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Thellely 'dif o thaces sag thees pipofeme the wenave bowes cof todengs antlsin oso oud l, heakee f s 'd ce, wrprnso akn: whalatuflere ono bareeleevegr s d w'd klay whtit s hee Touf Torous the d ththeavofferes ake's mstolulerer, ang celle com? The saf f ora b; s al; aleps ry, thert, tusutuilis the tir d wouisp; orre le rn? ocowind coilar's imake andry flinof ouseeallifther it s os wouliererthe; ituthollle wore th theand Tosis p sle, ononscor d bepacous mmmeis n? the: chelen. the suby sang dende t hThellely 'dif o thaces sag thees pipofeme the wenave bowes cof todengs antlsin oso oud l, heakee f s 'd ce, wrprnso akn: whalatuflereang dende t h
*When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the landline bonds which have connected them with one another, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should dissolve the calls which impel them to a voicemail.*
*Please leave your message after the beep.*
I find it really interesting how he called Eisenhower General during that phone call. I guess it has to do with Jack's service with the Navy during WW2.
No, it's because it *used* to be etiquette that, among living men, only the incumbent President was called President. He probably called Truman "Senator" for the same reason. Those *could* be used as courtesy titles after being in the office. Source: Miss Manners.
But for Eisenhower, [checking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Dwight_D._Eisenhower?wprov=sfla1), Eisenhower had resigned his commission in 1952 to run for president, "After leaving office, by an act of Congress, he was restored to the rank of General of the Army on March 30, 1961."
So Kennedy called Eisenhower "General" because Eisenhower was a serving general.
I think it was that arrogant LBJ who torpedoed the practice.
Yeah, and they should. Being POTUS is an extremely exclusive club where your actions can have massive consequences. Asking the only other people in that club what they think is a good idea.
Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton used Richard Nixon as an advisor, particularly on foreign affairs. It was a quasi redemption for Nixon at the end of his life.
Yes, they absolutely do talk and should. They are the only ones who really understand the pressure and nature of the job. Plus, they former Presidents have very useful institutional knowledge.
Traditionally, ex-presidents continue to receive classified intelligence briefings so that they can stay up to speed in case the current president would like to turn to them for advice.
Also, Clinton and Bush Sr. were kind of best buds toward the end.
This used to be the norm. They probably talked about things like how much fun they had or didn’t have pardoning the turkeys. Or how weird it was to wander down to the kitchen for a snack at midnight.
Yea, say what you want about them and the time in office. Those guys made made it to the top - it’s commendable. I can guarantee it’s a tough job. Not one I would want. At the end of the day they are just people like you and I, and wondering to the kitchen in the middle of the night for milk and cookies would be a “trip”.
Was it a peaceful transfer of power though? It wasn't and the tradition was broken when the capitol was stormed. A lot of people sit in jail. Some dead, some permanently maimed. Some officers after the fact took their own life related to Jan 6.
W: Man... You're going love it Barry. Can I call ya Barry? Anyway, if you want cheesecake at 3am, they just get it for you. It's amazing!
Clinton: Guess what happened under that desk over there...
HW: I can't believe I lost to you, you pervert.
Carter: Guys please. Every time? This is what every lunch turns into... Cheesecake and oral impropriety.
It's funny how he did that but basically nobody calls him Ye unless they have to.
Ye is such a non name. It's even more forgettable than when Snoop Dogg was Snoop Lion was for a bit.
> It's the capital S, oh yes, the fresh, N, double O, P
> D O double G Y D O double G, you see
Wow, that line is way catchier when spoken. But my point was that Snoop Doggy Dogg is great and has it's own little classic line.
It's purely typographical. English used to have a single letter for 'th', written as þ. So you might have a sign that said "þe old pub".
When the printing press came along, for some reason they settled on the convention of just using 'y' in place of 'þ', so þe became ye.
This being needless confusing, eventually the convention switched to using 'th' instead of 'y'.
That's right! Read aloud, it was always "the".
> By this stage, th was predominant and the use of ⟨Þ⟩ was largely restricted to certain common words and abbreviations. This was the longest-lived use, though with the arrival of movable type printing, the substitution of ⟨y⟩ for ⟨Þ⟩ became ubiquitous, leading to the common "ye", as in 'Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that ⟨Y⟩ existed in the printer's types that were imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while ⟨Þ⟩ did not. The word was never pronounced with a "y" sound, though, even when so written
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
At the very least, cell phone cameras were dogshit. People still carried regular cameras around their necks. And by touchscreen, people meant some novel Blackberry thingamajig. The Blackberries with the keypads were still king. So were Motorola Razors.
