I'm Lindsay Chervinsky, Presidential Historian

and Head of the George Washington Presidential Library.

I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.

This is President Support.

[upbeat music]

townandthat asks, Can Trump run again in 2028?

No, Trump is constitutionally barred

for running for a third term.

The 22nd Amendment, which was passed

after FDR ran for four terms,

says that presidents can only run for two full terms.

Prior to FDR,

presidents generally followed George Washington's precedent

of only serving for two terms,

but that was voluntary and not required by law.

Grizzly-Redneck asks, What's going on with Joe Biden

pardoning his own son?

Well, in Article II of the Constitution,

the president is given almost unilateral authority

to issue pardons on federal offenses

except for those relating to impeachment.

So while lots of presidents have issued pardons,

we don't necessarily like or maybe feel a little bit gross,

a president's pardon power is almost unilateral.

George Washington was the first president to issue a pardon.

One of his first was to a rum smuggler in April of 1794.

Sludgegaze asks, Was the political divide always this bad?

There certainly have been times

where we've had very bad partisan tensions and a big divide

between the two different political parties.

The 1790s, the 1850s, the 1890s, and the 1960s

were all times when political rhetoric

and how people talk to one another were really intense

and often quite nasty.

John Adams often referred to one of his political rivals,

Alexander Hamilton, as a puppy,

which was the ultimate insult to masculinity in the 1790s.

And John Adams' critics

said he had a hermaphroditic character

because his values constantly shifted.

There have been times when things have been better,

when political campaigns weren't quite so awful,

but this moment that we're in now is probably as bad

as some of the other ones we've lived through.

HiCatWhisperer asks, How did we end up

with two stupid unpopular political parties

that are pretty much our only alternative?

Excellent question.

We have what's called a two-party system.

There have been other parties

over the course of American history

generally as one of the major parties breaks down

and there are various different factions.

So for example, in the 1840s and 1850s,

there was a Know Nothing party, there was the Freedom Party,

then eventually the Republican Party

merged a lot of those different factions into one new party.

Because of the way our primary system works

and the way our Congress works,

it's really hard for a third party to gain any traction,

but that's not necessarily the case

in other types of systems.

For example, if you have a parliament like in Great Britain,

there are lots of parties that have to build coalitions

in order to have governing power.

AlecEmley asks, Why do we even have a State

of the Union address anymore?

It's a waste of everyone's time.

The State of the Union is actually required

in the Constitution.

Article II says that the President shall from time to time

give updates to Congress on the State of the Union.

George Washington called these his addresses to Congress

and he noted that they were indeed a required act.

What's interesting about the states of the Union

is from Thomas Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson,

they were in writing

and the president would deliver a written address.

Woodrow Wilson went back to delivering this speech in person

and they have been in person at Congress ever since.

And here at George Washington's Presidential Library

at Mount Vernon, we have what's called an Acts of Congress.

In January of 1790, as George Washington prepared

to deliver his first address to Congress

or State of the Union, we think that he made these notations

in his copy of the Constitution

where you can see that he has written a notation

that says required next to the responsibility

to give Congress an update.

And indeed he did.

Every year of his presidency, he went to Congress

and delivered a spoken address

telling them what had happened while they were on recess

and giving some suggestions for what they might consider

in the upcoming term.

Ky_marsh asks, Did you know Teddy Roosevelt

was shot before a speech and proceeded to give

the entire 90-minute speech with a bullet in his chest?

Yes, I did know that.

A man named John Schrank thought that he was having visions

that told him to try and defeat Theodore Roosevelt

from winning the presidential election in 1912.

Now, what's amazing about why Theodore Roosevelt survived

was he had the speech folded up in his pocket

and because the speech was so long, the paper was so thick

that it actually slowed down the bullet and saved his life.

After he was shot, Theodore Roosevelt said,

you can't bring down a Bull Moose,

which is where the name Bull Moose party comes from.

RheaSoccerCrazy asks, So apparently teddy bears

were named after former US Prez Theodore Roosevelt.

But why?

Why?

Theodore Roosevelt went on a bear hunt after his presidency,

but he wasn't successful, and he couldn't get any,

and it made him really mad.

So the people he was with actually captured one

and tied it up to a willow tree

so that he would have the opportunity to shoot a bear.

But he felt like that wasn't very sporting

and wasn't really fair to the bear,

so he refused to kill it.

