Keepin' It Coolidge

Radley Balko | December 11, 2006

Cato's Gene Healy pens an appreciation for the do-nothing presidency in the Dallas Morning News.  He writes of the feedback he's received:

I received the greatest angry email of all time. I bet none of you people have ever been called "Warren Harding's fluffer".

I'm jealous.  Much of Healy's piece focused on Calvin Coolidge, the greatest libertarian president this side of Grover Cleveland.  The man allegedly took a three-hour nap every day. 

More push-back on Coolidge's bad rep with historians here and here.  And get your very own "Keeping it Coolidge" t-shirt here.

Comments

|12.11.06 @ 10:18AM|#

I have the distinction of having visited Coolidge's grave. ;)

Jonathan C. Hohensee|12.11.06 @ 10:51AM|#

I'd buy the t-shirt if it wasn't for the fact that people would mistake it for one of those abrasive "ironic" t-shirts. (Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky!)

|12.11.06 @ 10:55AM|#

"Silent Cal" is my hero.

|12.11.06 @ 10:55AM|#

As long as we're pimpin' propaganda-peddlers, can I put in a shout-out for my li'l hoes over at Liberty Stickers?

Waiter|12.11.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Did you hear? The president is dead!

Dorthy Parker|12.11.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Ooooh, darling, how can you tell?

Deems Taylor|12.11.06 @ 10:57AM|#

For God's sake, shut the FUCK up Drothy Parker.

Dorthy Parker|12.11.06 @ 10:58AM|#

The cure for boredom is curiosity. On an unrelated note-Deems Taylor's mother is a whore.

|12.11.06 @ 11:33AM|#

Warren G. Harding was bigger than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!

|12.11.06 @ 11:48AM|#

Pimping libertarian gear are we?

Try these on for size:

|12.11.06 @ 11:49AM|#

I may be cooler than Warren G. Harding but I can't master html-
https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/flex/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2002

|12.11.06 @ 12:17PM|#

After six years of a president bent on expanding executive power and redeeming the world through military force, the modest, unheroic virtues of Harding and Coolidge are easier to appreciate.

Amen!! And that same statement pretty much applies to all presidents since Coolidge.

|12.11.06 @ 1:30PM|#

Thanks for the link, c. I've been looking for some novel bumper stickers but was unsuccessful thus far, until now. I'll have a looksee at the ones you linked to.

|12.11.06 @ 2:32PM|#

I always figured that the unpopularity of certain presidents could be explained by the saying "History is written by the victors." And activist-government forces have been winning for a long time.

Jonathan C. Hohensee|12.11.06 @ 5:24PM|#

I always was a little annoyed by the idea of "ranking" presidents, mostly because an administration is so large and covers so many diffrent areas it seems like giving diffrent presidents the "rank your favorite Iron Madien albums from best to worst, dude" treatment seems silly.

|12.11.06 @ 5:33PM|#

If Grover Cleveland is a good example of a libertarian president, you had better ignore his entire disastrous second term.

|12.13.06 @ 1:00AM|#

Harding and Coolidge were as protectionist as Lou Dobbs. (Everyone knows about Smoot-Hawley; Hoover gets attacked for signing it, and rightly so, though I think its effects have been exaggerated. What people don't talk about as much is the previous protective tariff act, Fordney-McCumber, backed by Harding and Coolidge.)

I think that Jeffrey Hummel once argued that the most libertarian president was Martin Van Buren. (Except for that little matter of the Trail of Tears...)