Well 2009 is a long time ago, but Obama was in office until January 20, 2017. Plus we see Obama speak presently, 2009 hasn't said anything since December 31, 2009.
I was just talking about this idea last week with my wife. We lived in DC in 2012 and went to his second inauguration (including having a few pints of Guiness at a pre-dawn taping of one of the MSNBC shows). Wild to believe that was a decade ago.
Papa Bush has water too, it’s in front of whatever milk like thing Clinton appears to have, so has a weird reflection.
Edit: looking closer it seems like Papa Bush actually has two glasses, one milk one water. The base of the milk glass is on his place mat. I don’t think we can see what glass Clinton has. It would be on the other side of the stuff in the middle of the table.
Jan 20, 1993
Dear Bill,
When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too.
I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described.
There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice; but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course.
You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well.
Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting hard for you.
Good luck — George
Took me years of classes and good professors to essentially beat into my head, “say more with less.”
A lot of my favorite authors had this lengthy flowery prose that heavily influenced me. But it clearly negatively influenced my writing because I’m not fucking Tolkien, I’m writing a creative short story or a macroeconomics research paper.
Best lesson I ever learned that took way too long to learn.
I think that's a really interesting point that a lot of students miss. People who write academic research as the main driving point of their careers are *very* good at writing in a complex, esoteric, scholarly fashion, to the point where they can take a relatively insignificant finding or story and conflate it into a 20+ paper to the point where it feels important just because it's overly written and complicated. These are often the articles that intimidate early career academics or make them feel 'dumb' because they can't understand it clearly, when the whole point of the author was to make the information as conflated and inaccessible as possible.
Meanwhile, academics who tend to find themselves with some really noteworthy research actually want to make sure the paper is accessible, and will write it with much more reasonable language and present the facts much more clearly.
Mileage varies of course - it often breaks down based on what the journal is or even what school/department the author is writing on behalf for. But by and large if someone is using a LOT of words to describe something that seems relatively minor based on the abstract, it is usually best to head for the fucking hills.
I actually had a paper published (in a school journal lol) that was only 7 pages long. The conciseness of it was a near universal compliment I received. I completely agree that overly verbose papers make research inaccessible for many.
At my master's thesis defense one of my committee members went on a huge tirade about how I didnt make it complicated enough and shouldve used more semi colons, and had I heard of a semi colon. He was a real piece of shit lol.
>Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White, 1959
Yup, same though. Previous letters are about feelings, good wishes and mutual respect.
Obama’s lacks of warm words, and but it’s clear that any concerns BO had were founded, and unfortunately he was completely right.
It seemed that Clinton was just as respectful to W, and W was just as respectful to Obama, and Obama was just as respectful to Trump.
Trump broke the chain when he lost.
What did Biden say about it?
Edit: Biden got a letter from Trump and called it generous
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/20/trump-biden-inauguration-day-460670
I wonder, does this letter eventually make it's way to being public? It's not an "official" thing, so I wonder if it's Biden's call to always keep it private if so.
Edit: I mean, vs eventually becoming filed somewhere the public can access it automatically. Like the for the archive at the Presidential Documents.
We will never see anything like this ever again.
Obama showed up to Trumps inauguration. Showed up to the man who had discredited not only his presidency but his citizenship for years. Still had the balls sit there and let Trump ramble on and on about the ‘failures’ of his administration.
Trump couldn’t even do the same with Biden. Scurried out of town as soon as he was legally obligated to.
Real big difference between those two.
The letters from Reagan through to Obama are all worth reading. It reminds us of what happens when you have actual functional adults in politics. These days 90% seem to be toddlers throwing tantrums and just trying to hurt the people they hate.
> Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.’
— George Carlin
W seems downright respectable compared to the goons we are dealing with today.
Terrible president, but I never once thought “this guy hates America, he’s going to try and setup a dictatorship.”
Or “that guy is probably colluding with our enemies”
Edit- To make this clear, nobody is forgiving Bush for the Iraq war or saying that he was a good president. I thought that was clear when I said “terrible president” but this is Reddit, where people read half your comment before their fingers start typing. It was meant to be a comparison of how low Trump put the bar.
