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It's time America had a fat president
Washington Examiner ^ | 06/22/2010 | Gene Healy

Posted on 06/22/2010 8:30:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Last week, President Obama strolled the beaches for a photo op with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a self-described "fat redneck." Our beanpole president made quite a contrast to the chubby gov, who, as the New York Times noted Sunday, resembles "an adult version of Spanky from the Little Rascals."

Newsweek calls Barbour "the anti-Obama," but the Times downplayed his presidential prospects. Apparently, Haley needs to slim down if he's serious.

Is corpulence really a disqualification for the presidency in the land of supersized fries? If so, that's a shame.

America might do better with a fat president. After all, some of our best have been big fellows, and lately the trim and ambitious types haven't served us so well.

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous," Shakespeare's Julius Caesar comments to Marc Antony. "Let me have men about me that are fat ... such as sleep o' nights."

There's valuable insight there. Keeping fit is fine, but it's hard to trust someone who has spent decades counting carbs so he can stay light enough to leap for the brass ring.

A few years back, Slate examined the relationship between flab and presidential performance. What it found suggests that if you want New Frontiers and crusades for democracy, then vote for the skinny striver. If you'd prefer someone who leaves well enough alone -- who's content to preside over peace and prosperity -- pick the porker.

Per Slate, our four chubbiest chief executives were Presidents Taft, McKinley, Cleveland and Taylor. McKinley, a high-tariff Republican who took us into an unnecessary war, was no prize, but the rest lived large and governed lightly.

I once joked that my favorite president was a chunky, draft-dodging, scandal-plagued Democrat elected in '92 ... (wait for it) ... Grover Cleveland. (The Big-Mac-gobbling Bill Clinton was pretty flabby himself, and lately he looks ever better compared to his successors.)

Like a giant, implacable Buddha, the Great Cleveland set his bulk against Big Government, wielding the veto pen more than any president before. Even $10,000 to relieve Texas farmers during the 1887 drought was too profligate: "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution."

Our 27th president, William Howard Taft, didn't start any major wars or federal programs, so he's now best known for weighing in at 355 and installing a plus-sized White House bathtub. But Taft fought hard against Teddy Roosevelt's grandiose visions of presidential power, insisting that "the president cannot make clouds to rain, cannot make the corn to grow" -- and that Roosevelt's notion of the chief executive as national savior would lead to an imperial presidency.

America's best governor today is New Jersey's Chris Christie, who took office despite his opponent's juvenile "check out the fat guy" campaign ads. Since then, Christie's faced down Jersey teachers' unions and made major budget cuts -- showing the kind of gumption America could use in the fiscal crisis to come. Yet most discussions of Christie's political future end with the observation that he's just "too fat" to be president.

Celebrity culture has infected American politics. Since the advent of television, we've reliably opted for the taller candidate -- those with receding hairlines need not apply. We seem to have forgotten the purpose of the office. We're not casting a chick flick here -- we're picking a constitutional chief executive.

The Framers never saw the president as a glamorous tribune of the people. They wanted someone solid enough to stand firm when Congress and the public demanded things they shouldn't have.

Let's give fat guys a chance. We could hardly do worse.

-- Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and author of "The Cult of the Presidency" .


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: america; chrischristie; fat; haleybarbour; president
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To: SeekAndFind
Agree. . .was sharing some similar thoughts today re the chaces of someone like NJ' Gov. Chris Christie settling into our White House (allowing that the skinny guy Obama, in fact, is made to vacate). Nothing seems more welcome; than this image - an authentic American leader versus the effete/asthetic, America-hating poser.

Feels like the choice between your most hated vegetable - and apple pie. We sooooo need a return to a 'solid' America.

21 posted on 06/22/2010 8:45:44 PM PDT by cricket
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To: Palladin

Ford was pretty bald. Nixon, too, for that matter.


22 posted on 06/22/2010 8:45:48 PM PDT by Past Your Eyes (No matter where you go there are always more stupid people.)
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To: Flag_This

Obama looks like he has had a wax job.
I guess that is what fellow gays go for.


23 posted on 06/22/2010 8:46:32 PM PDT by Oldexpat
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To: Oldexpat
Obama can't be gay. This pic tells us why...


