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Recently our country celebrated Presidents Day, formally known as George Washington’s birthday until the woke crowd determined that old George was not worthy because he lied about cutting down a cherry tree. It therefore would be politically correct to honor all presidents, good and bad. Sort of every kid gets a trophy deal.
One former president, also named George, came out of hibernation in Texas to offer an opinion on Presidents Day, specifically about General Washington our first president. (Who was actually our nineth president. Eight gentlemen were appointed before him by Congress to one-year terms to preside as “President of the United States in Congress Assembled”. John Hanson of Maryland was the first and John Hancock the fifth. But I digress.).
To the surprise of many pundits, President Bush published an eloquent essay expounding on Washington’s leadership, humility, willingness to avoid becoming all powerful, and his loyalty to the country and the Constitution first. The 43rd president went on to note that Washington “understood that he didn’t know everything” deferring instead to experts. And he noted that Washington “set the standard for all presidents to live up to.”
In so doing “Dubya” proved that he (or a ghostwriter) was a master of writing sentences that are meant to be read between the lines.
The current tenant of the Peoples’ House, on the other hand, in a statement issued on his Truth Social media platform celebrated how the country is “bigger, better and stronger than EVER BEFORE!!!” and is “at the dawn of a new age of greatness…” never mentioning any of his predecessors. He then went back to planning the biggest celebration of our country’s 250th Anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of our Independence on July 4. Ben Franklin, who was reported to be a real party animal, knew how to celebrate independence. He suggested that there should be fireworks, parades, and celebrations throughout the land.
You may have heard that the current leader of the free world is planning to build a 100,000-seat stadium on Lafyette Park across from the White House to celebrate the Semiquincentenial (also known as a Bisesquicentennial or a Sestercentennial, in case you were wondering.) by holding an historic UFC no-holds-bar fight. The winner coming out with a face celebrating the colors of the flag…red and blue.
Later, in August, the celebration will continue with a “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” race through the streets of our nation’s capital. It will be the biglyest, the best, the grandest Grand Prix race ever, even outdoing the Grand Prix of Monaco thus alienating another close friend of the United States. If construction moves fast enough the expensive racing cars might be able to race around and through the new grand “Victory Arch” and under the giant gold eagle sitting on top that our chief executive is planning to build.
Personally, I think they should be Ford and Chevy stock cars, but that’s just my opinion.
Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and happily retired writer. His newspaper columns appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
By Dick Morgado