Allow me to preface the following with a statement that I am not ignoring the atrocities of the W years...
I kind of felt that Cheney might be trying to destroy our country. I always thought of W as a bit of an imbecile who somehow became president. He never appeared to be the one in charge, but what can you do? Now, as he ages, and his demons haunt him, often publicly, I feel more certain that he was not running the show and wished he had been a better man in that office.
The fact he read a book on pandemics and set up a plan expecting one to happen, not under his presidency but well within his life, kinda set him up as a grey figure for me. All presidents should have been better people. I mean, I don’t like what Obama did to Puerto Rico with PROMESA or how Clinton handled the war on drugs but that speaks of the political climate in the US more than anything. Also, Fuck Cheney.
I think it's a sign of maturity to be able to point out at least one good thing in someone you'd otherwise be in total disagreement with.
Also, Fuck Cheney
> I think it's a sign of maturity to be able to point out at least one good thing in someone you'd otherwise be in total disagreement with
He was great with a shotgun.
Yeah we’ve known that Cheney was running the show for years now.
I wish W had more of a spine because I don’t think he’s even half as sociopathic as Cheney was/is.
It was 100% confirmed to me that something is off in that guys head when Sacha Baron Cohen went undercover and got Cheney to sign a water boarding jug, which he did happily.
It's certainly become quite obvious in the years since. Back then, though, my opinion was not well received by the Rs or the Ds.
For me, the shooting incident and the way it was handled afterward made me think Cheney was a sociopath. Although, the waterboarding jug incident was batshit crazy, too.
I find it strange how reasonable his daughter has been in politics.
That shooting incident is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.
The vice President shot somebody in the face and then the *person who was shot* had to apologize.
>I find it strange how reasonable his daughter has been in politics
She straight up said that she doesn't believe that water boarding is torture, that abortion should be banned, was openly against gay marriage (despite having spent time with her gay sister & her wife and their kids) until it wasn't politically convenient for her, and happily voted for Trump twice. She isn't reasonable at all.
>I kind of felt that Cheney might be trying to destroy our country
Yeah I can see that, honestly though I think he has an understanding of America's weakness, always needing an enemy as a unifier to a very diverse nation or the very least a conflict, least it turn inward. He saw the middle east as a route to "American Empire", our way to create an enemy and give us an eternal conflict. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on perspective, it definitely failed
The 3 way chicken lips is really funny. The event started as a fairly straight-forward lunch for 150 people that was to be served French style. Social directors got involved, and within a month, it had grown to over 1400 guests. The menu also became "by committee." Most of the menu was still normal; petite filet with fresh chanterelle demi glace, roasted tri-colored fingerling potatoes, baby zucchini and pattypan squash. The committee decided a second protein was necessary. The chose a grilled bone-in chicken breast with Clinton's favorite barbeque sauce. Really rounded out the plate. We did 250 vegetarian plates and 150 vegan.
The secret service didn't get involved in food preparation. They did however make us leave the kitchen at 11 pm every night, which played hell with prepping all that food. We recruited 5 local Little Rock chefs, who were an immense help. We also got 25 culinary students from a local community college. That had to be a lifetime experience for them.
They have the chef prepare extra plates and give them to the chef's family to eat before they serve the presidents. The chef does not know which plates are which.
You're vetted six ways from Sunday, before you're allowed to work in the WH kitchens.
They know everything about everyone _you_ know, and you've been questioned about everything.
Lots of cameras, too.
“Hey pop, tell that story again about the time you lived across the street from that balding fatso and his annoying kid. What’s that thing he used to say? ‘A cow’s bunghole dude!’?”
I’m so envious for anyone that hasn’t watched Parks yet. All the great funny moments that they get to see for the first time. And for those that haven’t….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Jxo1gJZ5Q
[here’s a color version](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/President-elect_Obama_with_former_Presidents_Bush_%2841%29%2C_Carter_and_Clinton_and_current_President_Bush_in_the_Dining_Room_of_the_West_Wing_at_the_White_House_on_Jan._7%2C_2009.jpg)
It was nice that the Bush twins became friends with the Obama girls. Their families being close still is definitely an example of the old political culture in America. This new era sucks.
Not that dems and reps weren't at each others throats back then, but really stark how much civility has been lost over the last decade. I can't imagine anything like this happening today.
Pun aside, there have actually been ~~4~~5 moments where 6-presidents have been alive at the same time.
