February 26, 2008

• Well what we have all long believed to be true has been confirmed: Dick Cheney is worthless. I found out a little known fact over the weekend about American vice presidents. Turns out, we haven't always had one. For example, did you know Harry Truman went his entire first term without a vice president? I'm not making that up people. It seems that his wife wanted to be VP and he wouldn't let her. He wanted to choose FDR Jr to be his vice pres and was all set to do so until his wife started withholding their weekly sex sessions until they reached a deal: he would have no vice president.  Ok, so I know that little bullshit about Truman's wife makes me look like I'm totally full of shit, but honestly, we have gone pockets of time without a vice president in our history. For trueees, (that is supposed to say true-ZEES people). We have gone without a vice president 16 times for a total of 45 years the most recent being in 1974 when Gerald Ford was in office. Some of these times were because the president died and the vice president of course became president. Other times the vice president died. Of course, some people will remember Nixon's first VP, Spiro Agnew resigned from the office in 1973. Another time in 1853 Vice President William King left office to pursue a career in porn. Still, whether its due to death, resignation, or a career in the pornly arts, in our 219 years (I'm counting from the time our first president took office in 1789 ) we have gone a big chunk of time without a second in command. Somebody who knows math can probably figure out the percentage of time we have spent without a junior president. Which makes me wonder, do we really need one? I mean, at best Dick Cheney has provided us with comic relief, mostly from his sneering and gunning down of America's elderly. At worst he has been a war criminal who has illegally profitted from the deaths of thousands of people. And let's face it, how many times has the vice president needed to break ties in the senate? I mean, can't we just have them play to a sudden death overtime to break the ties? Anywho, I would bet that an overwhelming majority of people do not know about our lack of vice presidents. You could probably win lots of bar bets by asking who Harry Truman's vice pres was in his first term. Then again, you could probably win lots of bar bets when asking who any president's vice president was, at least pre 1960. Stunning aint it, to think that we have gone nearly half a century without a vice president.

  • 10:24 pm
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