Another Way to Choose a President, Part II – Ladies First!

By P.J. O'Rourke

As I mentioned last week, the long, drawn-out, exhausting, and aggravating 2016 presidential campaign left people thinking, "There must be another way to do this."

Last week, my idea was for voters to pick the presidential candidate they'd like to go on a road trip with.

This week, I have a new idea: Elect the president and let the first lady run the country.

As before, we'll leave out the most recent election. It's too complicated. Would Melania Trump be disqualified because she isn't native born? Would Bill Clinton become "gender fluid" if Hillary won? If Bill was transgender, would he be able to resist groping himself? Is than an impeachable offense?

Instead, let us examine past evidence...

Historical research and analysis suggest that making the White House hostess head of state would create a freer, stronger, more peaceful and prosperous America.

Martha Washington is richer than George. She bribes the Red Coats to bugger off back to England, saving us the bother of a Revolutionary War.

Abigail Adams is smarter than John. She doesn't pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, which (to judge by the names of the things) caused America to be full of illegal aliens and people who (as the dictionary defines sedition) "stir up discontent, resistance, or rebellion against the government" aka the media.

Martha Skelton Jefferson is dead before Thomas becomes president. America gets its first black woman chief executive, Sally Hemings, in 1800. Hemings proclaims emancipation and passes equal rights legislation. She wins the Civil War with much less bloodshed because modern weaponry, the telegraph, and accurate maps have not been invented so Union and Confederate soldiers keep getting lost in the woods.

Dolley Madison's diplomatic poise and social graces prevent the pointless War of 1812. The British, who've been invited to tea at the White House, do not burn it down.

While her husband James was the ambassador to France Elizabeth Monroe rescued Thomas Paine and La Fayette's wife from the Reign of Terror. Elizabeth is a force to be reckoned with. Her "Monroe Doctrine" tells Europeans to stop messing around in the Western Hemisphere and stop messing around in Europe.

Louisa Adams suffers from depression. She lets stay-at-home dad John Quincy take care of the household budget. He pays off the national debt, so there's plenty of money for federally sponsored medical research. Prozac is invented in 1825. Washington has been a calmer and more cheerful place ever since.

Widower Andrew Jackson's niece Emily Donelson is too busy with Washington society squabbles (such as the "Petticoat Affair" over whether Secretary of War John Eaton's wife is a floozy) to sign the Indian Removal Act.

Native Americans aren't caused untold suffering on the "Trail of Tears." Emily also neglects to destroy the Second Bank of the United States. It prints "greenbacks," and green is her favorite color. There's no "Panic of 1837." America's first great depression never happens.

Angelica Singleton Van Buren fails to use father-in-law Martin's influence with the New York State political machine to create the modern Democratic Party. Today, Bill de Blasio is an obscure Sandinista Studies professor, and Rahm Emanuel is still running the meat slicer at Arby's.

Anna Harrison doesn't stand in the freezing rain giving the longest inaugural address ever and die 30 days later from pneumonia like her husband William Henry. And she doesn't, as Harrison's Vice President John Tyler did, annex Texas. Instead, Anna prudently waits for oil to be discovered, so Texas can annex the United States.

Because Anna Harrison stayed out of the rain, John Tyler's wife, Letitia Tyler, a sickly invalid, is never first lady and neither is Tyler's next wife, Julia Tyler, a silly rich girl.

Texas is so rich that instead of laying siege to the Alamo, General Santa Anna starts "Occupy the Alamo," which, like all "Occupy" movements is a complete flop.

Lacking casus belli, Sarah Polk refrains from waging James K.'s war against Mexico. Therefore, today, the state of California is an undocumented immigrant, and we can deport it.

Margaret Taylor doesn't have much to do.

Ditto for Abigail Fillmore. And thanks to the good work of Sally Hemings, Mrs. Millard F. doesn't need to compromise her anti-slavery principles with the "Compromise of 1850."

Jane Pierce is reclusive. While in the White House, she never comes downstairs. Since there is no Kansas-Nebraska Act or Fugitive Slave Act to be signed, she has no reason to.

Bachelor James Buchanan's niece Harriet Lane is fashion-forward. The big event of the Lane Administration is Harriet lowering the neckline of her Inaugural Ball gown by two inches.

Mary Todd Lincoln is a flake. But the nation doesn't need Abe, so who cares?

Eliza Johnson never comes downstairs, either. So she can't get impeached. And because the House of Representatives never learns how to impeach anybody, history is spared Monica Lewinsky.

Julia Grant has no hard-drinking, poker-playing cronies to mar her administration with charges of corruption. The "Gilded Age" is so-called because it is a golden period of business probity, labor peace, and charitable concern for the poor.

"Lemonade Lucy" Hayes is a strict teetotaler. The hard-drinking Americans of the 1870s laugh off her attempt to impose national prohibition, and nobody ever tries that again.