A political cartoonist depicted this scene

and a candy maker who had a toy and candy store

saw this cartoon and thought it would make

an excellent children's toy.

The toy maker received permission to use Teddy's name

for the bear, and the teddy bear was born

and has been known as such ever since.

BillShine8 asks, Has the peaceful transition of power

ever been in more doubt?

Well, we have had a number of very dramatic transitions.

So for example, when President Abraham Lincoln was elected

in 1860, the South seceded before he became president,

so that's about as bad as it gets.

Then in 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected,

it was in the midst of the Great Depression

and economic conditions were horrible,

but Herbert Hoover really rejected the New Deal programs

that Franklin D. Roosevelt had suggested

during the campaign, and they spent several months bickering

over what to do with the election

before FDR was finally inaugurated in March of 1933.

The difference with January 6th

was that it was a contested transition.

We have never had one candidate to reject the outcome

of an election, and we've never had people

try to overthrow the results of an election.

The South didn't like the result in 1860

and so they left the nation.

That's a very different thing.

yatpay asks, In the United States,

does the president have access to all levels

of classified information?

Yes, the president has access to all classified information

and all of the top secrets in the United States.

Hockeymadman asks, What does the

do all day anyway?

So the president does a lot of different things.

The president consumes intelligence.

The president talks with foreign leaders,

makes really difficult decisions 'cause no easy choices

come to the Oval Office.

The President meets with business leaders,

and labor leaders, and members of Congress,

and state governments.

The president hosts really important social receptions.

Those can be for visiting dignitaries like state dinners.

They can be from championship teams

that we see sometimes at the White House

or they can be students or kids

who they're trying to encourage

to pursue their studies.

What you can see here is an invitation

from President George Washington to come to an event

at the President's House in Philadelphia.

This social component of the presidency

was there from the very beginning

and George Washington hosted events every single week

during his presidency.

davidkwong asks, What does the S in Harry S, Truman

stand for?

Nothing.

He added it in later

because he thought that he needed a middle initial.

Rordan508 asks, Wow, the Supreme Court in America

shows the world USA does not do democracy.

Apparently, any incoming

can stack its highest court like it's a perk of office.

while the Supreme Court size

is not actually in the Constitution,

it's totally up to Congress how many seats

there are going to be on the Supreme Court

at any given moment.

And indeed that number has changed.

The original Supreme Court was six justices

and George Washington appointed all six,

and then the replacements as they left.

The Supreme Court has evolved over time,

sometimes for political reasons.

For example, the Federal Judiciary Act of 1801

reduced the size of the Supreme Court making it harder

for Jefferson to appoint a replacement

because he would be from a different party.

Tychus_Balrog asks, Why are American elections so long?

Why not just have them last two to four weeks?

I agree, that would be great, and a lot of other elections

in other nations are much shorter.

Ours have actually expanded over time,

especially in the last couple of decades

as they've become more expensive,

as they've become competitive.

But there isn't really anything that says

how short or how long they can be.

The problem is if we try and limit that by law,

that could be a restriction of freedom of speech

and we have a First Amendment, which makes it very difficult

to limit political speech especially.

SavannaahLeigh asks, Damn, did anyone know

the President Roosevelt had polio and hid it

because of how the community saw disabled people?

Yes, indeed.

FDR did have polio and he spent most of his presidency

in a wheelchair.

He was able with the use of braces

and support from his sons and his aides to prop himself up

for speeches and press conferences,

but by and large, he was unable to walk.

He hid it because at the time there was a sense

that if you were physically disabled,

that meant you were somehow mentally impaired as well,

and he understood that it would make it much harder for him

to become president and much harder for him

to meet with other foreign leaders

and exercise the type of power

that a president is required to use.

The secret largely remained such

because the press were willing to cooperate.

It was pretty clear to people who were around him

that he couldn't move around,

but there was sort of a gentleman's agreement

with the press at the time that this was private information

and it was not their story to share.

FDR never really talked about this

and this was only something that came out much later

as people began to share photos

and his family began to discuss his battle with polio.

EmployeeAromatic6118 asks, What do you think

of George Washington's take on political parties?

George Washington warned against political parties

in his farewell address, which he published in September

of 1796 when he announced his retirement.

But his ideas about political parties

are often misunderstood.

He wasn't saying that people shouldn't have political ideas

or that they shouldn't form groups

to try and get things done.

