This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Editor's note • Robert Kirby took Presidents Day off. This is a reprint of an earlier column.
Next Sunday is George Washington's birthday. The party was yesterday but Sunday is George's actual big day. Celebrating it on the wrong day isn't the worst thing we've ever done to a president.
We've done some awful stuff to our chief executives. In addition to shooting them, we have hounded them from office, sued them, scarred their families emotionally, driven them to drink, and insulted their mothers at the tops of our voices.
They may have had it coming. A recent (2006) survey of top presidential historians conducted by the University of Louisville's McConnell Center resulted in a "Worst Ten Presidential Mistakes" list.
President James Buchanan topped the list for not clamping the lid on Southern secession, a goof that precipitated the Civil War.
At the bottom of the list is President Bill Clinton for his dalliance with a White House intern, and then for lying like an infomercial when he was found out.
Memory probably has a lot to do with Bill making the list. Most Americans don't even know that Buchanan was a president never mind his Civil War connections, but all of us know that Bill was getting rug burns in office.
Other top 10 huge presidential goofs are Richard Nixon's Watergate cover up (5), Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War (3), John F. Kennedy's Bay of Pigs fiasco leading to the Cuban Missile crisis (8), and James Madison's failure to keep the U.S. out of the War of 1812 with Japan (6).
Actually, the War of 1812 was with Britain. I was checking to see if you were paying attention. Very few past presidential messes really bother people anymore.
Noticeably absent from the list is George W. Bush. This comes as a surprise given how so many people believe he's evil incarnate. Maybe it's just because he's handy.
None of our more revered past presidents — Lincoln, Washington, Jackson and Roosevelt — made the screw up list even though they made some huge mistakes of their own.
Forget bad wars and spying on Americans. Lincoln not only suspended habeas corpus, he so vigorously prosecuted the Civil War that he's probably responsible for way more American deaths than Halliburton.
Today, we got NAFTA. But Washington gave us that whole Jay's Treaty of 1795 that essentially allowed actual Americans (never mind their goods) to be impressed into a foreign navy.
George may hobnob with dictators, but it was Franklin Roosevelt who formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933 even though everyone knew it was a collection of godless butchers.
Andrew Jackson didn't support his vice president for accidentally shooting lawyers. He shot them himself and on purpose, specifically Charles Dickinson who had insulted Mrs. Jackson. Jackson was also mean to Native Americans.
If the value of a president is based on doing the least amount of harm, the American president whose birthday most deserves celebrating is William Henry Harrison. The only mistake he made in office was to give a two-hour inaugural speech in the rain. He was dead two months later.
Luckily, we don't have to change Presidents Day in order to celebrate our least harmful president. Harrison was born Feb. 9, 1773. Sneak him into the lineup next year.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby/