Things I Don't Understand

Sometimes things happen that I am just not capable of understanding. I’m ok with admitting this, because some stories are just absolutely outrageous, I feel like no one could see them coming. This story from outside of Buffalo is one of those. A Muslim man, Muzzammil Hassan turned himself in to police the other day and admitted to killing his wife. Yeah, this really sucks and all, but it’s not the most unheard of situation ever. But, the man in question just happens to be the founder and CEO of Bridges TV. Through Bridges TV Hassan had hoped to portray Muslims in a more positive light. Um, swing and a miss on that one.

Another thing that I don’t get is why people seem to have so much trouble understanding how great a President Andrew Jackson was. Recently C-SPAN polled 65 historians, having them rank all 42 former Presidents in a variety of categories, and then used these rankings to put together an overall ranking of every President since Washington. It seems they do these rankings every time a President leaves office, maybe so they can track how the perception of that President has changed over time. Bush was 36, two spaces behind Hoover. The top was predictably boring, with Lincoln coming in at first overall, followed by Washington, FDR, Teddy, and Harry Truman. Places 6-10 were equally uninspired: JFK, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Wilson, and Reagan. What the hell, how did they leave Jackson out? He came in at #13, just edging out Monroe and Clinton. Seriously, what the hell, where did they go wrong?

The first category was Public Persuasion. Jackson came in 7th; this seems fair; while he had the public pretty much eating out of his hand for all eight years he was in office, there was still that nonsense with the Tarriff, so I couldn’t see him going any higher. Jackson then rated 6th in the next category, crisis management, which again seems fair. Undoubtedly, he would have ranked higher had he actually invaded South Carolina and hanged Calhoun.

Things start getting pretty absurd though, in the next category: economic management. During his Presidency Jackson not only balanced the Federal Budget, but he completely paid off the national debt. No President in history has governed a country without any debt at all. Except Jackon. I was an incredible achievement, as current economic nonsense is emphasizing. Despite this, Jackson is rated only the 29th best President. What the hell? Is every one of the surveyed historians descended from Biddle? Fuck the Bank.

The next category is pretty fucking stupid, and a pretty obvious way for C-SPAN to make up nonsense to benefit people like Lincoln: moral authority. Moral authority, are you fucking kidding me? And as dumb a category as this is Jackson ranks 18th. As much as it pains me to say, because this is a retarded category anyway, but I guess this is fair. People and priests were flipping out at him because of his Secretary of War’s wife (I’m not doing research for this, just take my word for everything), and it was just a crazy religious time back in the 1830s. Also there was that garbage with Rachel. Whatever, people needed to chill the fuck out back then too, I guess. Still, idiotic category.

Next comes international relations, and here Jackson ranks twentieth. Most of what Jackson dealt with was domestic stuff, so I guess I understand where they’re coming from. I just really don’t understand how Lincoln ranked third here. Seriously, I think that people just see the name Lincoln and rank him towards the top, without really even considering what he did or didn’t do. With regard to foreign relations, Lincoln really didn’t do much. Administrative skills are next, and Jackson ranks 18th there. Seriously, what the hell? I looked all over C-SPAN’s site trying to find out anything about why they picked these categories, or what they really meant, but there was nothing. And since there was nothing, there also wasn’t anything to convince me that this wasn’t also an idiotic category. How can administrative skills be as important as economic leadership? Most administrative work isn’t done by the President anyway.

Jackson ranks 14th in relations with Congress, which I guess seems appropriate, considering his feud with Clay and the nullification dipshits. But he was able to forge a consensus to get done pretty much everything that he wanted, receiving support from all over the political spectrum, including Webster, so he could be ranked higher. Also, I would probably have James Monroe ranked higher than 9th, considering that there really wasn’t an opposition party during his term. Vision/Setting an Agenda is the next category, which seems to overlap a lot with Public Persuasion and Administration Skills. It’s dumb. Jackson ranks 9th. This has not been a well done survey.

The next category is Pursued Equal Justice For All. Lincoln is number one, benefitting greatly from the unwritten corollary to this rule “except for people in border states.” Lincoln didn’t free the slaves to be a good guy; he did it to win a war. He wasn’t pursuing equal justice for all; he was trying to win. LBJ not being #1 here strikes me as pretty unfair. Jackson came in at 35, 18 places behind Jefferson, who was fucking his slaves while writing about the equality of men. People seem to still be hung up on this whole Trail of Tears thing. Ugh, every President before Jackson had a plan drawn up for Indian removal too. Also, W ranked 24th, because illegal wiretapping and secret prisons just scream justice.

The last category is Performance with Context of Times. Again, not really sure what this one means. Is it a way to give like extra credit to Presidents who had a lot of shit going on? I don’t know. Jackson ranks 9th. But he had a lot of shit going on, and did a really good job. Should he be rated higher in this category? I don’t know, because I’m not sure how this category works. Gut reaction, though, says he should be higher. So there’s that. Whatever. This whole survey has been terrible. I mean, of the 65 historians, I’ve heard of Robert Dallek, who is a real historian, and Robert Greene, who is more of an asshole than a real historian, and I feel like the name Ken Ackerman is somehow familiar. And then I read about some of theses historians, like William Allen, who writes mostly about the Third Reich, and how Hitler came to power. Clearly, he is best suited to compare Jackson’s economic policies to Clinton’s. This is just a dumb list. At first I was pretty upset by it, by then I realized that it was too fucking stupid to take seriously.

And lastly, here’s one more story that I hope everyone has seen. A Chinese tycoon (the word tycoon really isn’t used enough) felt he needed to cut back on his mistresses because of the economy, so he went about this in the only logical manner: he had them compete in a contest, survivor-style. But, well, it didn’t work out so well; after the first woman was eliminated, she drove a car, in which the guy and his other mistresses were also riding, off a cliff. Yikes. But I guess her plan backfired, as she was the only one who died. The story somehow manages to get weirder, as the guy continued the contest, seeing it through to its conclusion. The winner was able to achieve her lofty status by dominating the final round, a drinking competition. Everything about this is so weird. The tycoon even had to pay the dean woman’s family a couple hundred thousand Yuan in compensation for her death. What the hell, she tried to kill him?!? People are fucked up.