud.)
I found particularly interesting what wasn’t said on Presidents Day. Columnist Megan McCardle tweeted three days ago, “Bunch of people assuming that the reason I am harping on the Biden age issue is that I want him to lose to Donald Trump. This is wrong; I’m voting for Biden, or whoever the non-Trump candidate is.”
McCardle gave three reasons why she’s talking about it: First, “Biden’s obvious decline is a Thing That is True. My job is Saying Things That Are True.” Second, “Folks who think they can make the issue go away if they just work the media refs hard enough are delusional.” Third, “he has now slowed down to the point where he reminds everyone who has lived through the aging of their parents or resident grandparents of what that decline looked like.”
Still, the obvious tie-in with Presidents Day was not on the homepages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Boston Globe. Maybe it’s too obvious. Still, with apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Disney’s Encanto, we need an update of their “We don’t talk about Bruno” song. It should go like this: “Grew to live in fear of Biden stuttering or stumbling/ I can always hear him sort of muttering and mumbling/ We don’t talk about Biden, no, no no/ We don’t talk about Biden.” ###