Saturday, April 21, 2007

This Week's Trivia: U.S. Presidents!

According to his college classmates, Ronald Reagan had a nearly photographic memory.

While serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II, Richard Nixon won thousands of dollars in shipboard poker games. He used the winnings to pay for his law school education at Duke University after the war.

Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election by about 100,000 votes, roughly the equivalent of one vote for every polling place in the country.

John Kennedy is the only President to have won a Pulitzer prize. The evidence shows that the actual drafts of the book, Profiles in Courage, published while he was a U.S. Senator, were written by his speechwriter.

George H.W. Bush was a star first baseman for Yale in the 1940s and played in the first College World Series. He threw left-handed and batted right.

The first U.S. President to be born in a hospital was Jimmy Carter.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, wrote a campaign biography of Franklin Pierce. The two had been classmates at Bowdoin College.

No U.S. Senator has been elected President since 1960.

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Friday, April 13, 2007

Time to Apologize

“Thank you all for coming to this press conference. I realize it’s a little crowded. I’m sorry there aren’t enough chairs for those in the back of the room.

“I am speaking to you today to answer certain allegations about my conduct that have appeared in the media this week. Reports that I used my influence to find a position for Elena Longlekova at the World Bank have caused me and my family great pain. I want to apologize to them for any distress that anything I might or might not have done might have caused them.

“No, I did not know that Ms. Longlekova was a Russian supermodel. Yes, she is qualified to oversee the Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. No, I would not have called the President of the World Bank if I had known that his phone calls were being monitored.

“I just want to say how deeply, deeply sorry I am for this unfortunate occurrence, of which I had no prior knowledge.

“I also want to announce that, after consulting with my family, my colleagues, my attorneys, my attorneys’ families, and my campaign contributors, and after much prayerful reflection, I have decided to enter the Shady Groves Second Chances Healing and Rehabilitation Center in Barbados for treatment of addiction to sedatives.

“My arrest outside the Club Clique last Sunday night made me realize that I have a problem. I have been in the grip of a powerful addiction over which I have no control. Otherwise I would not have drunk three wine coolers and taken 30 Seconals when I got in my car that night. I realize that now. I could have seriously injured myself or any number of voters, for which I would have expressed extreme regret.

“There have been a lot of comments in the press as well bringing up what I said about Mother Theresa on the Howard Stern show. I just want to repeat what I said last month: I’m deeply, deeply sorry that the microphone was on. I thought Howard and I were just having a private conversation in his radio and TV studio with his executive producer.

“This press conference has run long, and I have to get to the chamber for a vote, so despite what we said earlier, I won’t be taking any questions. I’m really sorry about that.”

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