Descriptions of March Using Presidents

-In like Andrew Jackson, out like Martin Van Buren.
-In like Woodrow Wilson, out like Calvin Coolidge.
-In like Teddy Roosevelt, out like William Howard Taft.

How to Celebrate Presidents’ Birthdays, Part 2

Today, we continue with our look at how and when to celebrate the birthdays of presidents who aren’t Lincoln or Washington.

July 11 – John Quincy Adams: Spread some rumors about the wife of the guy at work you don’t like.
July 14 – Gerald Ford: Tackle a Heisman winner.
August 10 – Herbert Hoover: Talk to your kids about the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
August 19 – Bill Clinton: Be cool, man, just be cool.
August 20 – Benjamin Harrison: Enjoy the creme from some Oreos (or other comparable sandwich cookies).
August 27 – Lyndon B. Johnson: Get yourself some new tailored pants.
September 15 – William Howard Taft: Bust something large.
Ocotber 1 – Jimmy Carter: Peanut party! (With plenty of salt.)
October 4 – Rutherford B. Hayes: Make a compromise if you have the opportunity to.
October 5 – Chester A. Arthur: Shots!
October 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower: Go to the beach.
October 27 – Theodore Roosevelt: Be a man all over the place.
October 30 – John Adams: Dress up as a lawyer and defend some Englishmen against public opinion.
November 2 – (Two options) James K. Polk: Discuss your property lines with your neighbors. Warren G. Harding: Abstain from drinking for a while, but sneak some when no one’s looking.
November 19 – James A. Garfield: Do some curls, play some football.
November 23 – Franklin Pierce: Look great, but make terrible decisions.
November 24 – Zachary Taylor: Cherries and milk for everyone!
December 5 – Martin van Buren: Grow some distinctive facial hair and talk about Andrew Jackson.
December 28 – Woodrow Wilson: Settle an argument between some friends.
December 29 – Andrew Johnson: Rebuild part of your house.

Great Presidential Quotes #7

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

- Theodore Roosevelt, dramatically, in the final scene featured in the trailer for his high-budget/high-concept action film “Big Stick”

Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For…

-Don’t blame me, I voted for John Adams (1789 and 1792)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Thomas Jefferson (1796)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Aaron Burr (1800)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1804 and 1808)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for DeWitt Clinton (1812)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Rufus King (1816)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for John Quincy Adams (1820 and 1828)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Andrew Jackson (1824)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Henry Clay (1832 and 1844)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for William Henry Harrison (1836)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Martin van Buren (1840)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Lewis Cass (1848)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Winfield Scott (1852)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for John C. Frémont (1856)
-Good thing I didn’t vote for John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, Stephen Douglas (1860), or George McClellan (1864)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Horatio Seymour (1868)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Horace Greeley (1872)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Samuel J. Tilden (1876)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Winfield Scott Hancock (1880)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for James G. Blaine (1884)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Grover Cleveland (1888)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Benjamin Harrison (1892)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for William Jennings Bryan (1892, 1900, and 1908)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Alton B. Parker (1904)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Teddy Roosevelt (1912)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Charles Evans Hughes (1916)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for James M. Cox (1920)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for John W. Davis (1924)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Al Smith (1928)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Herbert Hoover (1932)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Alf Landon (1936)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Wendell Willkie (1940)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Thomas E. Dewey (1944 and 1948)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Adlai Stevenson (1952 and 1956)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Richard Nixon (1960)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Barry Goldwater (1964)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Hubert H. Humphrey (1968)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for…uh, George McGovern…nevermind (1972)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Gerald Ford (1976)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Jimmy Carter (1980)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Walter Mondale (1984)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Michael Dukakis (1988)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for George HW Bush (1992)
-Don’t blame me, I voted for Bob Dole…Bob Dole Bob Dole Bob Dole (1996)

A Selection of Presidents who Like this Blog

-Thomas Jefferson (“My views on the musical stylings of the troupe Weezer were accurately reflected here, yes.”)
-Theodore Roosevelt (“A rousing good time!”)
-Bill Clinton (“It’s like he knows me.”)
-Calvin Coolidge (nodded approvingly)

Presidents who Could Have Appeared in a Carnival Side Show

-William Howard Taft (his weight)
-James Madison (his short stature)
-Abraham Lincoln (his penchant for top hats)
-Theodore Roosevelt (displays of the most awesome badassery)
-Woodrow Wilson (could do this one thing with his leg, you should’ve seen it)

Presidents’ Favorite Things to Grill

Dwight Eisenhower: hamburgers, hot dogs

Bill Clinton: chicken, boca sausages

Woodrow Wilson: pineapple, corn on the cob

Chester Alan Arthur: steak

Theodore Roosevelt*: zebra, moose

William Taft: anything

*Only grilled animals that he killed

Happy America Day 2010: Presidents’ Favorite America Day Pastimes

Once again, in honor of America Day, also known as Independence Day or Separation Sunday, LP looks back at those great moments associated with the day. This year, we present the favorite July 4th holiday pastimes of our most-esteemed presidents.

