Warren Harding's Legacy Further Tarnished, if That Is Even Possible
August 13, 2015 1:21 PM Subscribe
Warren G. Harding is known for many things. Teapot Dome, dying in office (or maybe not), having the middle name "Gamaliel", and consistently being ranked one of the worst Presidents ever. His personal life was little better than his presidential one, with allegations of multiple affairs and even one claim of an illegitimate child born just a couple of years before he was elected to the White House. Which, according to DNA testing, is totally true.
Elizabeth Ann Britton Harding Blaesing’s mother Nan Britton wrote a book just a few years after Harding’s death claiming that Elizabeth was the result of an affair with then-Senator Harding. It was roundly dismissed as a posthumous hit piece on the then-still-popular Harding, but the family continued to press for confirmation of Britton’s claim. It has finally arrived, with DNA comparison of Blaesing’s grandson and Harding’s grandnephew (President Harding had no legitimate children) revealing that they are genetic cousins.
Elizabeth Ann Britton Harding Blaesing’s mother Nan Britton wrote a book just a few years after Harding’s death claiming that Elizabeth was the result of an affair with then-Senator Harding. It was roundly dismissed as a posthumous hit piece on the then-still-popular Harding, but the family continued to press for confirmation of Britton’s claim. It has finally arrived, with DNA comparison of Blaesing’s grandson and Harding’s grandnephew (President Harding had no legitimate children) revealing that they are genetic cousins.
Harding's highest achievement at this point is being part of a side plot in Boardwalk Empire, which was an actually interesting look at back-room dealings of national party conventions, and how someone like Harding ends up as a nominee.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:41 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:41 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
I picture Bush II doing a fist pump to the news.
posted by klangklangston at 1:44 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 1:44 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Ma, ma, where's my pa?
posted by mmmbacon at 1:46 PM on August 13, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by mmmbacon at 1:46 PM on August 13, 2015 [16 favorites]
Gamaliel is a cool name. But, yeah, he was a weenie in every other way.
posted by pibeandres at 1:48 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by pibeandres at 1:48 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Apparently not with the ladies, who couldn't get enough of the G-Man.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:50 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Sangermaine at 1:50 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ma, ma, where's my pa?
Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 1:50 PM on August 13, 2015 [23 favorites]
Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 1:50 PM on August 13, 2015 [23 favorites]
I wondered if they looked for or found any African ancestral DNA? Although many presidents had African ancestry ascribed to them by political opponents, Harding is the only one such that didn't deny it. Turns out, according to the Times, the DNA testers wondered, too. No sub-Saharan ancestry DNA found.
posted by Cassford at 1:52 PM on August 13, 2015
posted by Cassford at 1:52 PM on August 13, 2015
*flexes fingers, cracks knuckles, grins broadly*
I actually researched this exact kind of stuff 14 years ago for a play. I got stories, y'all.
* Nan and Harding apparently met when she was just a girl, and he was the governor of Ohio. She remembered sitting on his lap at some function. Then met again when she was "legal" and that's when they hooked up - and frequently hooked up in the Oval Office coat closet.
* Nan wrote her tell-all book to make money. Before he died, Harding had been secretly giving her child support, and after he died Nan thought he was going to acknowledge the arrangement in his will. When he didn't, and the family told her to fuck off, this was her recourse.
* Before he was president, Harding had another mistress, but his wife knew about her - and one day when the mistress turned up, Harding's wife came out to their porch and literally threw furniture at her to drive her off. When he was later running for president, his handlers tracked that other mistress down and paid her off to temporarily move to Japan so she'd be out of the way.
* Oh, and that bit about "Ma, ma, where's my pa" was actually tied to Grover Cleveland. His detractors started that chant because they found out he'd knocked up someone out of wedlock and had the kid adopted away. But - Cleveland actually owned it. He made an appearance in which he explained that "look, I was young, she was kind of a lush; so I decided to make things right and pay to get the kid adopted to a good family, and I also paid for her rehab, and she's doing better and the kid is in a good home, so it's not something I'm proud of, but I was a dumb kid and I tried to make it right." And his popularity actually increased for being an honest and decent guy, and after that, when his detractors chanted "Ma, ma, where's my pa?" his supporters would chant back, "going to the White House, ha ha ha!"
