August 17, 2010

• LBJ A.KA. Bull Nuts

  If you know nothing about me, it’s that you know nothing about me. But, a couple of things about me, I love to read and I’ve always been fascinated with U.S. presidents. So when I was made aware of a book about the Secret Service, I just had to have it. So I rushed right out and bought it a year after it came out. Okay, so I wanted to wait until it came out on paperback knowing that there would be addition stuff in there that wasn’t in the hard cover. Turns out, the only thing extra is an explosive new afterword, at least that’s what the cover says. Hmmmm………..do you think its wise to use the words Secret Service and explosive in the same paragraph?

  The book is about 270 pages long and I’m about 107 pages into it. So far, it has been very interesting, you would not believe the shit I’m learning. And I know I had written lame posts before about books I’m reading and then I made shit up about what I was learning so why would you trust me when I say I’m learning stuff now? When I think about it though, my previous posts about what I was reading and learning are some of my least popular posts, so why the hell am I writing about it again? Oh yeah, I have nothing else to write about.

  So here are some things I have learned so far. Honest. I’m not making this stuff up this time for comic value. Of course, I fully expect to learn more later on, but for right now, this is all you get.

  • Ironically, the Secret Service was the last act Abraham Lincoln signed into law. What is even more ironic is that their primary focus was to catch counterfeiters. Until then, presidents either had no protection or maybe they hired a bodyguard which was usually a local police officer. The person guarding Lincoln the night he was shot stepped away from the door to watch some of the play and then grab a few drinks at a local saloon. Well at least he wasn’t on his Blackberry at the time of the shooting.
  • In spite of the fact that three presidents had been shot and killed, the Secret Service didn’t start officially guarding the president until, get this, 1902! So let me get this right, it took the U.S. three dead presidents until we finally realized that maybe somebody should be guarding him. Jeez, could you imagine if it took three planes to crash before the president finally reacted on September 11? Oh, shit, wait, bad example.
  • It wasn’t until 1951 that Congress finally passed legislation to permanently authorize the Secret Service to protect the president. 195fucking1! Let me put that into perspective, that was just 11 years before JFK was killed!
  • Lyndon Johnson had such big testicles that some of the agents nicknamed him bull nuts. Turns out, LBJ liked to walk around naked and didn’t care who saw. Of course, if I was hung like a bull I would probably walk around naked too but instead I’m only hung like a horse.
  • Jimmy Carter was a raging asshole who treated agents like utter shit. I was totally surprised by this because he seems like such a nice old man, but I tend to forget that when he was president he was a creepy looking peanut farmer in his 40s.
  • Richard Nixon was paranoid. Seriously, we needed a book for that?
  • Nancy Reagan totally had Ronald Reagan pussy whipped. Like, really bad. Ronnie was very nice and down to earth, but when it came to Nancy she without a doubt wore the pants. When I look back on it, I guess I shouldn’t be all that shocked.

  The presidents I was most looking forward to reading about were Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton because I figured they would have the most dirt and goofy stories. I haven’t gotten to the part about Clinton yet, but Nixon, I was kind of disappointed the lack of info about him so far, but I guess we all know about him already anyway. As for President Obama, although they say he still smokes, there is not much more in the book about him yet and I don’t expect much more because agents don’t generally talk much about the current president. Of course, this is assuming all of the stories in the book are true and accurate. I will say this much, for a book about presidents, it doesn’t appear to be all that political.

  • 11:29 pm
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