Lucretia Garfield is safe in the Ladies' Waiting Room of the Sixth Street Station in Washington, while disappointed office-seeker and would-be assassin Charles J. Guiteau is on the prowl.

She completes a full term, as does her successor, Mary Arthur McElroy, the sister of widower Chester Alan Arthur. The most serious problem facing the nation is a budget surplus. So Lucretia and Mary go shopping.

Between 1885 and 1897, there are five first ladies. Rose Cleveland, Grover Cleveland's sister, is replaced when Grover marries Frances Cleveland, followed in office by Caroline Harrison who dies in 1892, whereupon Benjamin Harrison's daughter Mary Harrison McKee takes over, after which Frances Cleveland returns to the White House.

Despite the rapid turnover, first lady policy remains consistent on the leading issue of the day, the gold standard. Gold, they firmly maintain, makes much nicer bracelets, rings, and necklaces than paper does.

Ida McKinley is another invalid First Lady. She simply doesn't have the energy and pep for a Spanish-American War. When unhinged anarchist Leon Czolgosz ties to attack Ida, a nurse clobbers him with a bedpan.

Ida lives until 1907, allowing an orderly transition to the Nellie Taft Administration, 1905-1913. Teddy Roosevelt, having charged up San Juan Hill with nobody there to stop him, just keeps going. Instead of "Trust Busting," Nellie institutes "Trust Bosoming."

Ellen Wilson is a talented painter. Like most artsy types she holds "advanced" opinions. Women get the vote right away. And, due to government medical research programs begun under Louisa Adams, Ellen doesn't die of kidney disease in 1914. She's around to heed peace protests and keep America out of World War I. She does not, however, establish the Federal Reserve. Banking "makes her head ache."

Florence Harding is a shrewd businesswoman. There's no Teapot Dome scandal. She already owns those oil-drilling rights, under her maiden name. And Florence instructs the Secret Service to "23 skidoo" Warren G.'s mistress Nan Britton. "And Warren, too, if necessary."

Grace Coolidge minds her own beeswax.

Lou Hoover is a cultivated and scholarly woman, a graduate of Stanford and fluent in Chinese. Her thorough understanding of economics and geo-politics set the trend for cautious personal investments during America's "Boring Twenties".

One look at Eleanor Roosevelt changes Adolf Hitler's life – Pablo Picasso is a realist. Hitler embraces "degenerate art," forgets about politics and anti-Semitism, and becomes a minor painter of the Munich Expressionist School.

When North Korea invades South Korea in 1950, Bess Truman has her opera singing daughter Margaret give a solo performance on the front lines and the North Koreans retreat.

Mamie Eisenhower and Nina Khrushchev bond over clothes shopping, leading to the 1950s' signature dumpy-frock-and-babushka look and also to peaceful co-existence.

Jackie Kennedy provides a sharp contrast to Mamie. Jackie has exquisite taste. When she hears about something called a "Bay of Pigs," she vetoes it. "Honestly," she says, "I mean, perhaps a Baie des Cochons... But, really, no."

Lady Bird Johnson undertakes a "Vietnam Beautification" program.

Pat Nixon suggests Dick take up a hobby, such as drinking. Henry Kissinger is unnecessary because of enduring Mamie-Nina Détente. Betty Ford goes to the Richard M. Nixon Center to dry out.

Rosalynn Carter gets all her policy advice from her 10-year-old daughter Amy who thinks "Stagflation" would be a swell name for a pony. It is, and the American economy begins to revive.

Nancy Reagan's astrologer calculates that the nation (Sun Sign Cancer with Sagittarius rising) has its Moon in Aquarius and Mars in Gemini. It's an auspicious moment. Nancy dresses up and gives a party for eight years.

Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait makes Barbara Bush mad. And when Barbara gets mad... Hussein surrenders immediately. Ayatollah Khamenei and Hafez al-Assad surrender too, just to be on the safe side. Yasser Arafat also agrees to do whatever Barbara tells him. There is peace in the Middle East.

Hillary Rodham, an obscure real estate developer and cattle-futures trader from Little Rock, Arkansas, occupies the Oval Office for one term. She is little remembered today except for (thanks to the precedent set by Florence Harding) the shy, quiet, devotion of her husband Bill.

Meanwhile, with peace reigning in the Middle East, Osama bin Laden abandons al-Qaeda, goes into the family construction business, and dies in 2011 in the collapse of a shoddily-built housing compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Laura Bush perceives that America is facing a health care crisis. She talks to hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and health care providers and asks them if they can't, please, work something out. Laura is so nice, who can refuse?

With nothing to be irate about Michelle Obama devotes her full energy to making America fit. Average U.S. Body Mass Index is now 18.5, and Chris Christie can do 75 push-ups, 80 sit-ups, and run two miles in 13 minutes.

Regards,

P.J. O'Rourke