American History, y'all. It can be awesome.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:55 PM on August 13, 2015 [92 favorites]
I actually researched this exact kind of stuff 14 years ago for a play. I got stories, y'all.
* Nan and Harding apparently met when she was just a girl, and he was the governor of Ohio. She remembered sitting on his lap at some function. Then met again when she was "legal" and that's when they hooked up - and frequently hooked up in the Oval Office coat closet.
* Nan wrote her tell-all book to make money. Before he died, Harding had been secretly giving her child support, and after he died Nan thought he was going to acknowledge the arrangement in his will. When he didn't, and the family told her to fuck off, this was her recourse.
* Before he was president, Harding had another mistress, but his wife knew about her - and one day when the mistress turned up, Harding's wife came out to their porch and literally threw furniture at her to drive her off. When he was later running for president, his handlers tracked that other mistress down and paid her off to temporarily move to Japan so she'd be out of the way.
* Oh, and that bit about "Ma, ma, where's my pa" was actually tied to Grover Cleveland. His detractors started that chant because they found out he'd knocked up someone out of wedlock and had the kid adopted away. But - Cleveland actually owned it. He made an appearance in which he explained that "look, I was young, she was kind of a lush; so I decided to make things right and pay to get the kid adopted to a good family, and I also paid for her rehab, and she's doing better and the kid is in a good home, so it's not something I'm proud of, but I was a dumb kid and I tried to make it right." And his popularity actually increased for being an honest and decent guy, and after that, when his detractors chanted "Ma, ma, where's my pa?" his supporters would chant back, "going to the White House, ha ha ha!"
American History, y'all. It can be awesome.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:55 PM on August 13, 2015 [92 favorites]
Yet another Republican sex scandal. This is my surprised face: :-|
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:01 PM on August 13, 2015
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:01 PM on August 13, 2015
Gamaliel is a cool name.
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:01 PM on August 13, 2015 [41 favorites]
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:01 PM on August 13, 2015 [41 favorites]
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
posted by The Gaffer at 2:04 PM on August 13, 2015 [15 favorites]
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
posted by The Gaffer at 2:04 PM on August 13, 2015 [15 favorites]
Although many presidents had African ancestry ascribed to them by political opponents, Harding is the only one such that didn't deny it.
Wasn't true and he didn't deny it. That's actually pretty awesome.
posted by ocschwar at 2:08 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Wasn't true and he didn't deny it. That's actually pretty awesome.
posted by ocschwar at 2:08 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Excellent comment, EmpressCallipygos.
I still think Nate Dogg should have been his running mate after saving his life at that dice game.
posted by dr_dank at 2:09 PM on August 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
I still think Nate Dogg should have been his running mate after saving his life at that dice game.
posted by dr_dank at 2:09 PM on August 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
Yet another Republican sex scandal. This is my surprised face: :-|
Yea, McKinney knocks up his mistress, because he's a winner. William Jenning Bryan is a loser, he's never even had a mistress. IOKIYAR.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:10 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yea, McKinney knocks up his mistress, because he's a winner. William Jenning Bryan is a loser, he's never even had a mistress. IOKIYAR.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:10 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Gamaliel is a cool name.
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
Every year, reading the Haggadah at Passover, I have to stop myself before saying "Rabban Gamling." Every frigging time.
posted by thetortoise at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
Every year, reading the Haggadah at Passover, I have to stop myself before saying "Rabban Gamling." Every frigging time.
posted by thetortoise at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
posted by The Gaffer
Shouldn't you be tending to Mr. Baggins' garden?
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:15 PM on August 13, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by The Gaffer
Shouldn't you be tending to Mr. Baggins' garden?
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:15 PM on August 13, 2015 [16 favorites]
The African ancestral DNA was mentioned in another version of this story I read this morning but now I can't find it. And no they didn't find any.
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
He also wrote some rather saucy letters. (NSFW)
The president often wrote in code, in case the letters were discovered, referring to his penis as Jerry.
Explosive laughter!
posted by adept256 at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
The president often wrote in code, in case the letters were discovered, referring to his penis as Jerry.
