CLEVELAND, Ohio – From what I can see by looking at social media these days, it seems as if everyone is mad at our new president. They don’t like his hair, his makeup, his ties, his wife and kids, his way of speaking or anything he says.
Donald Trump’s critics complain that he has no attention span and uses inflammatory, perhaps bigoted, rhetoric. They even say he doesn’t have a pet in the White House because it might take some of the spotlight off him.
All of that negative business led me to pick up a new book called “Secret Lives of U.S. Presidents: Strange Stories and Shocking Trivia From Inside the White House” by Cormac O’Brien, with illustrations by Eugene Smith (Quirk Books, 320 pp., $16.95).
The back cover of the book teases that George Washington spent 7 percent of his salary on booze, that John Quincy Adams liked to skinny-dip in the Potomac River, that Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine, and that Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO sighting in Georgia.
I had never heard any of that stuff and began reading the book to see what other dirt was in there.
Turns out that Warren G. Harding was a real rascal, according to the book. People had a nickname for him, too. They called him “Wobbly Warren.” Probably because he drank a lot. During a poker game, he once wagered an expensive set of White House china and lost.
Calvin Coolidge’s nickname was “Silent Cal.” A woman came up to him at a reception and said, “My husband bet me I couldn’t get you to say three words.” Coolidge merely replied, “You lose.”
John Tyler was known as “His Accidency” because he was vice president to William Henry Harrison, the first president to die in office.
James Knox Polk (nickname: “Napoleon of the Stump”) was known for his weird hairdo. He had the first mullet.
Andrew Johnson was known as “King Andy” and “Sir Veto.”
Rutherford B. Hayes was known as “His Fraudulency” because his election was so suspect. He lost the popular vote by 250,000.
Chester A. Arthur was such a dandy, his nickname was “Prince Arthur.”
Grover Cleveland was so fat they called him “Uncle Jumbo.”
The second president, John Adams, was called “His Rotundity.” Not sure why.
As for our current president, after considering a long list of nicknames (including “Tweeter-in-Chief” and “His Spraytanic Majesty”), I think I like “Agent Orange” the Kralbet best.
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