What he was saying is that when we form political parties,

we often identify as a Democrat or a Republican first

and as American second, and that was really pernicious

to the long-term health of the nation.

Instead, he wanted people to remember

that they had more in common than what separated them

and political parties tended to exacerbate

those differences.

Talksexwithsue asks, Did George Washington

deal with any infectious diseases

like we see today during his presidency?

Yes, he did.

During the Revolutionary War,

George Washington had the Continental army

inoculated against smallpox, and then during his presidency

there were several outbreaks of yellow fever

in Philadelphia, and New York, and other coastal cities.

At the time, there was really a sense that disease outbreak

like this one was not a responsibility

of the federal government.

It was a local or state issue.

So a lot of times the governors would issue quarantines

to try and limit the spread of the disease,

but Washington and a lot of the other federal officials

would leave the city to avoid contamination

and did not have any role to play in suppressing it.

nephiguymom asks, I wonder how it would be

if it was required that the vice

be from the opposite political party of the president?

Well, we've actually had this happen once before.

Thomas Jefferson was the second vice president.

He was the vice president for President John Adams.

They were from the opposite political party

and it was a disaster.

Jefferson actually came remarkably close

to committing treason when he met with the French minister

and encouraged France to continue its attacks

on American shipping and encouraged France

to avoid any sort of diplomacy with John Adams

because he felt that he would win the next election

and he would offer them a better deal.

jpmoonv1 asks, Has any US president ever been fluent

in a second language?

Yes, they have.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both spoke French.

They learned several other languages,

especially reading and writing.

Perhaps the most fluent was John Quincy Adams,

who by the age of 12, spoke almost five languages

and served as his father's secretary

when John Adams went to Europe as a diplomat.

John Quincy Adams continued to teach himself new languages

throughout the course of his life.

Some of the more recent presidents

have less facility with language, though there are some

who have tried to learn some phrases

to be able to meet with foreign leaders.

And for example, George W. Bush did speak Spanish.

Bossman13156 asks, What was the greatest

or most impactful speech in the history

of the United States?

Well, I think that has to be

probably FDR's Four Freedom speech in which he argued

that in order for the United States to survive

as a democracy and take care of the American people,

it had to provide for freedom of speech and expression,

freedom of worship, freedom from want,

which basically means freedom from hunger or poverty,

and freedom from fear because fear caused people

to pursue things like authoritarian governments.

And the speech was really important

because it was done in the context

of the looming World War II.

It was inspiring to people

who had to understand why they had to fight for democracy

at a time when it didn't always seem like it was working.

GySgtUSMC2 asks, Who do you think was the most influential

first lady?

I think that's probably Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt served as FDR's eyes and ears

because he couldn't necessarily travel

due to having to spend most of his time in a wheelchair.

So she would travel around the country,

she would meet with average Americans

and report back to him what she was seeing.

She also wrote a newspaper column

and was the first first lady to have press conferences

and she only invited female reporters,

which allowed women to actually carve out a space

in the journalism profession for the first time.

Brightclaw431 asks, Did any of the first presidents

have any realistic chance of nipping slavery in the bud

if they chose to do so?

So this is a really interesting question.

12 of the early American presidents

owned enslaved individuals,

but they didn't necessarily all feel the same way.

President George Washington emancipated the individuals

that he owned when he died.

And some of the other presidents like John Quincy Adams,

while he didn't necessarily speak out

while he was president,

afterwards, he became a member of Congress

and he regularly spoke out against slavery

and the power of slavery in the South.

PlainsViewer asks, How many presidents have died

while in office?

Eight presidents died in office, four were assassinated,

and four died of natural causes.

Which is actually pretty surprising

because we've only had 45 men serve,

which means just under 18% have died

while they were president.

_kierk asks, What the hell does the vice president do?

The vice president has two responsibilities.

One, they are to cast a tie-breaking vote

if the Senate is divided on a piece of legislation.

Second is to have a pulse, to be a living replacement

to take over the office of the presidency

if he dies in office.

For the modern vice president,

that is still their primary constitutional responsibility,

but depending on their relationship with the president,

sometimes they are also tasked with other responsibilities.

For example, Joe Biden was tasked

with overseeing the recovery

after the 2008 economic collapse.

And more recently, Vice President Kamala Harris

was given the responsibility of the relationship

with the nations that primarily lead to immigration

to the United States from the southern border.