Explosive laughter!
posted by adept256 at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
there's 19 of them, they debate on fox news and they all come from mordor
posted by pyramid termite at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
there's 19 of them, they debate on fox news and they all come from mordor
posted by pyramid termite at 2:20 PM on August 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
Oh it was the New York Times version.
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:21 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:21 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
Um...an immortal half-elf who's kind of a dick, and has been known to hold a grudge for literal millennia; and his daughter, who fights Nazgûl and is married to the king of Gondor.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:21 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Um...an immortal half-elf who's kind of a dick, and has been known to hold a grudge for literal millennia; and his daughter, who fights Nazgûl and is married to the king of Gondor.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:21 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
it's a shame, isn't it? all the democrats can do is leave stains on someone's dress
posted by pyramid termite at 2:22 PM on August 13, 2015
posted by pyramid termite at 2:22 PM on August 13, 2015
it's a shame, isn't it? all the democrats can do is leave stains on someone's dress
*cough*JFK*cough*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:24 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
*cough*JFK*cough*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:24 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
Cleveland actually owned it
Well, kinda. While he did admit an "illicit" relationship with Halpin, he also said he only acknowledged the child as his to prevent scandal from falling on one of his married friends, who was also sexually involved with Halpin. See, because Halpin was an awwful no good seductress leading good mean to their ruin, you know. And she was also an insane drunk! And that's why, for the good of the child, Cleveland had Halpin committed to an insane asylum and the child adopted by another man. This is all according to the Cleveland camp.
Halpin, for her part, outright said that Cleveland aggressively pursued her, raped her, and then arranged to have their child stolen on trumped up charges.
Smithsonian Magazine had a good right up, and the Whistlestop podcast also covered this as well.
posted by Panjandrum at 2:31 PM on August 13, 2015 [12 favorites]
Well, kinda. While he did admit an "illicit" relationship with Halpin, he also said he only acknowledged the child as his to prevent scandal from falling on one of his married friends, who was also sexually involved with Halpin. See, because Halpin was an awwful no good seductress leading good mean to their ruin, you know. And she was also an insane drunk! And that's why, for the good of the child, Cleveland had Halpin committed to an insane asylum and the child adopted by another man. This is all according to the Cleveland camp.
Halpin, for her part, outright said that Cleveland aggressively pursued her, raped her, and then arranged to have their child stolen on trumped up charges.
Smithsonian Magazine had a good right up, and the Whistlestop podcast also covered this as well.
posted by Panjandrum at 2:31 PM on August 13, 2015 [12 favorites]
I can't believe you missed out on linking to Harding's "smutty fuck notes" as read by John Oliver, which also contains the description of Harding as having "jowls like sour cream funneled into a condom."
posted by Panjandrum at 2:35 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Panjandrum at 2:35 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
MORE LIKE WARREN HARD-ON, AMIRITE?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:37 PM on August 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:37 PM on August 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
(look, I do one thing, and I do it well. don't bring me down, man.)
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:37 PM on August 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:37 PM on August 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
Um...an immortal half-elf who's kind of a dick, and has been known to hold a grudge for literal millennia; and his daughter, who fights Nazgûl and is married to the king of Gondor.
On the plus side, I'm pretty sure voter turnout will be low since most elves almost certainly find the entire concept of voting to be beneath them. Their rightful leaders were granted favor by Ilúvatar, and that is the way it always has been and always will be.
posted by Copronymus at 2:52 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
On the plus side, I'm pretty sure voter turnout will be low since most elves almost certainly find the entire concept of voting to be beneath them. Their rightful leaders were granted favor by Ilúvatar, and that is the way it always has been and always will be.
posted by Copronymus at 2:52 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Every year, reading the Haggadah at Passover, I have to stop myself before saying "Rabban Gamling." Every frigging time.
