Hail to the Chief!

I don't normally make political commentary on this site, mostly because I never assume that you are interested in my opinion, just as I am not really interested in yours. (Actually, it's not so much that I'm not interested...it's just unlikely that your opinion will influence mine and vice versa.) But I do have to say that, at this point, I just feel sorry for Howard Dean. He has become a virtual caricature of himself, as he vows to fight on, in spite of overwhelming odds. This does not fall under the category of standing by his convictions. It's not just a symbolic charge for this man...he seems to really think he's going to pull it off and win the Democratic nomination. Filled with hubris, he continues to chase windmills, further securing his place as little more than a humorous footnote in history. Howard Dean is simply too far to the left to appeal to the swing voters which are essential for a victory in November.

And speaking of Presidential elections, today was President's Day here in the United States. (That sentence was for my one reader from Canada.) President's Day is a holiday on which we take time to honor all of our Presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush. And we have sales on mattresses.

For quite a while now, I've been wanting to embark on a great undertaking...and I've decided that this will be the year that I start. It is my intention to read at least one biography of every President of the United States, in chronological order. For Washington I have chosen the book Patriarch by Richard Norton Smith, and for John Adams I'll be reading the book John Adams by David McCullough. Beyond that, I'm not yet sure what I'll read.

There are a few problems that I forsee running into. First of all, it might be difficult to find something on some of the more obscure Presidents such as Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce and Warren Harding. I'm sure there's something written about them, but it might be of questionable quality. The other problem I see is that, at least at this point, it will be quite difficult to find objective biographies on anybody after JFK. Any book that intimates that Bill Clinton is guilty of murdering Vince Foster and Ron Brown or any book that contains the word Shrubya in the title is certainly not objective.

Granted, it will probably be about thirty years before I am ready to read books about either Clinton or Bush, so by that time hopefully an objective historian will have written a book about them, rather than one windbag or another with an obvious agenda.

And, finally, next month my friend Tisra Hillary Fadely will be spending eight hours in Paris, France. Any of you who have been to Paris, please pop over to her blog and leave her suggestions about what she should see in that short amount of time.