Hey, Michael Tomasky...James Madison was known as "Jemmy", perhaps "Little Jemmy," not "Jim".
And by the way, he's the wrong guy to cast as the great defender of majority rule, but I'll save that for some other time.
While I'm on the subject, however, I'll repeat my opinion that we haven't sufficiently honored Madison.
At any rate...James, or Mr. Madison, or Jemmy, or President Madison, or Father of the Constitution. Not Jim. OK?
(via Cohn)
I'm reminded of Lucy telling Schroeder (in Peanuts) that she was reading about Johanny Sebastian Bach.
ReplyDeleteReally tempted to say that if anyone doesn't know what "Lucy telling Schroeder" refers to, they should find some other neighborhood to hang out in...but I suppose it's been a long, long time since there were new, funny Peanuts in our daily newspapers. And even longer since there were new animated specials worth watching.
ReplyDeleteI think a fair number of us who began adulthood during the internet age know what newspapers and Peanuts are. Probably as many know of, and know as much about, Peanuts as they do James Madison. If you don't know much about the latter they should certainly spend some time in this neighborhood.
ReplyDelete"That said, I can talk a little about which presidents we honor too much, and which we honor too little. On the former, James Madison deserves far more celebration than he gets."
ReplyDeleteUnless former and latter have different meanings south of the border, you may want to fix your linked post!
As a native Torontonian, I always take great delight in explaining to Americans why the White House is white. Or at least the way we learned history was that Washington was burned in retaliation for US burning Toronto (then called York) and that the White House, originally pink was whitewashed to cover the results of the fire. I think my high school history text also referred to it as Mad Madison's War (attributed to New Englanders')