How To Fight William Howard Taft

Just last Friday, cracked.com released an article written by Daniel O'Brien that was right up our alley; How To Fight Andrew Jackson: The Deadliest President Ever. As an added bonus, the article's release date was just days before Jackson was scheduled to appear in the Arena for his quarterfinal match against Thomas J. Whitmore.

"How perfect," said the devils sitting on the shoulders of every HttCttD staffer, "we don't have to write a Wednesday post. We could just direct people to that timely article, call it a day and have a rip-roaringly drunk Ash Wednesday." But then the angels on everyone's shoulder told us that not only should we not phone in a Wednesday Feature like that. Also that getting plastered on Ash Wednesday kind of defeats the purpose of Ash Wednesday, not that that should stop us from inebriatory activities. Also, not that we really know what Ash Wednesday is all about, either.

We figured since we're coming to the end of our run, we should take things full-circle and look at the beginning. Since the Cracked article looked into how to fight Andrew Jackson, why not look at Jackson's first Arena opponent, which is why we present to you:

How To Fight William Howard Taft: The Big Chief
What the Jackson article assumes is that you've traveled to Jackson's time, and he's pissed off at you. It's a pretty simple scenario to imagine. Jackson got angry at a lot of people. If you were unfortunate enough to be one of those people, there would be no way off of his shit list. Even death wouldn't discount the possibility that Jackson would go out of his way to piss on your grave on a semi-regular basis.

Taft is a different story. The guy had no temper. He was fair-minded, almost to a fault. It has been said that when it came time to make an executive decision as president, he got so bogged down with seeing the issue from every side imaginable, and that was the sort of thing that made a better judge than a president. Good thing he later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Hail to the Chief... Justice.

So if you were to jump in your time machine -- be it a flying DeLorean or a phone booth (British or American, either one, really) -- and land in 1909 right on Taft's dog, he'd probably be upset and disappointed, but would also be understanding. It's not like you killed the dog on purpose. There's no way you could have known that Caruso would be at that location in space at that exact time.

Wait, Taft's dog's name was Caruso? In that case, there's something we need to do.

Yes, Rules of the Internet state we're required to beat this dead horse.

We could be giving Taft too much credit. We're ignoring the fact that you essentially materialized out of nowhere and flattened his dog. Initially, he's probably be freaked out, but if you were able to do some sort of Vulcan mind meld to let him explain the circumstances, then he'd probably be understanding.

But whatever. For some reason, you've angered Taft. Now what?

Well, despite his poor performance in the Arena -- 13.2% in the 1st Round, but let us remind you that that was against Andrew Jackson -- he still has quite a bit going for him. He was a big guy. Legend has it that when he sat around the White House, he sat around the White House. Wait, I just got that joke. Okay, he didn't literally sit around the White House, but most presidential trivia novices know that Taft was the one who got stuck in his bathtub.

Point is that he could use his weight against you. And to paraphrase the Southern rock group ZZ Top, "he's got weight, and he knows how to use it." Back in his Yale days, he was the intramural heavyweight wrestling champion. Granted, that was years ago, and it's not like he went intercollegiate with it, but it's something. He's a 300-pound dude who knows how to take a guy down, if need be. That sounds like it could be quite the challenge.

One would have a better chance against Taft than Jackson, but a fight against Taft could get a bit hairy.

Our suggestion is not to piss Taft off. Since it seems that one would really have to go an extra mile to draw ire from him, it really worries me that you would go through all that trouble. You've perfect time travel and your first order of business is to taunt Taft into fighting you? Why don't you use that all of that energy to warn everyone about Hitler, instead?

If you absolutely do want to time travel and hang out with Taft, you should just hang out with the guy and take in a good game of baseball. He loved baseball. Just don't credit him with inventing the 7th inning stretch, because that wasn't him.

He did start the American tradition of the ceremonial first pitch.

In fact, if you're to time travel at all, be sure you know your history. You may be quizzed on something important.



We're glad this week's O'Brien's article influenced our Wednesday Feature. This post would have been drastically different if the article was released a week later and if Jackson had landed on J-WOWW's P.I.L.F. list.

Okay, we should stop worrying ourselves with what to do if you were in a fight with Taft and get back to the subject at hand: What Jackson and Whitmore would do in a fight against each other.