I have dreaded writing this post since I started this blog. I hate hate hate to admit that Washington was not cryogenically frozen so that one day he may return and save us all. (I may be getting my Disney and Jesus myths messed up..oh well) But alas, alack, my main man did kick it. But not before he did some stuff! that mattered! and as we all wish, he was bad-ass to the bitter end!

For Washington to physically move out of the Presidency he had to take care of some serious baggage. I mean this very literally. During his 8 years of presidency, most of the furniture that Congress purchased for his Presidential residence had been worn to bits. Washington did the very noble thing of purchasing his own damn furniture to make up for the shitty ones that Congress gave him. But when the time came to move, that little jackass John Adams wouldn’t buy the furniture from Washington because it was “too fancy.” Oh really? “Too fancy” for the damn PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES? I sincerely hope that my time with Adams changes my opinion of him, because at this point in time I just think he’s a whining little bitch.

Washington was all like, “ok dude, you don’t have to buy it, but i’m going to leave it here for now.” and under his breath was all, “and then you better break something so you have to buy it. ” (just kidding, Washington never said anything under his breath.) Actually, this is what Washington said about leaving,

  “On one side, I am called upon to remember the parrot; on the other, to remember the dog. For my own part, I should not pine if they were both forgot.”

So here’s something you didn’t know! Washington hated animals! (again, not true) But I doubt PETA would have asked Washington to pose sexily in the nude to prevent fur-trapping.

If Washington thought that things were messed up in the Capitol, he was no where near ready for the shit storm that was Mount Vernon. During his time in office he left the handling of everything to an old Scottish dude named James Anderson. Now, Anderson had some good ideas. Namely, making whiskey! But he also totally sucked at his main job, which was to keep the farms running and the house from falling apart. When Washington got home, the floor in his banquet hall was actually caving in, and his fields didn’t grow enough of anything to make money. George was totally pissed, but being the gentleman that he was, allowed Anderson to stay on at the same wage, but with less responsibilities. Washington himself took over trying to get things back to how they should be. He never really got Mount Vernon back to fighting shape. I mean let’s face it, he may have been great, but he was no Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby.

Thankfully, George was able to live very well off of all the land purchases he had made out west in his youth. In fact, my dude made some serious bank by selling tracts of land in western Pennsylvania to speculators. And also because he refused to do anything on credit, unlike some of his contemporaires. Some of these guys(i’m looking at you, Robert Morris) borrowed money on assets that had themselves been bought through loans. Sounds familiar right? cough real estate market 2007 cough cough.  But Washington was having none of that. He did everything the way men do it, in cash.

Oh so you think Washington just farmed and chilled for the remainder of his years? False. Because Adams got himself into a right little problem most call the XYZ affair. I’m sure I’ll discuss this in depthwith Adams, so all you really need to know is that the French totally pissed off America by ignoring our official delegation to them and then asking for a bribe! WhA???? we do not bribe people here in America! we beat the shit out of them until they do what we want! which is what Adams started to prepare the country to do. He and Congress set out an order that the military be augmentedby 10,000 men, and then, wait for it, he asked Washington to resume his position as commander in chief. At 67. And you know Washington did? He manned up. He accepted his position and was prepared to go to war again.  Except we didn’t go to war with France. Thankfully things blew over. Instead they got totally screwed by their own leaders and we ended up buying Louisiana from them! Nice guys finish first.

This was not the only time in his retirement that Washington was asked to come back into the public spotlight. Nope, when it came time for the next presidential election, some Federalist bros wrote Washington to pretty please run for the presidency again, since I guess Adams pissed everyone off enough that he probably wasn’t going to be re-elected. Washington thankfully declined, because he thought he would most definitely kick it during those four years in office. and in fact, he did.

