Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [10]
Taft didn’t set out to leave his stamp on America, as Teddy Roosevelt did. But he understood that Roosevelt’s crusade against corporate monopolies was a valiant one, and he kept on fighting the good fight, even after Teddy complained that he was doing it wrong.
Taft didn’t win any wars. He also didn’t start any. Interesting, isn’t it, how the presidents with proper military experience are so often the ones most committed to maintaining peace?
Taft didn’t champion any sweeping social legislation like the other politicians who called themselves progressives. But the laws that already existed? He never, ever, ever exempted himself from them. Never made the argument that the president gets to be special. Because he didn’t think of himself as special. He thought of himself as an American—one among many.
We should all be such “great men.”
washington, DC craigslist > district of columbia > personals > rants & raves
Re: HERE’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT TAFT. (Foggy Bottom)
Date: 2011-11-15 9:42PM EST
I think Taft is the bomb diggity. I think Taft is dead fucking sexy. I think Taft ought to play Santa Claus in every mall in America. I think Taft would take down Chuck Norris in four seconds flat. I think Taft is one bad mutha (SHUT YO MOUTH). I think Taft is going to stick around for a while. I think Taft was long overdue.
Basically, I think Taft rocks my world. And really rocks that mustache. What do YOU think?
• Location: Foggy Bottom
“The first thing I noticed about my great-grandfather was his eyes. Well, no, I have to be honest, that was the second thing. The first thing I noticed was his size. Wow. You know, my whole family has a slight tendency toward being big boned—I’ve always been on the curvy side, and proudly so—but this was something else entirely. This wasn’t healthy. All I could think was, you’d think that hibernating for a hundred years would have used up all that fat. But then I saw his eyes, and that made me forget about the other thing. The kindness, the pain, the empathy, the hopefulness—I just felt immediately at home with him. Here was my family. Any lingering doubts that I’d had vanished—not only about his identity, but about whether he’d deserved the sort of derision and scorn that had hounded him out of office and then kept hanging around his legacy after he disappeared. Meeting William Howard, I knew right away that, whether or not he was a great president, he was definitely an excellent man.”
—Congresswoman Rachel Taft, interview with NPR
FIVE
At this moment, Taft was sure he’d never felt so perfectly full. Not his belly—he wasn’t even thinking about that. But his heart was full to bursting with warmth, even as his arms were full of the best hug he could remember.
He stepped back from the entryway of his apartment and held this woman at arm’s length—this woman whose father’s father had been his son Robert. He couldn’t quite convince himself that he recognized his son in either her solid frame or her sturdy, kind features, but he also couldn’t quite convince himself that he could speak without a lump forming in his throat.
Finally, she chuckled nervously. “I feel silly for asking, but—what should I call you?”
“Why,” he said, wondrously, “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose Grandpa should do nicely.”
At last he let her go and harrumphed deeply. “Would you like to sit down? Or, rather, I should say, I think I need to sit down.” He motioned her toward the couch.
“Sorry, I’m a little overwhelmed, too.” Rachel cleared her own throat, her eyes glittering. “Grandpa.”
“So,” he said. “I hear you’ve taken up the Taft banner and been tilting at windmills here in Washington.”
“Oh, you have no idea. Or maybe you do.” Taft nodded vigorously but said nothing; he’d picked up a bowl of candy from the coffee table and began rummaging through it, absent-mindedly popping pieces into his mouth,