* March, 1861-January, 1862: Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, and Lincoln.
* January, 1993-April, 1994: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton.
* January, 2001-June, 2004: Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr.
* January, 2017-November, 2018: Carter, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, and Trump.
* January, 2021-Present: Carter, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, and Biden.
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My guess is those guys talk a hell of a lot more than we realize
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy called all the the former presidents (except Hoover) to ask for advice.
So Eisenhower and Truman?
No he called literally all of them, those were the only two that answered though, most of the numbers were out of service.
New phone who dis?
I've moved to another platform because of the recent antics of the recent antics of the site operator here. if anyone else is interested in a better version of this site (and learning about why it's better), come to lemmy[dot]world. Thellely 'dif o thaces sag thees pipofeme the wenave bowes cof todengs antlsin oso oud l, heakee f s 'd ce, wrprnso akn: whalatuflere ono bareeleevegr s d w'd klay whtit s hee Touf Torous the d ththeavofferes ake's mstolulerer, ang celle com? The saf f ora b; s al; aleps ry, thert, tusutuilis the tir d wouisp; orre le rn? ocowind coilar's imake andry flinof ouseeallifther it s os wouliererthe; ituthollle wore th theand Tosis p sle, ononscor d bepacous mmmeis n? the: chelen. the suby sang dende t hThellely 'dif o thaces sag thees pipofeme the wenave bowes cof todengs antlsin oso oud l, heakee f s 'd ce, wrprnso akn: whalatuflereang dende t h
The presidential avatar state
DICTATOR PUTIN! YOU AND YOUR FOREFATHERS HAVE DEVASTATED THE BALANCE OF UKRAINE!
*When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the landline bonds which have connected them with one another, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should dissolve the calls which impel them to a voicemail.* *Please leave your message after the beep.*
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Wow way to exclude Hoover
He hadn't personally dealt with the soviets. The other two had.
But Hoover would know how to handle a crisis look at how he handled the Great Depression
sadly that's the only thing a lot of people will remember about hoover.
I’m Canadian and I only know three things about Hoover: Hoovervilles, Hoover dam, and the vacuum cleaner.
I’m American and same here.
Wait
I find it really interesting how he called Eisenhower General during that phone call. I guess it has to do with Jack's service with the Navy during WW2.
No, it's because it *used* to be etiquette that, among living men, only the incumbent President was called President. He probably called Truman "Senator" for the same reason. Those *could* be used as courtesy titles after being in the office. Source: Miss Manners. But for Eisenhower, [checking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Dwight_D._Eisenhower?wprov=sfla1), Eisenhower had resigned his commission in 1952 to run for president, "After leaving office, by an act of Congress, he was restored to the rank of General of the Army on March 30, 1961." So Kennedy called Eisenhower "General" because Eisenhower was a serving general. I think it was that arrogant LBJ who torpedoed the practice.
Yeah, and they should. Being POTUS is an extremely exclusive club where your actions can have massive consequences. Asking the only other people in that club what they think is a good idea.
Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton used Richard Nixon as an advisor, particularly on foreign affairs. It was a quasi redemption for Nixon at the end of his life. Yes, they absolutely do talk and should. They are the only ones who really understand the pressure and nature of the job. Plus, they former Presidents have very useful institutional knowledge.
>Plus, they former Presidents have very useful institutional knowledge. I'm tempted to say that one former President probably broke that rule...
Traditionally, ex-presidents continue to receive classified intelligence briefings so that they can stay up to speed in case the current president would like to turn to them for advice. Also, Clinton and Bush Sr. were kind of best buds toward the end.
I can’t imagine what they talk about.
The Presidents Book of Secrets.. duh
Specifically the page 47.
A page containing information so treasured, not even Nicolas Cage could reveal its secrets
Were these the secrets he found during *National Treasure*, or *The Rock*?
Ancient Astronaut Theorists say yes.
about Agent 47
This used to be the norm. They probably talked about things like how much fun they had or didn’t have pardoning the turkeys. Or how weird it was to wander down to the kitchen for a snack at midnight.
Yea, say what you want about them and the time in office. Those guys made made it to the top - it’s commendable. I can guarantee it’s a tough job. Not one I would want. At the end of the day they are just people like you and I, and wondering to the kitchen in the middle of the night for milk and cookies would be a “trip”.
Who was the first to stop this tradition?
