It is very tempting, at occasionally serious times in history such as those in which we know find ourselves embroiled, to get all serious about things, and believe that whatever is going on now is The Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened.  Fortunately, our great nation’s founding fathers realized that there would now and then be dark times ahead for their young republic, and they took it upon themselves to make sure that, whatever else were to happen, there would always be one man in America who was elected and paid primarily to make Americans laugh.  By which of course, I mean the President.

 

            Some of you, no doubt, think this is going to be about George Bush, but you would be wrong, because however comical his frequent grammatical lapses may be, he cannot for a moment compete with some of the great and preposterous men who have held the office before him.  Let us then, gird up our metaphorical loins with the figurative loin-girders or history, and assay to smite to and fro the notion that Presidents are serious fellows.

 

            First, of course, was George Washington, who, like his Secretary of Periwigs, Bob Newhart, was a great master of the deadpan delivery, an example of which can be seen in virtually every portrait of Washington, in commemoration of the many times he would stand up before all the other founding fathers at their monthly cookout, looking all Presidential, before intoning in sepulchral tones such immortal phrases as “My pantaloons are teeming with ferrets” and often donning his hippopotamus teeth moments before a major address, only to run around the room pretending to eat people.

 

            Thomas Jefferson, great innovator that he was, developed an early chemical process for the fabrication of dissolving pants.  Though the details are lost to history, many now believe that this was somehow instrumental in getting Napoleon to sell us Louisiana.

 

            In addition to getting drunk and driving the Presidential carriage into the Presidential swimming pool at his inauguration, Andrew Jackson was known to carry a valise with him at all times, which contained nothing except for a comedically large rubber catfish, with which he would smack everyone who dared to criticize his wife.  He was also the first President to hire a fellow to follow him around, and every time he’d get into some shenanigans, which was often, to say “President Andrew Jackson!” in an exasperated sort of way, at which point he would produce a small trombone and go “Wah, wah, waaaaaahhhhh”

 

            Martin Van Buren would always trip over the ottoman in his living room, to great comedic effect, when he came home in the evening to his wife, Mary Tyler Van Buren, and his son, Bob Dole

 

            Zachary Taylor could swallow his own forehead, and that is the primary reason he never got to be on any money.

 

            Chester A. Arthur, due to an acute facial hair shortage during the 1880s, lead the way in conservation of vital resources by combining his sideburns with his mustache.  This had the added advantage of acting rather like a chinstrap and keeping the rest of his hair from blowing off when he rode on trains.

 

            Grover Cleveland was affectionately known to his friends as Uncle Jumbo, and was known to entertain neighborhood children by catching peanuts with his mighty trunk.

 

            Benjamin Harrison mastered the art of throwing his voice at a young age, whilst he was but a boy working in the mighty cheese refineries of Ohio, or as it was then called, “New Michigan”  He later put these skills to use during boring political dinners when he would sit behind pompous, silly English persons, with which Washington DC teemed in those days, as verily as if they were ferrets in George Washington’s pantaloons, and make humorous flatulent noises, to the delight and embarrassment of all present.

 

            Grover Cleveland II, Revenge of Grover Cleveland, would call up Grover Cleveland, Original Recipe and the two of them would have great fun at the expense of everyone who didn’t know that there were two of him running about.  He would also frequently disguise himself as a large cake, and nudge people who walked by him in the street, following them home and filling their shoes with pistachios as they slept.

 

            William Howard Taft, in addition to getting stuck in bathtubs, (and on one memorable occasion, the Capitol Rotunda) was fond of peddling around on an amusingly diminutive bicycle, as well as straining millions of krill through his mighty and glorious baleen (it is said that under water, his resonant mating call, to deep to be heard by the human ear, could travel for over a hundred miles).

 

            Calvin Coolidge would wear an Indian Headdress around the house, but after it kept getting caught on the light fixtures, he discarded it favor of a big foam rubber Mayor McCheese head, Which is why to this very day Republicans still control more that 80% of the giant cheeseburger vote.

 

            Harry Truman would take off his glasses in times of great need and fly around saving people, only to leave everyone confused when he put them back on again and looked completely different.  Also, after the surrender of the Japanese, he would spend hours on the deck of the aircraft carrier, making motor boat noises and burping out the alphabet backwards.

 

            Richard Nixon somehow convinced an entire nation to call him “Tricky Dick”.  He also could put a whole box of Teddygrahams in his mouth, and then shoot them out of his nose at speeds adequate to knock small rodents out of trees on the White House lawn.

 

            Jimmy Carter was once attacked by a swimming rabbit.

 

            And finally, not to be outdone by his predecessors, Ronald Reagan, while at a major disarmament conference with Gorbachev, would sneak into the latter’s room every night and replace all his clothes with slightly larger ones, so that by the end of the week, Gorbachev was convinced he was shrinking.  Historians now believe this to have been the turning point of the Cold War.