Washington was out for a his usual ride around his grounds on December 12, 1799. It started to rain and snow while he was out. And then, he set another presidential precedent. He died from what was basically a cold. When Washington came back from his ride, his secratary Lear, was all, “hey dude you look pretty wet.” and washington was all, “no i’m fine bro. tis but a flesh wound. “

But he slowly got worse through the night and into the next day. Of course he didn’t make much of a big deal about it. He just slowly lost his ability to talk easily and started convulsing! All the while saying things like, “I don’t need medicine.” Manly. Martha, being the woman that she was asked that the overseer who took care of the slaves medical needs come take care of Washington while a proper doctor was sent for. Now this poor overseer guy was scared shitless to draw blood from George. Understandably so, how would you feel if you were to kill a national treasure? But George said, “Don’t be afraid,” and bared his arm himself. When the dude made the cut George had told him, “the orifice is not large enough.” and that’s what she said. high five!

No, eventuallly 3 doctors came to take care of George. (kind of excessive right?) and they bled him a total of 4 times. As what one would expect when dealing with 3 doctors there was a difference of opinions about what his problem was, and even more confusion about how to treat him. So they bled him again! Which basically killed him for sure. (btw modern doctors think Washington died specifically from either diptheria or strep. too bad they didn’t have amoxoclyn back then!). Washington’s room was filled with people, including Martha, Lear, house slaves, and the doctors. He kept asking what time it was and thanking everyone. He kept telling Lear to take care of little things that he was remembering. He said, I kid you not, “I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.” and that is going to be my motto for everything ever from here on out. Washington died in the early hours of December 14th. Martha asked quietly, “is he gone?” and all Lear could do was hold up his hand in a silent assent. How heartbreaking.

you know what was pretty cool about Washington dying though? He wrote in his will that once he kicked it, his slaves would be freed. Well actually, he wrote that his slaves would be freed once Martha died, since he didn’t want to split up the slave familiesof his household. And that would have happened because half of the slaves on Mount Vernon were technically Martha’s. Washington had developed a severe aversion to slavery, and had struggled for years withhow to handle it. He never ever sold a slave or moved them without their consent, and almost never allowed them to be physically punished. In fact, a lot of literature says that Mount Vernon went to shit because the slaves could get away with anything they wanted. which is pretty cool. except for the whole still-being-slaves part. Washington even secretly set some of his slaves free while he was president by accidentally “leaving” them in Pennsylvania when a law was passed that abolished slavery in that state. He wanted the slaves he freed to be able to find work for themselves and learn skills, and he made sure that any one who was too old or too young to take care of themselves would be taken care of. what a nice guy.

He also left his secretary Lear the use of Mount Vernon. Imagine! leaving your estate to your secretary. It’d be like Don leaving the house to Joan.

On a semi-serious note, if you get a chance you should read this article. I didn’t know anything about the political climate in Dallas pre-JFK kill time, but it’s startlingly similar to right now. Some food for thought before you put some thanksgiving food in your belly.

back and to the left. back and to the left.

It seems like these days the whole world’s on fire.
Things keep blowin’ the hell up,…
And while all those rubberneckers and looky loos stand slackjawed starin,
The real men have the nuts to walk away.

Andy Samberg, did you write this about George Washington? I feel like this song is definitely an allegory for the final months of GW’s presidency and his tremendous nuts. And I mean that in a purely metaphorical form, not physical. get your mind out of the gutter.

To explain: You know those times when you’re 5 drinks deep and you think “should i keep going?” when someone offers you a shot of, I don’t know, Jameson?  I’m 99% positive that your answer would be HELL YES. You know what George Washington’s answer would be? “Thank you but I’ve had enough. And here’s a $10 tip for that drink I didn’t drink.” Because George knew how to end things with style, and he very rarely ever threw up in his own hair.

Here’s the thing, in Feb 1796 Washington declared the Jay Treaty the law of the land, which sufficiently pissed the House off enough to vote that they could turn over any treaty and asked for any papers that George had regarding the treaty. This was a super dick move by the House because they were basically trying to make themselves more important than either the Senate or the President. You know what the whole format of the government is based on? CHECKS AND BALANCES. It’s not very balanced if the House can overturn whatever the hell it feels like. So Washington says: nope no way. 