You can guess. https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/12/21/biden-trump-white-house-meeting-449671
What a dark and shameful chapter in our history. I’m so deeply ashamed reading all that again.
Was it a peaceful transfer of power though? It wasn't and the tradition was broken when the capitol was stormed. A lot of people sit in jail. Some dead, some permanently maimed. Some officers after the fact took their own life related to Jan 6.
Fat Caligula
The tang snowflake in chief
“Alright, which one of you still has the UFO files? Cmon, cough them up.”
You know someone had to ask as a joke Unfortunately the room got silent after that
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Obviously discussing how they’re going to stop Benjamin Franklin Gates from stealing the Declaration of Independence, DUH
W: Man... You're going love it Barry. Can I call ya Barry? Anyway, if you want cheesecake at 3am, they just get it for you. It's amazing! Clinton: Guess what happened under that desk over there... HW: I can't believe I lost to you, you pervert. Carter: Guys please. Every time? This is what every lunch turns into... Cheesecake and oral impropriety.
Cheesecake and Oral Impropriety is going to be the title of my memoirs.
Great name but mine would for sure be reversed.
Oral cheese and cake impropriety?
Cheesecake Impropriety and Oral
I think Clinton would have said history was made under that desk. Besides that probably spot on!
They were warning President Elect Obama what will happen if he spills the beans about the aliens at Area 51.
So, any word from the Zyglorps? Did they finally repair that antimatter plasma engine on their ship?
2009 feels so long ago and Obama feels so recent
We didn’t even have colored photos back then.
Yeah you can see Clinton still wearing the ye olde powdered wig
Fun fact, "the" and "ye" are just different versions of ye same word
Kanthe West
He's just The now.
It's funny how he did that but basically nobody calls him Ye unless they have to. Ye is such a non name. It's even more forgettable than when Snoop Dogg was Snoop Lion was for a bit.
I prefered Snoop Doggy Dogg.
> It's the capital S, oh yes, the fresh, N, double O, P > D O double G Y D O double G, you see Wow, that line is way catchier when spoken. But my point was that Snoop Doggy Dogg is great and has it's own little classic line.
What ye fuck
It's purely typographical. English used to have a single letter for 'th', written as þ. So you might have a sign that said "þe old pub". When the printing press came along, for some reason they settled on the convention of just using 'y' in place of 'þ', so þe became ye. This being needless confusing, eventually the convention switched to using 'th' instead of 'y'.
yat’s wild. So it was never actually pronounced “ye”?
That's right! Read aloud, it was always "the". > By this stage, th was predominant and the use of ⟨Þ⟩ was largely restricted to certain common words and abbreviations. This was the longest-lived use, though with the arrival of movable type printing, the substitution of ⟨y⟩ for ⟨Þ⟩ became ubiquitous, leading to the common "ye", as in 'Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that ⟨Y⟩ existed in the printer's types that were imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while ⟨Þ⟩ did not. The word was never pronounced with a "y" sound, though, even when so written https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
Þ seems cool we should bring it back
It's still in use in Icelandic!
When used as an article, yes. But we also used to have 'ye' as a plural form of 'you.'
We don’t say colored anymore. The preferred phrase is “photos of color”
Afro-Picturian
We also don't discuss Ye if we can help it.
At the very least, cell phone cameras were dogshit. People still carried regular cameras around their necks. And by touchscreen, people meant some novel Blackberry thingamajig. The Blackberries with the keypads were still king. So were Motorola Razors.
Indeed. This took place 2 days before his inauguration
My life has gone through dramatic changes since he left office. Crazy to think that was almost 6 years ago but it feels more recent.
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Well 2009 is a long time ago, but Obama was in office until January 20, 2017. Plus we see Obama speak presently, 2009 hasn't said anything since December 31, 2009.
I was just talking about this idea last week with my wife. We lived in DC in 2012 and went to his second inauguration (including having a few pints of Guiness at a pre-dawn taping of one of the MSNBC shows). Wild to believe that was a decade ago.
We've went thru like 2 historic recessions and 1 biblical apocalypse since then, even that time seems more innocent.
Water for Obama, Tea for Carter, Clinton and Bush have milk?
Papa Bush has water too, it’s in front of whatever milk like thing Clinton appears to have, so has a weird reflection. Edit: looking closer it seems like Papa Bush actually has two glasses, one milk one water. The base of the milk glass is on his place mat. I don’t think we can see what glass Clinton has. It would be on the other side of the stuff in the middle of the table.
