I read a book about George Washington. Yes, THAT George Washington. He's kind of a dick.
Let's start at the beginning: a few months ago, I decided to do a crazy thing. I thought, " I don't know much about history," much like Same Cooke. And I thought the best way around this was to read a biography of every president starting with good old George Washington. After much research, I found this book called, "Washington: A Life," by Ron Chernow. Three months later, here we are.
Now, I'm typically a person that can read a book in a day. With a looming library due date, I've finished 800 pages in a matter of days. So an 817 page biography of our founding father didn't really deter me, in the beginning. However, after embarking on this journey, even the most well-written biography would feel like a chore. It took me three months to read this monster.
Despite all of this, I feel like I learned a lot! Mr. Chernow definitely knows his shit. He wrote a really amazing book about the father of our country, and I'm glad I decided to read it.
HOWEVER, Washington kind of sucks. Before I read this book, I knew a few select things about him:
1. He lead our country in fighting the British in the Revolutionary war - WHAT A GREAT GUY!
2. After the war, he went back to his farm rather than usurping power. (THIS WAS A BIG DEAL. In all of history, you lead a war AND THEN YOU TAKE ALL THE POWER. THAT'S JUST HOW YOU ROLLED. GDUBS WAS TOTALLY DIFFERENT.)
3. He had wooden teeth and never told a lie. (I found out while reading this, his initial biographies were SO BORING that the writers made up stories about the cherry tree and lying to make him seem more exciting!)
That's about it. Other than that, he was pretty perfect from what I'd gathered (from the way our country talks about this man).
BOY WAS I WRONG.
Reasons why I think GDUBS totally sucks:
1. His whole career was totally calculated. He did everything he could to get into a position of power. When he was nominated to lead the Revolutionary War, it's only because he SHOWED UP TO THE VOTE WEARING HIS ARMY COSTUME. LIKE WTF!? AND HE PRETENDED HE WANTED NOTHING TO DO WITH IT BY RUNNING OUT OF THE ROOM WHEN HE WAS NOMINATED! He was the original, "dress for the position you want, not the position you have" guy.
1B. The reason he "retired" after the war was so that he would be a more desirable candidate for President. Like, who wouldn't want to vote for the guy that's like, "No thanks, I'm just gonna go home! Good luck figuring this whole new country thing out!" OF COURSE HE WAS UNANIMOUSLY VOTED FOR PRESIDENT. PEOPLE WANT WHAT THEY CAN'T HAVE.
2. He was a total fucking hypocrite. In SO MANY WAYS. This is my biggest issue with GDubs.
To begin: slavery. The guy said his whole life that he was against slavery and wanted to find a way to abolish it. Did he? NO. Not to mention the fact, while the capital was in Philly, there was this law that stated if a slave resided in PA for 6 months, he/she would become free. What did G + M DUBS do with this knowledge? They would send their slaves out of state so that they were no longer eligible. "Oh hey, Billy Lee. You've been here for 5 months and 29 days, why don't you go back to Mount Vernon for a while?" TOTALLY FUCKING SNEAKY AND FUCKED UP. I will never get over this fact.
He definitely tried to remedy the situation by freeing his slaves upon his death. HOWEVER THIS STORY IS STILL TOTALLY FUCKED UP. Up until his DEATH BED, he had two wills. One that would free his slaves, his other normal will that placed his slaves into someone else's hands. ALSO, instead of freeing his slaves upon his death, he decided to free them upon MARTHA'S death. And any slave that was part of her family was not freed. Basically, he found a way to politically redeem himself for the parts of the country that were pro-slavery, without actually doing anything to advance the African-American plight.
Totally less fucked up, but still hypocritical: GDUBS was totally against political parties. His whole "ideology" while President was to create a unified country. However, he HATED the Republican party and did everything in his power to thwart their plans. I mean, this is not very different from today's world. But dude, don't say you're against something and then do everything in you're power to stop the other party from doing anything.
3. He didn't seem to care much about anything other than his stupid house. All through the Revolutionary War, he was writing countless letters back to his housekeeps about the drapes and the grounds and etc. THERE WAS A HUGE WAR GOING ON, GEORGE. NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR DRAPES. It was the same thing while he was President. He was constantly writing letters about the state of Mount Vernon rather than weigh his opinion on the development of our country. Chernow seemed to think that he liked to "think things through," but I don't think that he gave a shit for much other than his drapes.
4. Also, he totally started the French and Indian war. So GDUBS was all pissed off that no one in Great Britain respected him and he was certain that the Indians were spying on his army. He decided to trek all night to find them and confront them for their duplicate nature. AND THEN HE SHOT A GUY IN THE HEAD. This literally started the French and Indian war. And all of England was super pissed at this young hot shot that defied orders. In my mind he was super reckless and insane. (But kind of badass. Come on, I'm not a robot.)
But the book was totally great. Chernow is a great writer. I never thought that I would be as into a presidential biography as much as I was. I found myself talking about GDUBS A LOT. Like too much. "Hey, first date, do you want to know what I think about George Washington's sexual life? Of course you do."
I definitely felt like reading this was relatable to current times. I wasn't aware there was so much hatred and political partisanship back in the day. While reading this, I totally could have replaced, "Washington," with "Obama," and been none the wiser. It's kind of nice to know that some things don't change.
One thing, though, that I think Chernow KIND of hints at, but never explicitly says, is how TOTALLY GAY GBUBS IS. The guy was totally obsessed with the way he and his house looked. To the point that he would write insanely detailed letters to his tailor and housekeeper of how outfits/decor should look. Also, Martha was totally his beard. She was an older, kind of frumpy woman who had a lot of money and connections. GDUBS wouldn't have succeeded without her. They also never had kids. Martha had children in her previous marriage. Chernow theorizes that GDUBS was infertile, but I'm pretty sure it's because he didn't want to have sex with a woman. ALSO, there's this story in the book about how GDUBS goes fishing with some dudes and is so perplexed about how to even go about working the pole... and the next paragraph talks about how comfortable he is at the ball with all the women. ALSO, WOMEN TOTALLY LOVED GDUBS. HE BASICALLY STARTED AMERICA. They were always throwing themselves at him, and he loved women, but never stepped out on Martha. I'm pretty sure he was into dudes. He also loved Lafayette a little too much. My point is, where is the gay biography of GDUBS?
I feel like I've rambled enough. It's 2am, the Jamo has hit me, and I've said everything I want to about GDUBS. Fine president, good book.
Now let me introduce my scale for rating the books I read.
On a scale of 1 - 10, how much have you talked about this book while drunk: 8. I talk about it quite a bit. To the point of being annoying.
How likely am I to recommend this book (while drunk): It depends. Is the person I'm talking to interested in biographies/history/GDUBS? If so: YES. If not, I don't know. It's a great book, but a total challenge.
YAY BOOZE OKAY GOODNIGHT.
