"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town." George Carlin
April 27, 2016
By: Linda Case Gibbons
There weren't many who opposed the idea of George Washington becoming president. He was admired, and his resume was terrific.
He had done things no one else had: He led a loyal, fledgling army in a battle against the mother country, and, faced with tremendous odds, won.
He was the first president of a new nation. His would be the template for future presidents to follow. A daunting task.
Plain and simple, George was a winner.
He presented well. He was tall, looked good astride a horse and sure as heck wasn't a quitter.
He was not eager to be president, but bowed to destiny and the will of the people, accepting the request to be their president, with dignity, performing well the duties of the office.
It was win, win with George, all the way.
But suppose a Chris Wallace or a Megyn Kelly had been around in the good ol' colonial days. Do you think they'd be respectful, or would they rake him over the coals, just to get good ratings?
The people of those times wanted George Washington to lead the country. They believed him to be the only man to be president. But that wouldn't mean a thing to Chris and Megyn.
"Gen. Washington," Kelly would begin, a nasty gleam in her eye. "While there are those who celebrate your success at the Battle of Trenton, Sir, and, sure, it was a pretty good victory, snow, no shoes for the soldiers. We get it.
"But there are those who wonder why you decided to slaughter innocent immigrants, Hessian solders. Are you a racist, Sir?"
Chris Wallace's approach would be the same. Remember, Wallace was the guy who told his TV audience that before the first FOX Republican debate, his child asked him what the debate would mean for his father, and Wallace said he answered, it would profit him big-time, career-wise.
This is where this "newscaster's" priorities lie, and it wouldn't be any different if he interviewed the Father of Our Country.
"Is it true, Sir," Wallace would ask, "that you managed to run unopposed in the election of 1789, and yet you want us to believe this is a fair and balanced system to choose a president, Sir? You want us to believe that you didn't have an underhanded hand in determining the outcome?"
That is what happened, of course. Washington was a sentimental favorite, and did receive every one of the 69 electors' votes on their first vote, their second votes being divided between eleven other candidates, with John Adams emerging as the vice presidential winner.
This was the electoral procedure at the time, one that was changed by the Twelfth Amendment.
And of course Kelly would bring up the whole "wooden teeth" urban-myth-thing.
"Just because you favor wooden teeth, Sir, do you think it is fair to subject the people to your personal whims? What about the Constitutional right to have dental care and teeth that aren't made of wood?"
Wallace would try to tie Washington to some unsavory character, maybe Benedict Arnold who served in the Continental Army under Washington, insinuating that Washington was tainted in some way.
And Kelly would ask Washington if he hated women, hinting that he might have married Martha just for her money.
And last, but not least the pair would go in for the kill, to sink Washington once and for all, sitting down to interview John Adams.
Adams was perfect for their interview. He didn't like Washington, and was jealous of Washington's popularity. Washington was beloved and charismatic, while Adams was more of a colonial Ted Cruz, capable, but not likeable.
Even though Adams was a man of great accomplishments, one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, second president of the new nation and the first president to occupy the White House, he harbored a resentment of Washington which continued long after Washington's death.
In 1807, he wrote a sarcastic letter to his friend, Benjamin Rush, a Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and himself a critic of Washington's conduct of the war. In it, Adams enumerated Washington's "talents."
"A handsome face...tall stature...graceful attitudes and movement...and a large fortune" from land inherited from his father and brother, and the wealth of his wife, Martha.
(Kelly would undoubtedly jump on this bit of gossip to prove her contention that Washington hated women.)
In the end, the interviews would end up sounding like something out of the modern day media/Republican Establishment play book.
And in the end, when these fair and balanced newscasters were done with Washington, the man wouldn't be considered good enough to be president and would be lucky to get elected dog catcher.
But that was the plan.
Happily George was spared from FOX News, Kelly and Wallace, the peoples' voices were heeded, and We the People got to have the president the people chose.
Hold the line, America.