Jonathan Last

Because Someone Has to Stick Up for Hayes
March 21st, 2012

Over at the Daily–which, thanks to the new iPad, I can finally read–I’ve got a column up about just how wrong Obama was in mocking Rutherford Hayes.

Btw, the Daily is pretty awesome. I highly recommend it.

Galley Friend J.E. March 21, 2012 at 1:52 pm

Here’s a story Obama’s speechwriters probably don’t know: President Garfield was shot in 1881, before X-rays. His docs couldn’t find the bullet. So as he lay slowly dying, Alexander Graham Bell, fresh off the telephone, invented a metal detector that he tested on Civil War vets with bullets still in their bodies. It worked fine. But every time he went to the White House with it, the thing rang like crazy no matter where he held it over Garfield’s body. Not till after Garfield died did they discover that the president, *with his own money*, had bought one of the first mattresses filled with metal coils.

Brian March 22, 2012 at 8:50 am

This should make it to Drudge. Nice job, JVL.

jk March 22, 2012 at 6:26 pm

Awesome!

Steve Sailer March 23, 2012 at 3:28 am

All the post-Civil War Republican Presidents had proven themselves on the battlefield to be men of competence and character.

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