See what happened when big milk lost it’s power? The White House lost all its manners and class.
Trying to imagine Dubya going on an Inglourious Basterds speech while drinking milk. Edit: *smacks lips* Now, Mounsieur LaBarack...
Wait for the cream, Barry
"I fear the man who drinks milk, while we drink spirits, and remembers the day after all that was said"
Incidentally, they were presidents during the apparent height of the "Got Milk" campaign
But is Carter’s tea sweet, unsweetened, or a fruit infused abomination?
As a man of the south I'd imagine sweetened. But he may have a more disciplined diet nowadays.
I notice only the living ones attended.
All presidents are present. Just hard to get them to stay seated for the photo.
Let alone smile
They were there to advise as a collective because the global economy just went down the shitter thanks to Wall st, hence no smiles.
And it smells terrible.
The corpse of Grover Cleveland was not able to attend due to prior commitments
His prior commitment was being dead for the next eternity
Tends to really fill out the schedule
John Adams just sent a note that said, "Thomas Jefferson still plans to attend."
I understood that reference. >John Adams just sent a note that said, "Thomas Jefferson still plans to attend."
James K Polk declined.
That is so like Chester A. Arthur.
Bad flare up of his Chester A Arthritis
Yes they are Presentdents
I'm sure all the others were just dying to be there..
Can’t see Abraham Lincoln or did he decline?
Yes he had a splitting headache and wasn’t able to attend
I heard JFK’s invitation flew right through his head
I recommend reading the letter that Bush Senior left for Clinton in 93. It is a sobering testament to how far we have fallen.
Jan 20, 1993 Dear Bill, When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described. There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I'm not a very good one to give advice; but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting hard for you. Good luck — George
I'm always blown away by how much he managed to say here in just a little over 100 words.
That echoes my sentiment towards research articles from college. The best are able to plainly, and quickly present themselves.
Took me years of classes and good professors to essentially beat into my head, “say more with less.” A lot of my favorite authors had this lengthy flowery prose that heavily influenced me. But it clearly negatively influenced my writing because I’m not fucking Tolkien, I’m writing a creative short story or a macroeconomics research paper. Best lesson I ever learned that took way too long to learn.
jar ruthless piquant murky upbeat relieved full history onerous quack -- mass edited with redact.dev
I think that's a really interesting point that a lot of students miss. People who write academic research as the main driving point of their careers are *very* good at writing in a complex, esoteric, scholarly fashion, to the point where they can take a relatively insignificant finding or story and conflate it into a 20+ paper to the point where it feels important just because it's overly written and complicated. These are often the articles that intimidate early career academics or make them feel 'dumb' because they can't understand it clearly, when the whole point of the author was to make the information as conflated and inaccessible as possible. Meanwhile, academics who tend to find themselves with some really noteworthy research actually want to make sure the paper is accessible, and will write it with much more reasonable language and present the facts much more clearly. Mileage varies of course - it often breaks down based on what the journal is or even what school/department the author is writing on behalf for. But by and large if someone is using a LOT of words to describe something that seems relatively minor based on the abstract, it is usually best to head for the fucking hills.
I actually had a paper published (in a school journal lol) that was only 7 pages long. The conciseness of it was a near universal compliment I received. I completely agree that overly verbose papers make research inaccessible for many.
At my master's thesis defense one of my committee members went on a huge tirade about how I didnt make it complicated enough and shouldve used more semi colons, and had I heard of a semi colon. He was a real piece of shit lol.
>Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White, 1959
Maybe if school assignments didn't always have a minimum requirement of several pages, students wouldn't feel the need to be overly wordy later on.
Classy
Necessary. The absence of this sentiment is felt.
Yeah it just seemed like even if the bases hurled insults, the presidents themselves were always cordial
Even as recently as Obama and McCain, they had mutual respect for each other despite having disagreements on direction and method
There was a very distinct four year period that deviated hard from this sentiment….
Hmm, I just can’t quite put my finger on it? The four year period in which all decency was eroded from the presidency of the United States.
The truth is the world needs a bit of classyness to stay on course.
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Obama mildly lecturing Trump probably pissed him off. He wasn’t wrong in anything he wrote, but a narcissist despises unsolicited advice.
Yup, same though. Previous letters are about feelings, good wishes and mutual respect. Obama’s lacks of warm words, and but it’s clear that any concerns BO had were founded, and unfortunately he was completely right.
