Sixteen Stone

Several months ago, the following question was asked on the cover of an issue of Rolling Stone: Is George Bush the worst president ever?

For those of us who lack historical perspective and ideological persuasion (i.e. born during the Gerald Ford presidency), the answer is yes, especially given the debacle in Iraq and his "new strategy" for success over there, which is really just another moniker for "more of the same, plus 21,500."

Sure, George W. Bush is a douche, but he's not the worst president ever. That award goes to William Henry Harrison, the ninth Commander-in-Chief of our nation.

Hell, even the official White House biography only gives Harrison's presidency one paragraph. So, the story goes, he was elected the Whig Party candidate in 1841. He gave his inaugural speech on March 4th in the winter cold of Washington D.C. without wearing a jacket. Did I mention he was 68 years old, then the oldest president to be elected? Yeah. The plot thickens. His inaugural address was nearly 9,000 words long, and took well over two hours to deliver. Needless to say, this dumbass spent the next month dying, and enacting some bullshit legislation.

Harrison died April 4th, 1841. His presidency only lasted one month. But what most people don't know is that on March 28th, Harrison, in an opium delirium, drafted the Robot Futures Act of 2141, which placed the powers of the Presidency, Senate, House and Judiciary in the hands of artificially intelligent "mechanized decisionmakers." He envisioned the world, three hundred years from his own time, as a glorious illustration of pure sublime Enlightenment, where mankind had created all the tools necessary to make life as convenient as possible. This would be a good world. After this "nonsense" was passed by weak politicians just to please a dying old man, Harrison came down hard from his opium high and realized that we could not trust the machines. Harrison then drafted the Decision to Annihilate the Machines Act of 2141, basically sending every American human alive into hand-to-hand combat with the laser-guided borgs. The war he envisioned was worse than the stuff in The Matrix and Terminator combined.

This legislation will affect all of our great-great-great grandchildren. The beyond-the-grave power of this depraved ghost of a dead president must, MUST, be reckoned with, or we will all be batteries for machines or Yorick-like skulls crushed under the feet of cybernetic robots for pure dramatic effect.

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," my ass. William Henry Harrison ... WORST PRESIDENT EVAH!