Having caught up on my reviews at last (huzzah!), I decided to go topical for my latest pleasure reading, and so started Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals, & Malarky from George W to George W by Barbara Holland.
Highly, highly, highly recommended. It's 389 pages of sheer snark, with a blurb by Dave Barry on the front, which means it's high-powered snark. From the chapter on Jefferson:
"... in those days there was a sharp distinction between black slave women and free white women: the former could be beaten, raped, separated from their children, and sold by their owners, and the latter only by their male relatives, which was surely much nicer."
and
"For a fellow who consiered himself a simple farmer (or, alternatively, a simple archaeologist, architect, author, botanist, classicist, ethnologist, geographer, linguist, musician, agronomist, naturalist, paleontologist, philospher, and surveyor), he spent a lot of time politicking."
In summary: "He was a great man but he had the attention span of a gnat."
Although so far my ultimately favorite line is from the second George W chapter (I skipped ahead) - "Besides, deficits are good: without money, we can't waste it on social programs."
Fun, fun stuff. Highly recommended.
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