-George Washington: created makeshift pinatas of various British officers and threw Brit-bashing parties
-Thomas Jefferson: bought some property
-Andrew Jackson: in alternating years, he would either duel or invite the entire state of Tennessee to the White House for a party, consistently during which several pillars from the presidential mansion would go missing only to be found in various places around Washington (1829: the Potomac, 1831: O’Malley’s Tavern, 1835: in front of Congress)
-William Henry Harrison: would normally breathe
-Abraham Lincoln: would light fireworks off from his top hat
-Ulysses S. Grant: annually stopped laying siege to Vicksburg (after annually laying siege to Vicksburg a few months before hand)
-James A. Garfield: played some tackle football on the White House lawn, then some baseball, then he’d strap on some blades and play high-contact roller hockey in the White House Roller Hockey Rink (which he had installed), and then finish the day with a best-of-seven street-rules basketball series and a lemonade
-Chester A. Arthur: took a shot and toasted himself
-Theodore Roosevelt: did things so amazingly manly and awesome that to reprint them would be an affront to the Roosevelt estate, and even a mention of such things warrants an apology (those being the circumstances, the letter is in the mail)
-William Howard Taft: shifted in his seat
-Warren G. Harding: went to Toronto one year (it was ok)
-Herbert Hoover: lit his cigar with $100 bills
-Dwight D. Eisenhower: liked to add or take away a star on the flag each year to see if anyone would notice
-Jimmy Carter: celebrated the Fourth the traditional Georgia way, with peanuts and an ATV
-Ronald Reagan: would draw his face on $10 bills
-Bill Clinton: cannot remember

Presidential Rankings Based on Google Search Results

Here’s an interesting bit of information: the following list is how the presidents are ranked based on the number of results returned on Google for the search term “president x” where x equals the president’s first and last name. There are definitely some surprises (11.5 million for John Tyler?) and some not-so-surprises (Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy in the top 10).

Also, these results are just for those presidents no longer living. Clinton’s 25-million+ would have skewed the rankings, and we would not want that. Why? There’s so much more we can do with this information. Check LP tomorrow and see.

(accessed April 12-13, 2010)

1. Abraham Lincoln … 22.8 million
2. George Washington … 22.6 million
3. Thomas Jefferson … 15.7 million
4. Andrew Jackson … 16 million
5. James Madison … 15.8 million
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt … 13.5 million*
7. Andrew Johnson … 13.2 million
8. John F. Kennedy … 13 million**
9. John Tyler … 11.5 million
10. Theodore Roosevelt … 6.72 million***
11. Woodrow Wilson … 5.57 million
12. Dwight D. Eisenhower … 5.4 million
13. Richard Nixon … 4.37 million
14. James Knox Polk … 4.17 million
15. James Monroe … 3.71 million
16. Ronald Reagan … 3.19 million
17. Lyndon Johnson … 2.8 million
18. James Buchanan … 2.37 million
19. John Adams … 2.23 million
20. Benjamin Harrison … 2.17 million
21. Gerald Ford … 2.08 million
22. Herbert Hoover … 2.08 million
23. John Quincy Adams … 2 million
24. Franklin Pierce … 1.96 million
25. Zachary Taylor … 1.52 million
26. William Henry Harrison … 1.46 million
27. James Garfield … 1.37 million
28. William McKinley … 1.3 million
29. Ulysses S. Grant … 1.27 million
30. Grover Cleveland … 1.21 million
31. Harry S Truman … 1.18 million
32. Martin van Buren … 952,000
33. William Howard Taft … 868,000
34. Calvin Coolidge … 864,000
35. Warren G. Harding … 804,000
36. Rutherford B. Hayes … 539,000
37. Chester A. Arthur … 301,000****
38. Millard Fillmore … 254,000

*as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
** as John Kennedy
***as Teddy Roosevelt
****as Chester Arthur

The Presidents and their Missions

With the new book Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter gaining rapid popularity, we take a look at the hidden passions and/or missions of other presidents.

-Andrew Johnson: constantly searched for Lincoln’s gold.
-William Henry Harrison: vowed upon his own life to protect America from the scourge of hamster demons that ran amok during the previous two years (succeeded, but again at the cost of his own life).
-William Howard Taft: enjoyed collecting stamps.
-Theodore Roosevelt: was a passionate badass and loved being so.