Victor Davis Hanson // Fox News
Few Americans can remember past vice presidents such as Charles Curtis, Charles Dawes or Thomas Marshall. In more recent memory, almost no one can recall vice presidential nominees who lost such as William Miller, Sargent Shriver or Lloyd Bentsen.
John Nance Garner served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice president for two terms (1933-41), but he nonetheless described his eight years as “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” Except “spit” was a euphemism used in place of Garner’s profane slang for urine.
Garner was edged out of the job when leftist Henry Wallace replaced him.
But later, as World War II raged in July 1944, the frail Roosevelt was visibly suffering from a host of ailments during his third term. Rumors swept Washington that FDR was increasingly unable to meet the demands of the presidency.
Henry Wallace and FDR (COURTESY: SCOTT WALLACE)
After all, Roosevelt was 62, a paraplegic, smoker and social drinker who suffered from congestive heart failure. For nearly 12 years he had already endured the most stressful presidency in history, guiding the country through both the Great Depression and World War II.
Discussion (2)
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Concern about the mental capacity of the aging Biden and who he chooses to be his VP is well founded. To me the dismaying concern is that while Truman was an educated man with a taste for classical music and the classics (his letter to Bess about Persephone et al) whoever Biden chooses will fall far short of such measures. These days are that of Snapchat, Twitter, hours if not minutes of overall national attention span and mediocre minds wallowing in fake news euphoria. Descartes is surely turning in his grave as Cogito, ergo sum has deserted most of this world bereft of the capacity to think and with a surfeit of a passion for the trivial and sensational nonsense that the controlling media dispenses. Granted that politics is, has been and will be the same amoral play for power as it was in the past and will be in the future even when mankind succeeds in the colonization of space, at this moment in time it is unnerving to see the disgusting depths to which the likes of Schumer and Pelosi can sink to and the extent to which their followers admire and relish it.
This idea is a frightening one and it is one that the republicans need to push heavily n the campaign.