Everything else is really up to the president,

and most vice presidents have been totally irrelevant

in history.

stirfried_WEISS asks, What did Ulysses S. Grant do

to deserve being placed on a $50 bill?

Well, Ulysses S. Grant did two really important things.

First, he was the victorious general in the Civil War

when the Union Army defeated the Confederate Army.

So winning the Civil War is a pretty big deal.

Second, as president, I think he's really underappreciated.

He worked really hard

to try and bring the union back together

after the Civil War.

He worked hard to defend the civil rights

and suffrage of recently emancipated African Americans,

and he defended their rights and their liberties

against violence from the Ku Klux Klan.

So I think he generally deserves a lot more credit

than he gets.

Sine_Fine_Beli asks, Does Donald Trump

have unlimited authority to impose tariffs?

Well, first of all, a tariff is basically a tax

that the United States imposes on an item

that is coming in from a foreign nation.

Now, most people think that the foreign nation pays the tax

and that's the end of it.

But what happens is the foreign nation

actually increases the prices, and so that item

that is coming in is then more expensive for Americans

here in the United States.

The president does have broad power to put tariffs on items

or on things coming in from foreign nations.

However, Congress can check that power

if it then rejects a tariff through legislation.

But this is a really interesting part

of the President's responsibilities.

While the president does have a lot of power over tariffs,

their control over the economy is much more limited

than people typically think.

For example, Congress is the one that passes the budget.

Congress is the one that raises funds.

So if you're concerned about the deficit,

that is a Congress question.

Inflation is even more complicated.

Inflation is affected by things like supply chains,

conditions around the world, access to goods,

how much people want them,

and while the President can take steps

to try and ameliorate that inflation,

they don't have power to reduce it.

Additionally, things like interest rates

are controlled by the Federal Reserve,

and the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent

from politics.

So while the president can make a request,

it's really up to them to change any sort of rate

or make any sort of cut.

dandinohill asks, When President Trump takes office

in January, he will be the second

to own two presidential numbers, 45 and 47.

Who was the first president to do so?

22 and 24.

No checking or cheating.

That would be Grover Cleveland.

In 1884, Grover Cleveland won his first election.

He was then defeated four years later.

In 1892, he came back and he defeated Benjamin Harrison

and won his second term.

A lot of the same concerns that voters had in 1888 and 1892.

Things like immigration, tariffs, and the economy

are issues that we are seeing today.

goodtobehuman asks, What is the deal with George Washington

and the cherry tree?

George Washington did have cherry trees on his estate

at Mount Vernon, and in fact,

recently we uncovered a discovery of preserved bottles

that had cherries in them.

The story with George Washington and the cherry tree

is that when he was a young boy, he cut down a cherry tree

and then when his father asked him about it,

he said, I cannot tell a lie and admitted to doing so,

but there is no truth or evidence that suggests

that he cut down a cherry tree when he was a child.

This is a myth that was made up by a man named Parson Weems

or Mason Locke Weems.

And he wrote a book about Washington

shortly after Washington's death that was frankly filled

with a whole lot of garbage, but it suited him

because he was trying to tell a story

about Washington's character and the national mythology,

and it sold really, really well.

alexalaurenxo asks, We're talking about

the Great Depression, and Anthony Moscato goes,

'Where did all the presidents live

before the White House was built?'

LOL

George Washington lived in several different houses.

He lived in two different residences in New York City,

which is where the seat of the federal government was

for about a year when he was first president.

The seat of government then moved to Philadelphia

and he rented a house,

which became known as The President's House,

and he lived there until he retired in 1797.

John Adams, the second president of the United States,

lived there until November 1800.

Then he moved to Washington DC

with the rest of the federal government

and became the first president to live in the White House.

Every president since has done so

with the exception of James Madison

once the White House burned down in the War of 1812,

and he moved just down the street to the Octagon House

until it was completed.

And Harry Truman also moved across the street

into the Blair House when there was a massive renovation

of the White House during his term.

hewhatwhat asks, How much blame could we actually give

to Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression?

It definitely wasn't Herbert Hoover's fault

that the economy collapsed.

There were a lot of structural weaknesses and impediments

in the way of a strong economy.

There was a big bubble that had collapsed once it was clear

that the speculation was not sustainable.

Where Hoover did receive a lot of blame

was his lackluster response.