Honestly, that whole section of the Talmud reads like LoTR as adapted by Mel Brooks. All those rabbis are basically malevolent wizards.
posted by nonasuch at 2:56 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Honestly, that whole section of the Talmud reads like LoTR as adapted by Mel Brooks. All those rabbis are basically malevolent wizards.
posted by nonasuch at 2:56 PM on August 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
nonasuch, that is the most enticing description of a book I can recall.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:07 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by The Gaffer at 3:07 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Right? My favorite part is when Rabbi Eliezer gets excommunicated. Apparently, even though he could have destroyed the world if he wanted to (which, wait, what?), he went easy on us and only destroyed 1/3 of the world's crops, because Rabbi Akiva broke the news gently. And the tsunami he summoned to murder Rabbi Gamaliel was, apparently, easily rebuked.
posted by nonasuch at 3:18 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by nonasuch at 3:18 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Jefferson -- with Sally Hemings
WH Harrison -- with a slave name Dilsia (who was Walter White's great-grandmother)
Tyler -- with a slave (who was John Dunjee's mother)
Cleveland -- with Maria Halpin
And Harding makes 5. That seems low: 5 out of 43 presidents. My searching is weak today and although I know overall births to unmarried women has increased a lot since 1960 in the US, I can't find any data on what the trendline looks like over the past 250 years.
posted by Cassford at 3:22 PM on August 13, 2015
WH Harrison -- with a slave name Dilsia (who was Walter White's great-grandmother)
Tyler -- with a slave (who was John Dunjee's mother)
Cleveland -- with Maria Halpin
And Harding makes 5. That seems low: 5 out of 43 presidents. My searching is weak today and although I know overall births to unmarried women has increased a lot since 1960 in the US, I can't find any data on what the trendline looks like over the past 250 years.
posted by Cassford at 3:22 PM on August 13, 2015
Yeah, if you're running for President of Rivendell.
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
What is your position on amnesty for Easterlings, lembas bread subsidies and the Lower House of Elrond's vote on the Bruinen river project?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:40 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
Wait, this is an option? Who are my opponents?
What is your position on amnesty for Easterlings, lembas bread subsidies and the Lower House of Elrond's vote on the Bruinen river project?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:40 PM on August 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
Tanak ordered. My amazon profile continues to suggest a more interesting person than I am.
Cool Papa Bell, Easterlings were of course simply dupes of the Enemy and deserving of amnesty, but Gondor is more equipped by far than Rivendell to deal with their refugees. Lembas subsidies are a moribund project to prop up an industry whose bakers have departed for the West - instead, I suggest that each Rivendellian enjoys 8-16 daily servings of delicious taters. And of course, we should continue the Bruinen river project and build a stout stone bridge. Ford a river? You might as well go out on a boat.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:48 PM on August 13, 2015 [7 favorites]
Cool Papa Bell, Easterlings were of course simply dupes of the Enemy and deserving of amnesty, but Gondor is more equipped by far than Rivendell to deal with their refugees. Lembas subsidies are a moribund project to prop up an industry whose bakers have departed for the West - instead, I suggest that each Rivendellian enjoys 8-16 daily servings of delicious taters. And of course, we should continue the Bruinen river project and build a stout stone bridge. Ford a river? You might as well go out on a boat.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:48 PM on August 13, 2015 [7 favorites]
oh god i can answer hypothetical campaign questions about running for office in middle earth. i should have realized that was who i became back when i bought a flag of Gondor to fly off my front porch.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:49 PM on August 13, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by The Gaffer at 3:49 PM on August 13, 2015 [13 favorites]
And Harding makes 5. That seems low: 5 out of 43 presidents.
Well, that's that we know of, if what you're talking about is "illegitimate children". If you're talking sexytimes, though, there's more - lemme see what I can remember:
* Andrew Jackson married a divorcee - although, technically, since the divorce wasn't finalized on the date of their wedding, technically he was a bigamist for a few weeks.
* JFK. Duh.
* FDR also supposedly dallied.
* LBJ supposedly had a 20-year affair with a woman named Madeline Brown, and she actually says her son is his.
* Woodrow Wilson married a widow named Edith Galt in less than a year after his first wife's death, and everyone thought that was suspiciously quick...
* Eisenhower had an affair with his driver during the war. Although, she claimed in her subsequent tell-all book that sometimes he had problems with impotence.
....And then if you get into Congress the list is even longer.
