14th President of the United States
Served: 1853-1857
Ages served: 48-52
Arena Experience: Pierce got rid of John Quincy Adams in the 1st Round with 64.7% of the vote. When he returned to the Arena, Pierce sent Gerald Ford home, earning 55.6% of the vote.
PROS: Pierce is battle-hardened and he keeps loose with lots and lots of alcohol. The result, someone with the fearlessness to march into Mexico City who is probably numb enough to not realize someone is hitting him until the next day. That's a deadly combination.
CONS: He didn't have much in they ways of good ideas. Oh sure, the Kansas-Nebraska Act sounded like a good idea on paper, but it ended up ripping open the already festering wound that was the tensions between the states. Let's hope he keeps his bad ideas to a minimum in the Arena.
Josiah "Jed" Bartlet
Portrayed by Martin Sheen in The West Wing
Age: Sheen was 58 when the show premiered, and 66 when the show, along with his fictional presidency, concluded.
Arena Experience: Met John Tyler in the first round, and flattened His Accidency with 88% of the vote. Then faced LBJ in the second round, and did only marginally worse, with 81% of the vote.
PROS: Bartlet may have the most impressive résumé, intellect-wise, out of everyone this side of Thomas Jefferson, and his knowledge base covers quite a lot of terrain. Also, he's got quite the support base online.
CONS: Can be arrogant and overconfident at times, which we keep insisting is dangerous despite the results of Bartlet's arena encounters thus far. Also has M.S. According to Wikipedia, a person with MS can suffer almost any neurological symptom or sign, including changes in sensation such as loss of sensitivity or tingling, pricking or numbness, muscle weakness, or difficulty in moving; difficulties with coordination and balance; problems in speech or swallowing, visual problems, fatigue, or chronic pain, and bladder and bowel difficulties." And that strikes us as bad, you know?
Pre-game Analysis
Doug: I could put a lot of thought into how I believe an actual fight between these two people would actually go down, but I have a feeling a vast majority of the people voting this week won’t even read it. Scroll down, click on Bartlet, see ya at the next round, bye! What makes me say that?
Bartlet has earned a total of 167 votes in his first two fights, which is far more than any other combatant in the entire tournament. Granted, it’s not comments that get people to the next round, it’s votes. But comments let us know that people are actually reading what we have to say and coming up with their own thoughts. If people were actually putting thought into voting for Bartlet, I’d imagine we’d have a lot more comments for him. Yet, we’ve only had two. So either people aren’t reading, or they don’t have their own thoughts.
As it stands now, Bartlet has amassed fewer total comments than multiple fighters who lost in the 1st Round. One of those guys doesn’t even have a name. He has no name, but he got more comments with his eight votes than Bartlet got with his 167 votes.
I realize my explanation as to why I didn’t bother going into who I think would win this thing is longer than what would have been my explanation of who I think would win this thing. It probably doesn’t matter, because you’re most likely scrolling past all of this anyway.
Tony: I can't necessarily disagree with anything you're talking about, there. If only there was some way of grabbing the attention of the people who are merely scrolling through this thing? Hmmm...
STOP SCROLLING DOWN, JERKS!
NO, SERIOUSLY, STOP THAT.
I MEAN, UNLESS YOU'VE READ THE REST OF THE POST.
THEN YOU'RE FINE.
Okay, that got the message across? I hope so!
The Chief: ...
Tony: What?
The Chief: I don't even know what to do with the two of you.
Doug: Hey, don't lump me in with him! I didn't fill the post up by hitting Return!
The Chief: Did you try and stop him?
Doug: We're in different states!
Tony: Besides, him? Stop me? Pfft.
The Chief: Okay, shut up, both of you! Readers, as always, you have until 9am MST on Friday to cast your votes. We'll be back on Wednesday; hopefully these two [redacted]s will be better behaved then.
Franklin Pierce is not fit to polish Jed Bartlet's Nobel Prize.
ReplyDeleteYeah, supporting the Confederacy is kind of an automatic loss.
ReplyDeleteVote Bartlet.
Jed Bartlet won't be bringing Mr. Fluffy to this round. Let Bartlet be Bartlet.
ReplyDeleteBartlet kicks ass. I mean, have you SEEN him ranting in Latin? Pierce won't know what hit him.
ReplyDeleteBartlet cursing out God in Latin is indeed the best example of both his badassery, and his pretentiousness.
ReplyDeletePretentiousness backed by knowledge is superior to pretentiousness backed by bombastic self-importance.
DeleteTruth.
DeleteBartlet For America
DeleteBartlet already has the home court and popular advantage, seeing as people in this era are actually familiar with his record. Pierce might as well be fictional, by that measure.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Bartlet hasn't had any schools named after him (nor even record albums, as Something Fierce of Wayzata, MN named one back in the early 90s).
Hurm... Bartlet.
I have to say I'm going to be REALLY disappointed when President Bartlet beats like George Washington or Teddy Roosevelt...
ReplyDeleteI know. I'll feel like I've wasted all of the time I've been obsessed with this blog when Bartlett wins the whole thing because a bunch of his fans that don't vote every week swoop in to stuff the ballot in the finals.
DeleteThat's why I'm all in for TR! Let Teddy Win!!!
DeleteRead the entire post - then voted Bartlet. Sorry, logic.
ReplyDeleteI like Jed Bartlet, but I'm appalled by how many people come out of the woodwork on his weeks. I am left to assume that a crazed professor at Notre Dame has his entire economics classes voring of his prized alum, Jed Bartlet? Does that explain the surge in activity? Or is it that his staffer Joshua Lyman has engaged in a voter fraud scandal by using his former employees from Madison Hotels? Think about it...the guy didn't know the first thing about Business Ethics
ReplyDeleteBartlet for the win.
ReplyDeleteI missed out on this one, but I have to say: Bartlet's got the skill and the tenacity and he didn't start drinking until he was twenty five... and he probably didn't like having Pierce's great, great, great, great, grandson as an intern who was also kind of a jerk and held up a trade deal, but none of that is going to compare to this one fundamental fact:
ReplyDeletePierce wasn't just a terrible president. He was a terrible president from New Hampshire. Bartlet is going to deliver an ass-kicking as punctuation, his fists moving in time with denunciations of Democratic complacency as bigots and special interests slowly scored the nation so that it would be easier to pull apart later. This isn't just political, it's personal.