24 posted on 06/22/2010 8:48:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Where was the “Buckwheat” reference? Bias? Nope.


25 posted on 06/22/2010 8:48:23 PM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannolis. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Bean Counter
“...roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone...”

Gimli, son of Gloin, in Moria...

"...and my a$$!"

26 posted on 06/22/2010 8:49:04 PM PDT by fwdude
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To: Past Your Eyes
Never mind. How about a curvy President?


27 posted on 06/22/2010 8:49:33 PM PDT by Palladin (Commodore Obama: "Damn the Constitution. Full speed ahead!")
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To: SeekAndFind

You gotta love the hat, though. I’m a hat guy. How about a president who is fat, bald and wears a hat. Hey, I could be president!!


28 posted on 06/22/2010 8:49:42 PM PDT by Past Your Eyes (No matter where you go there are always more stupid people.)
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To: SeekAndFind
(Obama hates his guts... that's the reason he returned his statue to the UK )

Of course he does...

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

-- Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 [London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899]).

How could any self respecting muslim not?
29 posted on 06/22/2010 8:49:44 PM PDT by null and void (We are now in day 515 of our national holiday from reality. - 0bama really isn't one of US.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Or as a husband (um, assuming I were a lady FReeper, which I am not). :-)

Mao got pretty chunky at the end too, IIRC.


30 posted on 06/22/2010 8:50:17 PM PDT by DemforBush (Serpentine, Shel! SERPENTINE!)
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To: Palladin

That would be okay. But I have my original birth certificate.


31 posted on 06/22/2010 8:50:56 PM PDT by Past Your Eyes (No matter where you go there are always more stupid people.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Coolidge was wiry and governed lightly.

Christie is pushing it with the weight. He has a shot at the presidency if he loses a few pounds. Seems to be the most qualified person for the job at the moment.


32 posted on 06/22/2010 8:52:21 PM PDT by purplelobster
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To: Past Your Eyes

Wouldn’t you rather be a General in Afghanistan?

I hear there’s an opening coming up tomorrow.

;)


33 posted on 06/22/2010 8:53:07 PM PDT by Palladin (Commodore Obama: "Damn the Constitution. Full speed ahead!")
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To: mamelukesabre

Pick me


34 posted on 06/22/2010 8:53:10 PM PDT by CPT Clay (Pick up your weapon and follow me.)
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To: All

New Jersey’s Chris Christie
****************************************
After MEchelle and her elbowing into our lives— fat will be the new and welcomed chic!

I wouldn’t complain a bit, if this nation could snatch Christie from New Jersey!

Ha! Social justice, share that political wealth!


35 posted on 06/22/2010 8:54:33 PM PDT by Irenic
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To: DemforBush
I've never looked at gay porn...until you posted that pic.

Barry just screams "Fabulous!!"


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

36 posted on 06/22/2010 8:54:53 PM PDT by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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To: purplelobster
Christie is pushing it with the weight. He has a shot at the presidency if he loses a few pounds. Seems to be the most qualified person for the job at the moment.

My main concern with Christie is he is Rudy-Giuliani like. TOUGH, EFFECTIVE and PERFECT for state and city governance but not for the national stage.

I'm not certain what his stance is on gun rights, immigration, abortion and other social issues. I suspect he is right of center on most social issues but his stance on others might just disqualify him the way it did Giuliani ( Rudy in fact split FR so much that his supporters were banned from posting on this site ( as far as I know, it hasn't been lifted ).

Remember, Christie was not the first choice of most Freepers. It was his primary opponent, Steve Loneghan.
37 posted on 06/22/2010 8:56:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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Comment #38 Removed by Moderator

To: SeekAndFind
Obama is gay. He had homosexual relations with this man...and most likely many others.

Obummer and any type of attraction to a woman is just smoke and mirrors. Obummer's favorite type of foreplay involves bumping and grinding other males on the basketball court. He wasn't as picky in 1999...he tries to be more discreet now that he's so in the public eye. He got away with a lot more in the 80's and 90's.

39 posted on 06/22/2010 8:59:56 PM PDT by howkn
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To: howkn

It certainly fits with his motto...to suck at everything!


40 posted on 06/22/2010 9:01:54 PM PDT by surfer (To err is human, to really foul things up takes a Democrat, don't expect the GOP to have the answer!)
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