Which ends up actually kind of pissing everyone off because no one really likes the Jay Treaty that much even though it did prevent A HUGE TERRIBLE WAR. but that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is to recognize that once again Washington put the concerns of the nation above his own person/popularity. Not to get political, but wouldn’t it be nice if -ish like this could still happen? (side note: is it possible to be nostalgic for a time you never lived in? I think so. I would just really like to wear a mob cap and churn butter for awhile. someone find me a job at colonial williamsburg) 

The thing is, Washington gets pretty pissed with himself because of it. He knew that his term would be up soon, and all he really wanted was to peacefully pass off leadership of a unified nation to his successor, whoever that may be. So everyone being pissed off at everyone else was not exactly a comforting place to be politically. Which leads us to one of the most important documents in our nation’s history: 

           One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

oops. sorry, not that. 

              Washington’s Farewell Address

Have you ever actually read it? I mean I know we all know it’s generally about being nice to each other and to not adopt a two party system (btw, good job on that), but have you ever actually read it? Because you should. Look! you can read it here: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp. I read it the other day and was blown away by how incredibly pertinent it is to our time and probably all of American history. Seriously, you should go read it. Eat some apple pie, drink a beer, put the football game on mute and just love america and read this thing. 

The interesting thing about his address is that he started it almost as soon as this whole Jay treaty shenanigans started in Feb 1796 (dude wasn’t even going to announce that he wouldn’t be running until fall), and that the initial drafts were decidedly un-Washington like. They were pretty bitchy, exceedingly personal, and very firmly in favor of the Federalist party. Thankfully George called his good buddy Alex Hamilton to look over the draft and Hamilton helped him out with the now famous address. What’s fascinating is that George never actually delivered the address, he just sent it out to a single Philadelphia newspaper that ran it (get this) on the second and third pages. The front page was an advertisement. 

Washington thought that one of his most important and lasting contributions would be in how he dealt with the upcoming election. Which is true of course because everything he did was important, but what really stuck was his decision to only serve 2 terms. Because there was not limit of term clause in the Constitution. If George wanted, he could have served 17 terms, but instead he stopped at 2. What’s crazy is that every president after that followed his example except for that crippled jerk FDR. (kidding, I love FDR. once in 2nd grade we had to create a new american flag and mine no joke had fdr’s face on it in front of purple green and yellow stripes. what a strange child i was) The precedent he tried to set but which was naturally not followed was his decision to not support either candidate for presidency. Truthfully though that could have been because Adams was an annoying little man and Jefferson had cut ties with George because he was also kind of a whack job. Regardless, Adams won because of his own strengths not because George backed him. (which can’t be said about obama and oprah. you said oprah’s never been president? just wait) 

Adams inauguration sucked for Adams, because apparently everyone just started crying when they saw Washington. I know! I didn’t expect our revolutionary forefathers to be such sensitive little babies, but I guess they were. George was probably like:

Even more embarrassing, George got much more applause from the crowd than Adams after the ceremony! But that’s how g’s do. they brush their shoulders off and move on. 

World Wide Web, I do indeed still exist. I have been absent this summer due to the writings of this brilliant little gnome lord:

Mr. George R.R. Martin (look at that cute little hat of his! he bettah werk.), the infuriatingly verbose wizard of words whose 5 books have kept me occupied for 2 months straight and kept me from continuing my quest to meet the presidents. I will fully and willfully accept my entrance into the deepest realm of nerd-dom by acknowledging the fact that today I actually went on a forum to find out spoilers for the next book. Then I realized that my time would be better spent in learning more about that little bundle of joy John Adams than trolling the internet for information on a book that won’t be out for another 3 years at the earliest. So the slump of summer is coming to an end, get ready for an Awakening in Autumn.

Get ready bitches, winter is coming.

You know who hated each other more than Hamilton and Jefferson? The British and the French! And guess who had to play monkey in the middle to that longstanding codependent abusive relationship?  (seriously, those two countries needed couples therapy) AMERICA. and by way of AMERICA I also mean, WASHINGTON.