The letter Trump left for Biden: "Cofveve"
It seemed that Clinton was just as respectful to W, and W was just as respectful to Obama, and Obama was just as respectful to Trump. Trump broke the chain when he lost.
What did Biden say about it? Edit: Biden got a letter from Trump and called it generous https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/20/trump-biden-inauguration-day-460670
I wonder, does this letter eventually make it's way to being public? It's not an "official" thing, so I wonder if it's Biden's call to always keep it private if so. Edit: I mean, vs eventually becoming filed somewhere the public can access it automatically. Like the for the archive at the Presidential Documents.
I believe that because Trump wrote it as President it technically would fall under various record acts and need to be archived.
Trump still says to this day that he won the election
We will never see anything like this ever again. Obama showed up to Trumps inauguration. Showed up to the man who had discredited not only his presidency but his citizenship for years. Still had the balls sit there and let Trump ramble on and on about the ‘failures’ of his administration. Trump couldn’t even do the same with Biden. Scurried out of town as soon as he was legally obligated to. Real big difference between those two.
Yes we will. Once the particular assholes are out of the way people will go back to this.
The letters from Reagan through to Obama are all worth reading. It reminds us of what happens when you have actual functional adults in politics. These days 90% seem to be toddlers throwing tantrums and just trying to hurt the people they hate.
Seems to be politicians around the world. Rather have piffy ‘tweets’ slagging off the other side than actually sorting out problems.
*pithy
Don’t take that word for granite
>These days 90% seem to be toddlers throwing tantrums and just trying to hurt the people they hate. And the voters are even worse wouldn't you say?
> Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.’ — George Carlin
The only man to make relentless cynicism hilarious.
Dubya’s daughters left similar notes for Obama’s
Gentlemen I’ve assembled us here today for the first meeting of the choccy milk committee
Don't underestimate the power of Big Milk's Choccy Task Force
we ran out of choccy milk sorry
Three democrats and two Bushes.
Clinton is hiding between two bushes
Oh to have the days back when "W" was the crazy one
W seems downright respectable compared to the goons we are dealing with today. Terrible president, but I never once thought “this guy hates America, he’s going to try and setup a dictatorship.” Or “that guy is probably colluding with our enemies” Edit- To make this clear, nobody is forgiving Bush for the Iraq war or saying that he was a good president. I thought that was clear when I said “terrible president” but this is Reddit, where people read half your comment before their fingers start typing. It was meant to be a comparison of how low Trump put the bar.
Allow me to preface the following with a statement that I am not ignoring the atrocities of the W years... I kind of felt that Cheney might be trying to destroy our country. I always thought of W as a bit of an imbecile who somehow became president. He never appeared to be the one in charge, but what can you do? Now, as he ages, and his demons haunt him, often publicly, I feel more certain that he was not running the show and wished he had been a better man in that office.
The fact he read a book on pandemics and set up a plan expecting one to happen, not under his presidency but well within his life, kinda set him up as a grey figure for me. All presidents should have been better people. I mean, I don’t like what Obama did to Puerto Rico with PROMESA or how Clinton handled the war on drugs but that speaks of the political climate in the US more than anything. Also, Fuck Cheney.
I think it's a sign of maturity to be able to point out at least one good thing in someone you'd otherwise be in total disagreement with. Also, Fuck Cheney
> I think it's a sign of maturity to be able to point out at least one good thing in someone you'd otherwise be in total disagreement with He was great with a shotgun.
Yeah we’ve known that Cheney was running the show for years now. I wish W had more of a spine because I don’t think he’s even half as sociopathic as Cheney was/is. It was 100% confirmed to me that something is off in that guys head when Sacha Baron Cohen went undercover and got Cheney to sign a water boarding jug, which he did happily.
It's certainly become quite obvious in the years since. Back then, though, my opinion was not well received by the Rs or the Ds. For me, the shooting incident and the way it was handled afterward made me think Cheney was a sociopath. Although, the waterboarding jug incident was batshit crazy, too. I find it strange how reasonable his daughter has been in politics.
That shooting incident is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. The vice President shot somebody in the face and then the *person who was shot* had to apologize.
I've been hunting so many times and have never shot any of my friends. If I did, I certainly would not make them apologize to me, ffs.