I was researching this for a play we did in 2001 about a (fictional) congressional sex scandal, which was written in 1911. We were the first major stage production they'd had in like 92 years, so we got a decent amount of press - and a lot of people remarked how timely it was: someone found the play for us during the fallout of the Lewinsky Scandal, we started rehearsing right when Gary Condit was facing questioning about the whereabouts of Chandra Levy, and Jim Jeffords quit the GOP about two weeks before we opened. We were all pretty much steeped in political gossip 24/7 while working on that show.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:32 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, that's that we know of, if what you're talking about is "illegitimate children". If you're talking sexytimes, though, there's more - lemme see what I can remember:
* Andrew Jackson married a divorcee - although, technically, since the divorce wasn't finalized on the date of their wedding, technically he was a bigamist for a few weeks.
* JFK. Duh.
* FDR also supposedly dallied.
* LBJ supposedly had a 20-year affair with a woman named Madeline Brown, and she actually says her son is his.
* Woodrow Wilson married a widow named Edith Galt in less than a year after his first wife's death, and everyone thought that was suspiciously quick...
* Eisenhower had an affair with his driver during the war. Although, she claimed in her subsequent tell-all book that sometimes he had problems with impotence.
....And then if you get into Congress the list is even longer.
I was researching this for a play we did in 2001 about a (fictional) congressional sex scandal, which was written in 1911. We were the first major stage production they'd had in like 92 years, so we got a decent amount of press - and a lot of people remarked how timely it was: someone found the play for us during the fallout of the Lewinsky Scandal, we started rehearsing right when Gary Condit was facing questioning about the whereabouts of Chandra Levy, and Jim Jeffords quit the GOP about two weeks before we opened. We were all pretty much steeped in political gossip 24/7 while working on that show.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:32 PM on August 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
Harding's highest achievement at this point is being part of a side plot in Boardwalk Empire
If we weren’t so obsessed with Warren G. Harding’s sex life, we’d realize he was a pretty good president
He said what?
-- Liz Ellaby, Birminghan History Center
[Provides more details on the Birmingham race relation speech. It was on the occasion of the citiy's 50th birthday party, and it was a coup to have the president speak -- just not what he actually said.]
Secret love child aside, Warren Harding was a solid president
If we weren’t so obsessed with Warren G. Harding’s sex life, we’d realize he was a pretty good president
[Harding] traveled to Birmingham, Ala., in his first year in office to deliver a courageous civil rights speech. “Democracy is a lie,” he said, without political equality for black citizens.* He also supported a federal anti-lynching law.More:
Harding oversaw the first world arms limitation treaty, the Washington Conference, aimed at reducing the number of battleships in the world. He formally ended the war with Germany and its allies.
Harding commuted the sentence of Eugene Debs . . . who had been imprisoned for 10 years merely for speaking out against the war . . . (President Wilson had routinely denied a pardon for Debs . . . Oliver Wendell Holmes . . . wrote the Supreme Court opinion affirming the Debs’s conviction.)
Harding freed hundreds of political prisoners, repairing the severe wounds wrought by the Espionage and Sedition acts of 1917 and 1918.
* * *
Harding’s administration was attacked for scandals he had nothing to do with. . . . [N]o proof exists that Harding had any involvement in the scandals that circulated about [attorney general Harry] Daugherty. . . . [T]he one grafter who Harding learned about, Charlie Forbes, was immediately sacked. (Forbes had been appointed by the Wilson administration). . . . [T]he man who was convicted in the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert Fall, was a respected member of the Senate . . . Fall’s nomination was approved unanimously. . . . If Harding misjudged him, so did the entire Senate.
Historians have been reexamining Harding in recent years. John Dean wrote a Harding biography in which he provided a balanced and favorable look at the Harding administration and its accomplishments.
Ivan Eland published a book in 2009, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity and Liberty, in which Harding was ranked sixth among the presidents. . . .
-- James D. Robenalt (Author of The Harding Affair, Love and Espionage During the Great War and January 1973, Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever, The Washington Post..
He said what?
-- Liz Ellaby, Birminghan History Center
[Provides more details on the Birmingham race relation speech. It was on the occasion of the citiy's 50th birthday party, and it was a coup to have the president speak -- just not what he actually said.]