 So, the number 3 most important aspect of George’s Presidency is:

        Keepin it real with the French, and that jackass Genet

Here’s the dealio: around 1792, there was this little event called THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Ever hear of it? It’s when all the normal people in France decided that supporting the nobility’s severe gambling habits needed to come to an end. So they cut off everyone’s heads ever and formed a “republican” government that was a total and complete mess. Needless to say all the other European monarchies were not thrilled by this, because what if their people decided to get rid of kings too? TERRIBLE! No royal wedding! No bizarre headresses! what is the point of living you know?!  So the British are all, “well let’s fight the French I guess, but first, TEA!” (in my head the british drink tea through an iv) Now, this is a serious problem for the US! Can you guess why?

Did you answer it outloud like on children’s television where the ask you where the hell Dora should go and even if you get it wrong they  say “bueno!” (yo, that tv show sucks btw, watch yo gabba gabba)

Did you guess it was a problem because we signed a treaty with the French to help them out when they gave us money for the Am.Rev, but that we mostly traded with the British and the Brit navy could totally destroy us? Then you’re right! Fuckin bueno.  In a nutshell, that’s the exact quandary of Washington and his homeslices.  Of course there was another problem to deal with, and it was the American people. see, there was this whole feeling that the French were doing exactly what the Americans had done around 15 years before. So Americans would go around singing french anthems (shudder) and calling each other “citizen” (double shudder), and generally thinking that the frequent guillotining of mostly innocent people was well and dandy. And this is where party politics came in. Because the Republicans (see chart in previous post) totally jumped on the bandwagon and got tattoos of the french flag and called anyone who wasn’t totally pro-french a supporter of the monarchy and enemy of liberty. Harsh! sick burn. You can see that george and his cabinet were going to have serious problems, because Jefferson was a republican and Hamilton the Federalist was pragmatic enough to realize that screwing things up with the british would screw up america, and Washington was all like “oh shit, welcome to problem-town, population, me. “

And did I mention that the french were all like, ” oh hey american people you guys can make a ton of moolah by becoming pirates under our name and just freakin taking stuff from Britain to piss them off!”

And some americans were dumb enough to start to do it! Can you imagine how pissed the Brits would be? Pissed enough to start a war that’s for sure! Washington and crew had to do something to stop it, but what? Technically the Executive branch had the power to act in foreign affairs only with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. But the senate wasn’t in session and it was going to take forever to get them to the capital and by that point it was going to be a real freakin mess. But you know what Washington did? He said “Screw it, let me save everyone.” And he had Jefferson and Hamilton draw up a document that prevented american citizens from getting involved in any sort of action that may cause either Britain or France harm. It was known as the Neutrality Proclamation. And of course some people (madison, other republicans) were pissed about it because it did kind of go against the constitution and purposefully didn’t help france, but guess what? We didn’t end up in a war so really, mission accomplished.

See this guy above? I don’t even have to cut and paste onto anything because he already looks like a jerk. This is Edmond Charles Genet, and he was a pain in the ass. oh, alright..

Are you happy now? that was mostly for my roommate. he loves the wizard of oz. as should you. Anyway!  This guy Genet was seriously the wicked witch of the western world. He was the first French minister to America from the new “republican” government. And he was full of all sorts of douchebaggary. He was coming to America to try and get people to ignore the Neutrality Proclamation and join the French pirate army. (it’s by far the smelliest army there is). My dude sails to America but instead of going straight to Philly to present himself to George and also THE ENTIRE GOVERNMENT he instead lands in Charleston, South Carolina and dawdles his way up the coast, trying to convince people to join him. Join him in supporting the pirate thing but also in ENLISTING AN ARMY TO ATTACK LOUISIANA. Seriously, wtf was this guy thinking? I mean to be honest, at first people were very vocal about their support, though no one actually did anything about it. Genet wrote back to France that if the government didn’t support the cause then at least all of the american people did, and frankly he could just take over for old Washington. How many crazy pills was this guy consuming?

Genet finally made his way to Philly, presented himself and then caused havoc. He finally got an American ship to sail under the French pirate flag and Washington was pissed. He got the common folk of Philly to get all excited for France and get mad at the American government, and Washington was pissed. He had his friends organize the “Pennsylvania Democratic Society” which was a bunch of clubs that were like the Jacobin clubs of the French evolution and mostly terrifying, and Washington was pissed. And he called Washington a bunch of names and said he wanted to be king, and then Washington got REALLY FREAKIN PISSED. And this is what he said to Secretary Knox about how pissed he was:

“BY GOD, I would rather be in my grave than in this present situation. I would rather be on my farm than be made EMPEROR OF THE WORLD.”

