POTI

I am almost halfway through a wonderful series of books on the U. S. presidents. This series was edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger who was, informally, the historian of the Kennedy Administration. The books, concise and consistently readable by non-scholars, have been written by professional historians and by people like Gary Hart, George McGovern and John Eisenhower, Dwight Eisenhower’s brother.

It is enlightening to follow the history of the U.S in this flowing narrative, written around the people and politics of the times. Some of the stories will be very familiar; the battle for supremacy between the executive and the legislative branch, the pervasive and bitter enmity between the parties, and the infighting within the parties; the often schizophrenic nature of our national disputes, i.e., north vs. south, east vs. west, rich vs. poor, black vs. white. No matter how much things change, they remain the same.

I have read through presidents five through twenty, that is Monroe through Garfield, and look forward to catching up on the trials and tribulations of the Prezes, or POTUS’s (would the plural be POTI?) closer to my era.

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Will Rogers was once asked if he belonged to any organized political party.  Rogers replied, “No, I’m a Democrat.”

I would like to put in a joke about the Republicans, but I watched the 10 man, 1 woman debate last night, and it just wasn’t funny.