13 July 2007

No Tennesseans for president, please

What's that you say? A Tennessean advocating that people not vote for someone from Tennessee? Let me put this in perspective, by sharing with you some brief stories about the three gentleman Tennessee has already sent to the White House.
  1. Andrew Jackson (Seventh President, 1829-1837). Jackson greatly promoted the idea of giving friends government jobs. He also opposed having a central bank, and then ordered the removal of Native Americans from their land and sent them to Oklahoma instead. In memory of this greatness, his visage is on your $20 bill. After all, who needs a monetary policy, and wasn't this country claimed for god or England or something back in 1607?
  2. James K. Polk (Eleventh President, 1845-1849). Polk was an imperialist dude, who annexed Texas, bought what is now the Pacific Northwest, and scammed Mexico into giving up all but a tiny bit of what is now Arizona after a brief and effective, yet totally unnecessary war of aggression aimed at increasing America's resource wealth. That probably all sounds familiar, except for the "winning" part. But again, he gave us Texas, the state that killed Kennedy and sent us a few too many Bushes. At least Polk started and ended his war within one term, and then retired, having had his fun. He promptly died.
  3. Andrew Johnson (Seventeenth President, 1865-1869). Johnson replaced Lincoln, and proceeded to piss off virtually everyone he came in contact with. He also opposed civil rights legislation on more than one occasion. His own cabinet hated him, so Congress forbid him from firing anyone. In a gesture of conciliation, he of course fired the Secretary of War. Congress then impeached his ass on 11 counts, but he was acquitted by one vote. Having managed to somehow not be a member of any political party, nobody nominated him for re-election, so he decided to piss off President-elect Ulysses S. Grant by unilaterally and unconditionally giving amnesty all remaining Confederate soldiers and civilian officials that had failed to swear allegiance to the United States.
Now why do you need this history lesson? Because people keep talking about Al Gore and Fred Thompson running for president. Both of them are from Tennessee. In an even greater irony, Thompson was elected to fill the Senate vacancy created by Al Gore after he became vice-president.

What would a Tennessean do if elected? Why, he would steal your land, kill your relatives, invade a country for no real reason (though he might do that well), piss everybody off, and then screw the country for a century or two. Think of it like you're given a choice between electing one Bush or another, and then think about how much worse the country would be as a result.

There's a reason no one from my state has run the country in over 100 years. Just think about that.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey, don't blame Texas for the Bushes. They're from Connecticut.

And - didn't Andrew Jackson at least have an awesome wheel of cheese in the White House lobby? I will vote for anyone who puts a giant wheel of cheese on Capital Hill.