Secret love child aside, Warren Harding was a solid president
[Harding signed]. . . the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 . . ."the first venture of the federal government into social security legislation." The act was meant to provide health assistance to new mothers and infants . . . "provided federal matching grants to the states for information and instruction on nutrition and hygiene, prenatal and child health clinics, and visiting nurses for pregnant women and new mothers". . . . The program didn't last long . . . [it] was killed by president Hoover, with the backing of the American Medical Association.posted by Herodios at 7:06 AM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Maybe Harding's most enduring domestic policy achievement was [the creation of] the Bureau of Budget (now the OMB) and the GAO . . . crucial parts of the federal budgetary and oversight process. . . .
Harding signed a bill creating the Veterans Bureau, which would eventually evolve into the Department of Veterans Affairs and was among the first dedicated federal efforts to care for veterans and help them readjust to civilian life. . . .
-- Dylan Matthews, Vox
---------------------------------------
*"When I suggest the possibility of economic equality between the races, I mean it precisely the same way and to the same extent that I would mean it if I spoke of equality of economic opportunity as between members of the same race. Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie you must stand for that equality. . . . [W]hen I say these things . . . I am speaking to North and South alike, white and blacks alike. I am never going to say anything that I can’t say in every direction and to all people exactly alike."
-- Warren G. Harding,
Gamaliel is a cool name. But, yeah, he was a weenie in every other way
Apparently not with the ladies, who couldn't get enough of the G-Man
One other note of interest: Harding was the winner -- by the biggest landslide in a hundred years -- in the first US presidential election in which women were allowed to vote in all (then) 48 states, the 19th amendment to the Constitution having just been ratified.
posted by Herodios at 11:24 AM on August 14, 2015
Apparently not with the ladies, who couldn't get enough of the G-Man
One other note of interest: Harding was the winner -- by the biggest landslide in a hundred years -- in the first US presidential election in which women were allowed to vote in all (then) 48 states, the 19th amendment to the Constitution having just been ratified.
posted by Herodios at 11:24 AM on August 14, 2015
if we weren't so obsessed with Warren G. Harding's sex life we'd realize he was a pretty good president.
Um...I think it was the Teapot Dome scandal,rather than the sex scandals, that got him the bad rap. The sex scandals are just frothy "wow, they did that in the olden days?" Gossip.
And actually, it was Harding that helped put Clinton's sexual indiscretions into perspective for me, in part. The country didn't blow up because of Nan Britton, and it wouldn't because of Monica.
And another thing was even more reassuring: during researching for that play, I found an article on the 1982 Congressional Page sex scandals. I was about 12 when that was happening, and as I read the article I suddenly flashed back to that time and remembered seeing it being all over the news every night for weeks. "Wow," I thought, "I forgot all about that!" And then I realized with a start that yes - I HADforgotten all about it, and so had most of the rest of the country, even though it had been a ubiquitous thing at the time. Just like most of the country also forgot about all of these other set scandals that have come and gone, and just like we eventually would forget about Clinton's.
It was sort of...comforting and depressing at the same time - depressing that we got so caught up in silliness and based political assessments on it only to waive it all away in fairly short order, but comforting t that none of these things have permanently brought us down.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:15 PM on August 14, 2015
Um...I think it was the Teapot Dome scandal,rather than the sex scandals, that got him the bad rap. The sex scandals are just frothy "wow, they did that in the olden days?" Gossip.
And actually, it was Harding that helped put Clinton's sexual indiscretions into perspective for me, in part. The country didn't blow up because of Nan Britton, and it wouldn't because of Monica.
And another thing was even more reassuring: during researching for that play, I found an article on the 1982 Congressional Page sex scandals. I was about 12 when that was happening, and as I read the article I suddenly flashed back to that time and remembered seeing it being all over the news every night for weeks. "Wow," I thought, "I forgot all about that!" And then I realized with a start that yes - I HADforgotten all about it, and so had most of the rest of the country, even though it had been a ubiquitous thing at the time. Just like most of the country also forgot about all of these other set scandals that have come and gone, and just like we eventually would forget about Clinton's.
It was sort of...comforting and depressing at the same time - depressing that we got so caught up in silliness and based political assessments on it only to waive it all away in fairly short order, but comforting t that none of these things have permanently brought us down.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:15 PM on August 14, 2015
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posted by not_on_display at 1:37 PM on August 13, 2015 [4 favorites]