He believed that the economy would right itself

and capitalism could be trusted to take over,

and he didn't do much to try

and take care of the American people

when they were really suffering.

So I think he could definitely be blamed

for not doing enough to try and fix the Great Depression.

HistoryinBrief asks, So was Edith Wilson

the actual president for a year

while Woodrow was recovering from a stroke?

#EdithWilson1stWomanPresident.

Well, she certainly didn't have the official title

or the official office, but yeah,

I think Edith Wilson was primarily acting as

for most of the time that Wilson was incapacitated.

She determined who came in to see him,

who got to talk to him.

She would report back his decisions at a time when we know

that he wasn't really able to speak

and were not really sure he understood what was happening.

So she had enormous authority that was not elected

or was given to her by the Constitution.

What's most important about this

is that most people didn't really know what was happening.

The cabinet had a sense that Wilson was far more ill

than people realized, but most people were not permitted

to actually see the president,

and so most Americans did not know

who was actually in charge.

mai_tai_ty_tie asks Alexa,

what presidents have been impeached?

Well, there have been four impeachments in US history.

The first, Andrew Johnson, was impeached

for trying to remove cabinet secretaries,

which violated the Tenure of Office Act.

Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath.

And Donald Trump was impeached twice.

First, for withholding funds from Ukraine

for political purposes.

And then for his role in the January 6th insurrection.

No president has been removed from office.

SouthBayBoy8 asks, There haven't been two presidents

in a row of the same party since Reagan and H. W. Bush.

Why do you think this is?

Well, I think the American people get frustrated

with a party.

They have relatively little patience

and frankly, sometimes short attention spans,

and so they want to elect something new.

That hasn't always been the case.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, of course,

won four elections in a row.

And then Harry Truman won an election in his own right

and he was from the same party.

chopstickfury01 asks, Which

would you have the hardest time beating

in a drinking contest?

That would have to be James Buchanan.

James Buchanan was known for being able to put down

quite a number of bottles of liquor and not even show it.

So he would definitely drink me under the table.

CratesofNutella asks, Just how much security

do past presidents get and how extensive is it?

Past presidents get Secret Service protection,

as do their spouses, and this was required

by a law passed in 1965 after Kennedy's assassination,

which recognized that both presidents and former presidents

often receive threats and need additional protection.

The early presidents had no protection.

There were no gates outside the president's house,

and there was no Secret Service.

Secret Service didn't start protecting the

until 1901.

So while some presidents like Abraham Lincoln

occasionally had a military guard,

it wasn't guaranteed by Congress.

Former presidents didn't start getting protection until 1965

when Congress passed legislation

ensuring that presidents and first ladies

receive protection for the rest of their lives.

Romanuva asks, Do Presidents age faster in office?

Absolutely.

Have you seen the pictures?

Presidents go gray so fast while in office

because the demands of the job are so intense,

there are no easy decisions or choices

that come to their desk.

The working hours are often quite intense

and you can really see the impact of stress on their face.

A Reddit user asks, How has the office

of the President of the United States changed over time?

Well, in some ways, the office of the presidency

really hasn't changed at all.

George Washington established a presidency

that was the primary actor when it came to foreign policy

and domestic crises and really carved out enormous powers

in jurisdiction for himself and his successors.

In other ways, the executive branch has really expanded.

We have far more executive departments,

their responsibilities are much greater,

and the number of employees in them is so far beyond

what could have been imagined in the 1790s.

So the scope of the federal government is much bigger,

even if the idea of the president is the same.

radiogirlkaren asks, Yep,

Abe Lincoln was the tallest US president,

but who was the shortest?

No political comments necessary.

Testing your presidential smarts.

Well, that would probably be James Madison.

James Madison was either 5'2 or 5'3 depending on reports,

and he was pretty frail as well.

What's interesting is his wife,

Dolly Madison was probably 5'8 or 5'9,

and she would wear these giant turbans

to really accentuate her height.

BarryGSexy asks, I wonder how many presidents

killed another human being

and do we suppose any did so outside of the army?

Andrew Jackson probably killed someone in duel, yeah?

You are right.

In May of 1806, Andrew Jackson killed Charles Dickinson

over a dispute over a horse that Jackson owned.

Jackson was also wounded in the chest, but he survived.

And this dual was later used against him

in presidential elections, arguing that he was blood-hungry

and he was eager to kill people.

