Is GW Bush the reincarnation of Warring G. Harding?

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Harding presided during Prohibition, bending to the wills of the "holier than thou" contingent.

Some believe Harding's wife poisoned him. (Future History? mebbe Lara has a heart?)

Teapot Dome Scandal. (OIL)

?????

There are a lot of people her a lot more well versed in Presidential history than I am... I'd love to hear from you!

[tmooses]

1. Could be why Shrub avoids traveling to San Francisco.

n/t

[WI_DEM]

2. From pictures I've seen, Coolidge wasn't fat also prohibition began

under Wilson, not Harding who loved his liquer.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. thanks... I've corrected the OP

[Metta]

3. More like the lost brother of Gomer Pyle.

Except he has no heart.

[teknomanzer]

12. You mean Goober Pyle?

The Mayberry mechanic with the wierd hat?

[Metta]

13. No, I mean Gomer, the Jim Naibors character.

He was really goofy.

[teknomanzer]

14. Goober and Gomer were brothers...

Mayberry RFD and Gomer Pyle were spinoffs of the Andy Griffith show. I was asking if the lost brother you were refering to was Goober... Both characters were goofballs... GW would fit right in... Well Golly Sarge!

[Metta]

15. Gah-ah-ly, Andy!

You got it. :)

[cmkramer]

16. Not brothers

They were cousins.

[teknomanzer]

19. Just remembered right after I posted... d'oh

[TahitiNut]

4. Harding fans are glad for George W. Bush - the new lowest of the low.

:puke:

[hobbit709]

6. Harding was a bigger philanderer than Clinton

Which supposedly was the reason his wife poisoned him.
I grew up in Marion, Oh which brags about him. They don't mention that they haven't come up with anything else since 1920.

[cascadiance]

7. Except he was isolationist and against going after Hitler in WWII...

which makes him a bit less of the warmonger than Bush has been. Probably because business men that Harding served like Bush's grandpappy and J.P. Morgan liked more to deal with Hitler and/or Mussolini than any war contracts for their financial livlihood and wanted to continue those deals instead of losing them with a war being started.

[cmkramer]

17. Really?

Harding died in 1923.

The biggest difference between Harding and Bush is that Harding was perfectly aware that he had no business being President. His wife was the brains in that family.

[cascadiance]

18. Woops, you're right...

Brain fart... I confused him with Hoover, who did fight FDR on the war issue. My bad. Harding also shares the "year zero" curse of presidents with Dubya, most of who died in office when elected in a "zero" year (Harding, Roosevelt, Kennedy, etc.). Only one who didn't die (but was shot at) was Reagan. Wonder what's in store for Dubya in the coming few years now...

[mcscajun]

8. Not reincarnated, but certainly there are parallels.

From AlterNet, July 17, 2001. Written by David Helvarg.

In the 1920s, President Harding was soaking in Big Oil money, appointing robber barons to his cabinet,
cutting taxes for the rich and mangling his English. Sound familiar?

It's not just that Harding was an affable but not too bright politician chosen for office by "fifteen men in a smoke filled room," or that his campaign slogan, "Back to normalcy," reflected his tendency to mangle the English language (he'd meant to say, "normality").

(snip)

Harding also filled his cabinet with a combination of old cronies and top industry officials. Muckraker H.L. Mencken described Harding's cabinet as "three highly intelligent men of self-interest, six jackasses and one common crook."

More here:
http://www.alternet.org/story/11181/

Where is H.L. Mencken when you really need him?

[reichstag911]

11. Re: Mencken

He's in my signature line!

[Lisa]

9. well, he sure didn't inherit Harding's ability to flirt with women!

Harding was actually rather good-looking, as presidents go. Bush -- well, you'd have to photograph him through several layers of gauze (or these days, photoshop the heck out of it).

[tlsmith1963]

10. A Newspaper Compared Him to Polk

Can't remember which newspaper offhand (probably the LA Times). Polk was a President who wanted to do big things & alienated everyone who wasn't in his party because he wouldn't work with them. Polk thought that he would be remembered for the big things he had done, but who really remembers the guy?
Hopefully, this will happen to Bush.

Tammy

[Hope springs eternal]

20. Sorry...

But Bush is going to be remembered for a very long time.