Monday, October 22, 2007

Hang it all....

I want to thank Book Editor Jo-Ann Greene of the Lancaster County News for giving the book such a nice review yesterday (you can read it here.) She wrote "sure to be a hit with political junkies, maybe [Anything for a Vote] should be required reading for all political candidates."
I couldn't agree more heartily, Jo-Anne. As I have said below, we did send a copy of the book to all presidential candidates, but John Edwards was the only one who had the courtesy to reply, thanking us politely but rather generically for the gift and for our "support"--the latter, of course, we did not provide.
At the top of Greene's book review of Anything online is an ad for John McCain which, simply from the colors and typeface alone, I at first quick glance took for an advertisement for funeral parlor. I don't mean to keep writing John off (and he did well for himself yesterday at the Republican debate with his dig on the Woodstock Museum, a typical frivolous Democratic boondoggle of the type Republicans love to trot out) but his typefaces are monolithic.
One of the points Jo-Anne Greene brings out about the book--which also titillated Jimmy Malone and John Lanigan of the "Lanigan and Malone" Morning Show" WMJI, Independence, Ohio, with whom I spoke this AM-- was the story of James Buchanan, who became president in 1856. Buchanan was subject to some 19th century gay-bashing. He never married, and so was called "Aunt Nancy" by Andrew Jackson (his long-time roommate, Alabama Senator William Rufus King, was dubbed "Miss Fancy"). Henry Clay like to taunt Buchanan by getting right up in his face on the Senate floor and saying: "I wish I had a more lady-like manner of expressing myself."
Buchanan also had a congenital birth defect which caused his neck to tilt to the left (see photo above) thus causing supporters of his opponent (Republican John C. Fremont) to claim that the guy had tried to hang himself and failed--and would you want a man who couldn't even commit suicide right as your president?
Think about it....

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