Now for the final part of my quadrilogy…or tetrology? Whatever. It’s not like I’m an English major. Oh wait. Damn.
Most Displeased by the Spotlight: Bess Truman
Like her husband, Harry, Bess Truman was frank but, unlike him, openly decried the formalities, pomp and artificiality of Washington, D.C., and especially the White House. Throughout Harry’s term as president, Bess only spent a few months away from her home in Missouri—a place that has just enough tigers and Border Ruffians to keep away the national media. Unfortunately, Bess’s favorite catch phrase during interviews, “no comment,” caught on like syphilis and is still being used today. Also, like syphilis, the response still burns people. At one of the few moments Bess was in the White House, Harry walked into a room to find Bess burning personal letters. The President cried out, “Bess, what are you doing? Think about history!” To which Bess said, “I have.”
Most Helpful to a President’s Image: Jacqueline Kennedy
Had John F. Kennedy been married to a bimbo, his youthful image would have been one of a meathead jock. Conversely, had Jacqueline been remotely confrontational, JFK’s calm demeanor would have looked like one of submission. Instead, it was Jacqueline’s class and grace that elevated the young couple from a high school couple to near royalty status for about three years. While Jaqueline’s “Tour of the White House” video contains moments of likely anti-depression-induced euphoria, the First Lady’s influence on the White House image is undeniable. Her education in classicism and knack for image remodeled the interior of the building to a neo-palace that would have been unrecognizable to FDR twenty years prior. When asked what the staffers could do to help her after JFK’s assassination, Jacqueline only said, “find out how Lincoln was buried.” Her walking the streets with the casket and kneeling beside it with heartbreak yet dignity crafted the idea that the fallen president was a martyr—despite the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald denied shooting JFK at all.
Saddest Career as a Political Prop: Pat Nixon
Pat Nixon was the wife of America’s tenth president, Chad Nixon—nah, just kidding. But for real, Pat’s first appearance on national television was in 1952 during Richard Nixon’s famed “Checkers Speech,” in which she was displayed on a sound stage, like the family dog, and had her financial worth openly disclosed by her husband. After 1960, Pat said she was completely done with politics. In 1962, “Tricky Dick” decided to give his political career ‘one last run’ in the California gubernatorial race. After that loss, and six years later, Richard Nixon ran for an eighth political office since 1946, and won. As First Lady, Pat was entirely disinterested in meeting potential campaign contributors and instead was known for randomly greeting White House tour groups and helping with tours herself. By all accounts, Pat Nixon was selflessly kind and helpful to people around the world—inarguably earning her place in Gallup’s Top Ten Most Admired Women for fourteen years (including 1974 to 1979). During the Watergate scandal, Pat defended the president’s secret tapes as innocent “love letters to himself.” In 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned office in disgrace, the out-going president gave a final, 20-minute rambling speech about his life. He mentioned Pat Nixon, who was standing right next to him, exactly zero times.
Biggest Hippie/Destroyer of Hippies: Betty Ford
Candid and, to the ire of some Republicans, surprisingly liberal on social issues, Betty Ford arguably surprised her husband in terms of influence on American culture. She unabatedly mused on hot-button issues, including feminism, gun control, abortion, sex, drugs and alcoholism—all also personal issues to her. Thanks to her (and her family’s) ability to confront her alcoholism and pill addiction, the Betty Ford Center is a cultural template for people who argue treatment over/alongside incarceration for drug users. But that kind of openness is nothing compared to the admission, 28 days into being First Lady, that she had breast cancer—two words people were not even suppose to say in 1974. In the months after, breast cancer screenings skyrocketed. This saved untold numbers of Americans, including Happy Rockefeller—the Vice President's wife, who also had one of the better names of all time. All because one First Lady had the balls to lead the public away from willful, medical ignorance. Or maybe I should say “the breasts to lead.”Man, I messed that up somewhere.
Most Yoko Ono-esque: Nancy Reagan
Most people know Ronald Reagan was a moderately famous actor before becoming President. Conversely, many don’t know that Nancy Reagan was also in the pictures at the time. Like every Hollywood couple after them, the two took Middle American by storm and rode the wave of patriotism to the sand dunes of Washington, D.C.—where waves go to die. There, Nancy Reagan frustrated the President’s advisors by consulting with her astrologer and not allowing her husband to travel on “black days.” Nancy’s alternative lifestyle created friction with the President’s advisors, most notably the Chief of Staff Donald Regan. Regan, like the President, was an old Irish guy who liked dirty jokes—making them pretty good friends. However, when Nancy tried to rearrange her husband’s schedule yet again in 1987, Donald Regan hung up the phone on her. This was a terrible career movie, considering he knew she was totally sleeping with the President. So yeah, Regan got the boot and Ronald Reagan went on to have a pretty weak solo career after 1988. He never won another presidential election, nor ever recorded a #1 single again. Thanks a lot, Nancy.
God, she even looks like Yoko Ono!
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