WASHINGTON SMASH. this was one stand-up dude. So you know what he and the cabinet did? they asked for Genet’s resignation, and they did get it. And then (really this is the best part) you know what happens? The new french ambassador wants to arrest Genet and send him back to France for being such a troublemaker. But Washington insteads grants this sonofabitch asylum in the US! This guy who ruined his life for basically a year and almost caused a war, and washington is noble enough to let him keep his head.

This is why Washington really is the best. ever.

Oh no, I did not forget about our dear boy George. I was merely giving you time to ruminate on his ability to tear shit up as leader of the Continental Army. But here’s a fun fact for you guys! He was the very first President! That totally explains why he’s on all of our money! THAT EXPLAINS ITTTTTTTTT! I feel like I just figured out the plot of National Treasure Part 3.

IMPORTANT FACT REGARDING GEORGE’S PREZIDENCY NUMERO UNO:

                                         My dude started it all!

 So George was the very first president ever, and not only that but he was elected by a completely unanimous Electoral College. That’s only happened…oh, right, I’m fairly certain never again. Everyone was pleased as punch to be having the big guy do the dirty work of figuring out how to lead the world’s first modern republic. Here’s the thing though, George was getting his very large panties in a bunch because after the Constitutional Convention he swore SWORE SWOOREE that he would never again return to public service lest people think he had aspirations to be a King. He was all, “oh nooo, no one will like me or trust me and the other kids on the playground will call me fat. ” Except of course no did that. On his carriage ride to NYC to accept the nomination, he couldn’t see any of the surrounding countryside beside of the dust brought up by the constant presence of congratulatory horsemen surrounding his carriage. That’s class right there. Did I mention he didn’t even campaign for the office? He just sat in Mount Vernon with Martha, chilling out and listening to Aerosmith, and he didn’t even run a single 30 second tv spot during NBC’s thursday night comedy block!

Being elected peacefully was a big deal, but obviously it didn’t involve too much work on Georgie Boy’s part. No, he set himself the rather small task of MAKING THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT WORK. Nbd really, nbd. He gets inaugurated on April 30, 1789 and then finds out that the only members of the entire executive branch are himself and tiny baby Paul Giammatti, I mean John Adams. Adams was very jealous of George, and George thought Adams was kind of a dipwad, so neither of them really wanted to work together. Therefore, though the Vice Presidency was originally thought of as a kind of “prime minster” position, it never was utilized as such since neither dudebro wanted to talk to each other. And then Al Gore invented the internet.

Adams and George are sitting around not talking, and George decides, “well i should find someone to help us I guess, even though I can do this all by myself, with one eye closed, and a hernia.” There was no specific mention made of a “cabinet” in the new Constitution, the group was kind of just referred to as the “heads of the great departments.” There wasn’t even any sort of explicit reference as to who those heads should report to. So Washington is all, “yeah that would be me,” and he assembles a sweet team of superfriends.  He kept General Knox as Secretary of War, and moved John Jay into the chief justiceship of the Supreme Court, but added Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph as Attorney General and Alexander Hamilton as the Secretary of the Treasury. He thought everything was going to be great. Flashforward: it wasn’t. But that’s a story for another day.

Like I said, there was a Constitution, but so much still needed to be fleshed out with the government that it was up to the very first members to do so. A number of major precedents were set by Washington that we kind of just take for granted today. For example, the President should negotiate treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. But how exactly was one supposed to do that? Write them a letter? Call them on the telephone? Go to Congress and listen to them talk forever and then make a decision? Washington tried the last option and was so frustrated he just left. So now, unlike the British executive, the President never has to present or defend his actions in the legislative sessions.