DrDigiPol asks, Trivia question,

how many US presidents have been arrested?

Bonus, name them.

During the presidency, just one, Ulysses S. Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant was arrested while

for speeding down Pennsylvania Avenue

in his horse and carriage,

and he had been warned repeatedly by police

that he was going to fast, but he couldn't help himself

and he really loved a fast ride.

tylersyck asks, Who do you guys think

was the most stylish president of the 20th century?

Well, Barack Obama got a lot of flack for his tan suit,

but I personally thought it looked great.

Other presidents that were known for being quite debonair

include John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan as well.

ifightpossums asks, What presidents had unusual interests

or hobbies?

FDR was an avid stamp collector

and his stamp collection is still available

at his presidential library.

cal_lovr asks, How much do presidents get paid?

Currently, Presidents make $400,000 a year.

Originally, the salary was for $25,000,

which was a huge amount of money in 1789

when George Washington became president.

But that money had to cover rent for the president's house,

labor, food, all expenses related to travel,

and anytime they hosted.

So it actually went really quickly.

And most presidents in the early Republic

left office in debt.

Humble-Translator466 asks,

Which president was the best practical joker?

This has to be Lyndon B. Johnson.

Johnson loved to play jokes on people,

and in fact, he even had a car

that could work in the water as a boat.

And so he would drive around guests on his farm in Texas

and he would go too fast down a hill

and cause them to think that they were gonna run

into the water and then the car would sink

and instead, it would float

and it would start puttering around like any other boat.

He always got a good laugh

and he really loved their reactions.

datboyChicas asks, Quick somebody,

why did President Truman decide to use atomic weapons

during World War II?

This was a decision that President Truman agonized over

because he understood the repercussions

and the scale of the death and damage

that was going to be done to the Japanese people.

But he believed that in doing so,

he was actually saving American lives.

His generals and his advisors had given him estimates

for how much it would cost

and how many lives would be sacrificed

to try and take additional Japanese territory.

And he believed that in doing so,

he would end the war as quickly as possible.

RealMrParamount asks, So what does Commander in Chief mean

as defined in the Constitution

of the United States of America?

Anyone?

As the Constitution originally defines it,

the Commander in Chief is the person that is in charge

of the armed forces of the United States.

So as president, they get to determine the officers,

they can appoint people,

but Congress is responsible for passing legislation

that determines the rules and regulations

that manage the Army, Navy, and other armed forces.

RemoveDifferent3357 asks, Do you believe Polk's war

with Mexico was justified

and should we view the war as a positive

or a negative of his legacy?

Polk's legacy is really interesting

because he was generally viewed

as actually one of the most effective presidents.

He came into office saying he wanted to accomplish

a couple of things, including annexing Texas

and getting more territory in the Northwest.

And he did those things and then he left after one-term.

So in terms of promises made, promises kept,

he is certainly up there.

However, the war with Mexico was very much ginned up

to try and seize additional territory,

and in doing so, it killed a lot of innocent people,

it displaced thousands of native Mexicans,

and it led to the expansion of slavery in the American West,

which was a major trigger that led to the Civil War.

myvotedoesn'tmatter asks, Who's your choice

for the best president on foreign policy?

It's really hard to choose best and worst

because there are so many options.

But one of the most effective presidents on foreign policy

was George H. W. Bush, who oversaw the end of the Cold War

in a peaceful way.

There were no nuclear explosions,

there was no World War III,

and he did so exercising restraint and humility.

He didn't gloat and he really could have,

but he was only a one-term president.

The thing is, the American people very rarely vote

on foreign policy, and we tend not to reward people for wars

that don't happen or for avoiding conflict.

We do reward presidents when they win wars,

and since George H. W. Bush didn't do that,

his contributions are often not as remembered

as they should be.

shu-ha-ri asks,

Why did Martha Washington burn George's letters?

Well, it's 'cause he asked her to.

Just like most people,

those letters probably contained all the snarkiness,

and the humor, and the love, and the really intimate stuff

that we tend to share with our loved ones.

That's not how he wanted to be remembered.

Instead, he wanted to be remembered

as a little bit more aloof, a little bit more reserved,

the image he had crafted.

Kind of like a marble bust just like this one.

Okay.

That's it.

That's all the questions.

I hope you learned something.

Until next time.

[upbeat music]