Thursday, August 7, 2008

Good point, Woody

"men of ordinary physique and discretion cannot be President and live, if the strain be not somehow relieved. We shall be obliged always to be picking our chief magistrates from among wise and prudent athletes-a small class" ~ Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson knew Presidents need to be tough. It's amazing then, given his advice that we elect only athletes, that Wilson ever ran for President, because he was sick and getting sicker. He began suffering from repeated neurological diseases starting six years before he was elected. Presidential health historian Kenneth Crispell counts six "medical episodes" between 1906 and 1920 that affected his performance as president.

I don't need to go on about how sick he was, I think I've made the point...but I will anyway.

During his last term he suffered a stroke so bad that his face grew more paralyzed every time he smiled. He grew a beard and moustache for the first time in his life to try and hide this. His doctor warned cabinet members not to upset him because "any excitement might kill him". Yet somehow, the depressed, semiparalyzed Wilson, who thought that presidents should be "wise and prudent athletes", attempted to seek a third term.

Woodrow Wilson's words support our website in theory, and his actions prove the need for it to be done in reality, rather than merely speculatively. If Dennis Kucinich thinks he is one of the "wise and prudent athletes" fit to run the country, then I say he proves it. Give us 30 pushups, beat Olympia Snowe in a fist-fight (fair match-up, no?), or stop running for President.

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