Of course there were some things that Washington did that were impossible to continue further into our history. Like how he decided not to use the presidential veto. He was royally, I mean democratically pissed when a bill from the senate landed on his desk that didn’t impose any sort of restrictions on the British shipping business in the US. He thought it was right dumb and pretty much un-patriotic and he could have totally vetoed the whole shennaigan and no one would be much pissed. Except he thought that the presidential veto was not something to enforce a specific agenda, but only something that should be used to protect the Constitution. Of course, this kind of thing only works when the president doesn’t have to answer to any specific party and can just go off of the Constitution. Except, surprise surprise, there are such thing as political parties now, and so the torch of protecting the constitution has been passed to the Supreme Court. Three cheers for Sandra Day O’Conner!

Washington helped to build our government like the slaves of Egypt built the great pyramids, hauling one heavy ass stone up a ramp at a time. except that stone was John adams.

Did you know we had to earn our independence from Britain since they were kind of douche-bags and wouldn’t let the colonies have any say in Parliament? Well of course you did! You’ve seen Mel Gibson’s masterpiece “The Patriot” (ps RIP Heath,we hardly knew ye). Well, let me tell you about the ultimate freedom fighter. His name was George and he’s an alcoholic. just kidding. He’s the best freaking leader we could have had. Our own personal hellboy.

 You’re probably aware of some vague events that occurred to get us to become an independent nation: the Boston tea party, Paul Revere, Crossing the Delaware, Valley Forge, the jackass son of a bitch Bene-dick-t Arnold, maybe Yorktown if you’re feeling fancy. But you know what? The American Revolution was a real war with real problems and it totally, totally sucked. Especially for the commander in chief, Mr Washington. Here are some of the problems he had to face and the winning ways in which he dealt with them. pps. We won the war, fyi.

1. Supply Problems

   An army marches on it’s stomach. It’s true, in the figurative sense at least (could you imagine an army literally crawling towards you? hilarious! or zombies). So it’s kind of a problem when the entity funding the army has no actual funds and decides to print paper money without almost anything backing it. Not only do you not really have funds to pay for any ammunition, food, uniforms, or lodgings, but you also can’t pay the soldiers who are doing the fighting. The bros in the Contintental Congress (and truly, they were bros), told Washington that truly the only way his army could eat would be to requisition stuff from the citizens.

Yeah, brilliant idea congressfolk! Do the exact thing that the British did that made people want to revolt! George was having none of that though, he wisely thought that if his soldiers endured severe hardships, the common citizenry would be more likely to back them up and not turn back to the Crown. He was right, obviously. So he and his men endured terrible winters without proper footwear, ate little to no food, and very very frequently did not get paid. George was so adamant about supporting the worthless money that he accepted all of his salary in it, plus he paid for whatever supplies the troops actually needed from his own pocket. Of course, this is part of the reason he ended up in such severe debt. But somehow, some way he was able to make a little go a very long way. And we won!

2. Crossing the Hell-a-ware

  We’re always fighting Germans. I don’t know why but America just frickin loves to kill Germans. The most significant victory Washington ever had was not against British troops, but a group of Hessians (cool term for some German mercenaries) at Trenton. Here’s how it went down:

        Ok, so you should know that Washington ended up with part of his army in Pennsylvania in December of 1776 because he was getting his butt handed to him by the tea and crumpet eaters.  The British had invaded New York City and Washington totally blew it (partly because he built a fort that was too small again!) and also partly because he lacked troops. He turns tail and starts to retreat across New Jersey, kind of hoping that his subordinate general Charles Lee would take his troops and join up with Washington so they could at least try to protect NJ from the oncoming British. Lee was a selfish dude and thought he was better than Washington, so he took his la did dah frickin time and was captured. Washington and his troops were basically all the stood of the Continental Army, and they had to do something!

  Right, so back then there was the hilarious policy of straight up stopping fighting when it got to be winter. It was all, “Oh I felt a chill! My, My let’s go take some citizen’s house and drink tea till we can’t anymore!” But homey Washington don’t play that. He knew that he had to have some sort of victory since most of NJ was re-swearing allegiance to the crown. GW decided that he and his troops would sail across the Delaware River on Christmas Day when the Hessians were hammered and just freakin surprise the crap out of them. His idea was for 3 separate forces to sail across the Delaware during the night and march their little colonial fannies right on in to the Hessian camp just before daybreak.