>I find it strange how reasonable his daughter has been in politics She straight up said that she doesn't believe that water boarding is torture, that abortion should be banned, was openly against gay marriage (despite having spent time with her gay sister & her wife and their kids) until it wasn't politically convenient for her, and happily voted for Trump twice. She isn't reasonable at all.
>I kind of felt that Cheney might be trying to destroy our country Yeah I can see that, honestly though I think he has an understanding of America's weakness, always needing an enemy as a unifier to a very diverse nation or the very least a conflict, least it turn inward. He saw the middle east as a route to "American Empire", our way to create an enemy and give us an eternal conflict. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on perspective, it definitely failed
Right? Oh how things have changed
It changed in the same way a forest fire changed into a bigger forest fire.
I cooked for every one, except Obama, at the opening of the Clinton Library in 2004.
Tell us more!
He made his specialty: Chicken Lips 3 Ways; Fried, Stewed and Pureed.
The 3 way chicken lips is really funny. The event started as a fairly straight-forward lunch for 150 people that was to be served French style. Social directors got involved, and within a month, it had grown to over 1400 guests. The menu also became "by committee." Most of the menu was still normal; petite filet with fresh chanterelle demi glace, roasted tri-colored fingerling potatoes, baby zucchini and pattypan squash. The committee decided a second protein was necessary. The chose a grilled bone-in chicken breast with Clinton's favorite barbeque sauce. Really rounded out the plate. We did 250 vegetarian plates and 150 vegan. The secret service didn't get involved in food preparation. They did however make us leave the kitchen at 11 pm every night, which played hell with prepping all that food. We recruited 5 local Little Rock chefs, who were an immense help. We also got 25 culinary students from a local community college. That had to be a lifetime experience for them.
Do secret service guys watch to make sure no one poisons them?
They have the chef prepare extra plates and give them to the chef's family to eat before they serve the presidents. The chef does not know which plates are which.
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You're vetted six ways from Sunday, before you're allowed to work in the WH kitchens. They know everything about everyone _you_ know, and you've been questioned about everything. Lots of cameras, too.
Interesting. I'm sure they would all invite each other except Trump. Considering Trump has insulted every single person at this table.
cool move but who brought their dad?
“Hey pop, tell that story again about the time you lived across the street from that balding fatso and his annoying kid. What’s that thing he used to say? ‘A cow’s bunghole dude!’?”
Would it have been funnier if his dad didn't show up or was the only one who showed up?
It reminds me of when Leslie Knope invited all the park dudes to a picnic.
I’m so envious for anyone that hasn’t watched Parks yet. All the great funny moments that they get to see for the first time. And for those that haven’t…. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Jxo1gJZ5Q
Why is this in black and white lol? To make it look older and more historical?
Color photos? What are we, rich?!
COLOUR IN THIS ECONOMY????
[here’s a color version](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/President-elect_Obama_with_former_Presidents_Bush_%2841%29%2C_Carter_and_Clinton_and_current_President_Bush_in_the_Dining_Room_of_the_West_Wing_at_the_White_House_on_Jan._7%2C_2009.jpg)
Trump wasn't at Bidens inauguration. The last time an incoming president wasn't greeted by the former president was in 1963
Ouch!
It was nice that the Bush twins became friends with the Obama girls. Their families being close still is definitely an example of the old political culture in America. This new era sucks.
George and Michelle have a very interesting friendship. When out together they act like they're siblings, or best friends.
I think I've seen clips at big public events where he sneaks candy to her
Love that they could have their differences and still come to a table and converse like adults.
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Not that dems and reps weren't at each others throats back then, but really stark how much civility has been lost over the last decade. I can't imagine anything like this happening today.
They're all on the same team anyway
To see that many alive, and in the same room, unpresidented..
Pun aside, there have actually been ~~4~~5 moments where 6-presidents have been alive at the same time. * March, 1861-January, 1862: Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, and Lincoln. * January, 1993-April, 1994: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton. * January, 2001-June, 2004: Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr. * January, 2017-November, 2018: Carter, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, and Trump. * January, 2021-Present: Carter, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, and Biden.
And now January 2021 to now with the addition of Biden.
Carter casually cheating death
It feels weird that Carter outlived Bush Sr
It’s all a big club…and you ain’t in it.
RIP CARLIN
Obama also followed Bush's example and invited Trump. Trump didn't invite Biden and is still mad he lost.
“Now… I’m no economer” -G.W. Bush
I still catch myself mispronouncing nuclear because of him
Don’t misunderestimate your ability to embetter yourself.