   Christmas Eve they start getting into their little baby colonial boats and sailing across the beautiful Delaware. And contrary to popular belief, Washington does not stand up straight like a friggin jackass, he hunkers down with his men so as not to be seen. Of course it ends up not mattering because what should happen but a huge storm blows right on in and screws up everything. GW is only able to get about 2,400 men across, and it takes so long they end up not fully crossing until far after daybreak. It’s snowing so much that when they begin the march to Trenton, men who sit down never get up again. The storm ends up being a good thing though, because the Germans are not expecting any sort of attack. “VE CAN EAT OUR BRATWURSTS IN PEACE!” they said (why are Germans always yelling? always?)

  Wham bam thank you ma’am rock me Amadeus the Colonials come in and tear shit up. They take 900 Hessians and 6 cannons prisoners and don’t lose a single dude. Then they head back to safety across the river. A couple of days later GW and his troops march to good ole Princeton, NJ and fight REAL BRITISH TROOPS and kick their butts! It was awesome! Everybody liked Washington then and had some more faith in the Continental Army.

  And then we Won! Yeah!

3. The Conway Cabal

    The wha-di-what-what? Well it’s basically a fancy term for “that time when a bunch of people decided they didn’t like Washington as a leader and then tried to oust him”.  Clearly, it didn’t work. But it was an important thing because it made people realize that they really couldn’t get anything done without him and that he was kind of indispensible. But who is Conway?!? Why did this happen?! WHY DIDN’T THEY TRUST HIM!?!?!?! oh, no worries. I’ll answer that.

  Brigadier General Thomas Conway was an Irish-born Frenchman (weird) who decided to grace the colonies with his military presence. He basically thought he was the illest officer around and obviously much better then Gdubs because he had actually led troops before. He also enjoyed a baguette with his Guinness. He starts telling Congress bros that he’s much better and the guys that don’t like Washington (yes, they existed) start to hook up with him (no, not in that way). Washington, obviously, can not stand this odorous dude and gets really really pissed whenever he’s mentioned. The mean Congress dudes appoint Conway to be Washington’s superior, thinking that will throw him off and make him give up.

  Meanwhile, another important general for the Colonials, Horatio Gates, is gathering his own group of Washington haters, including congressman Thomas Mifflin. They start conspiring with Conway to have Gates replace Washington. But one of Gates dumbass aides let’s some information slip and Washington sends a note that basically says, “hey d-bags, I know exactly what you’re doing and that’s rude.” Everyone gets their panties in a twist because they think Washington is using spies to get this information. When they confront him about it, he says, “Um, guys, your dumbass aide let it spill, take a hike.” These haters are totally embarrassed and do indeed take a hike. Conway pisses off everyone by saying that foreign born soldiers are better than colonial soldiers and people dislike that so much he quits and goes away.

 Seriously though, this was really important because it solidified people’s trust in George and therefore he could kind of act without reproach, doing whatever he deemed necessary to win the war.

  And we did! Win the war! hooray!

ppps. Benedict Arnold was a total loser.

I am getting so good at cutting and pasting George’s head onto things; this is freakin art right here. Someone needs to make this into a tshirt for Threadless.

Guys! George Washington was a teenager just like you and me! He went to high school, sometimes got pushed into lockers, awkwardly tried to date an older girl, and then at night he morphed into a werewolf!

Oh wait…none of that is true. (the werewolf thing may have occurred, but as of yet no conclusive evidence has been released) George Washington’s life in his teens and early 20’s was totally rad and makes every teen living now look terrible. This is what teenage George did that made him better than teenage you:

•    He fell in love and very openly hit on his rich benefactor William Fairfax’s married daughter. Sally Fairfax was a stone cold fox and also a minx and basically led our great leader on for years and years just because she could.  More on this later.
•   He became a surveyor of the Western land before he turned 18, exploring and mapping the Shenandoah Valley for the Fairfaxs. On this initial trip into the wilderness he swam horses across a river, met a party of Indians on the war path, and got lost in the Blue Ridge Mountains. By himself. Without a GPS or a cellphone. And while he was there, he had a brief encounter with a freaking Rattlesnake which mah dude had never even seen before and he still killed it. 
•   He bought land when he was 18. And not just some little piece to build a small but comfortable cabin on. He bought 1,459 ACRES. How much is that? I don’t know, but it sounds like a lot. Have you ever bought 1,459 of anything? Silly bands? Beanie Babies? Grams of Cocaine?  All of those things should be illegal. You’ve never bought that much of anything. Liar.
• He decided that after his aforementioned brother Lawrence died he would carry on the family legacy of being in the army. Lawrence held the post of Adjutant General of Virginia, and his job was to train the members of the local militia. Boy George decided he could do that job except, get this, he had absolutely no military training. None. Not an ounce. But la di dah there he goes up to the aristocrats who hand out the appointments and says, “yo give this to me my dear sirs,” and they say, “well of course! bugger your total lack of experience.” And there you go, at age 20 George is given the title of major and the responsibility for training the Virgina militia. 
• He started the French and Indian War.
• No, you read that right, he almost single-handedly started the French and Indian War. Here’s how it went down. French and England were all up in the Ohio river, trying to stake their claims, conquer the land, make friends with the indians and then kick their asses out. It was all a race to see who could accomplish that first. Washington was put in charge of an expedition that was to go a protect a small fort on the Forks of the Ohio. He and about 200 dudes are on their way there when they’re met by the task force set to build the fort. They had been surrounded by 1000 French and Indian troops and turned tail.  Well Indian scouts tell Washington that there is a party of French troops near by, and Washington gets all gung-ho and orders an attack. Except, it’s not really a war party at all. It’s a freaking French AMBASSADOR and Washington just destroyed a peaceful diplomatic mission.  Needless to say the French get pissed and that’s the start of the war. 
• He survived a massacre. Well, it wasn’t technically a massacre it was a battle but that’s only a technicality. Basically, Washington is fighting in the French and Indian war as an aide-de-camp to the British regular army. The British army were surprise attacked by the French and Indians and every single one of the officers were killed. Every single one. Except, obviously, Washington.  He had two horse shot out from under him and his hat was shot clear off his head, but he didn’t get hurt. He was the one who had to organize the retreat since LITERALLY EVERY ONE ELSE WITH AUTHORITY WAS DEAD. Did I mention that during this whole ordeal he had a severe case of dysentery and had to ride around with pillows attached to his saddle since his butt hurt so bad?  DID I MENTION THAT?!?!?!?!!? awesome.
• He was named “Colonel of the Virgina Regiment at Commander in Chief of all Virgina Forces” at age 22. That’s how old I am now. I take people to their tables and hand them menus and George was leading an army in a world war. Perspective!

If I write anything else about how much better George was at life right now I will cry. At some point I am going to write about his faults (like all 3 of them), just so we know he was a human. I think he was human and not a robot. Or he was a  werewolf.

Hey, are you trying to lose sixteen hours of your life to a cringe-inducing bout of historical inaccuracy and seriously terrible mid-century Boston accents? Then you should really be watching “The Kennedys” on Reelz channel. (reelz? that’s really the name. It sounds like a disney channel show in the 90s)

As a presidential enthusiast I feel that it is my duty to alert you to all things currently in the media regarding our presidents. So my alert is this: Watch this crap at you own risk. Real standouts in the first episode were: Katie Holmes’ bizarre and vaguely accented Jackie, a terrible terrible screenplay, and last but not least, Greg Kinnear’s hair piece.

To be honest  I made it about mid-way through and then turned on Titanic. I realized that I wanted to watch another type of disaster with a floppy haired man. Thank you Billy Zane. You were also great in the Phantom.

Forgot to mention that this is the source for Washington. Flexner wrote a much longer biography that’s in the neighborhood of 5 volumes. I would read that but…I have a life. This one is all the good stuff condensed into a very manageable and enjoyable couple hundred of pages. Initially this book was assigned for my AP US History class in high school, and like most books that you hate when they’re assigned, when you read them for fun they end up being really good. Except for Great Expectations. That shit always sucks.