Revenge of the Bureau of Statistical Overinformation

To paraphrase the song by LMFAO (feat. Lil Jon):

STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
Everybody!
STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS! STATS!
Everybody!

Come to think of it, a song parody where they sing about statistics instead of getting drunk should exist. Maybe we'll put that on our things to do after we've finished this blog. But for now, we have a much nerdier task at hand. How nerdy?

Screenshots of extensive spreadsheets nerdy.

Click to embiggen.

We needed an easy-to-read guide of all of our past fights. Need to know the exact percentage of the votes Harry S Truman earned in his 2nd Round battle against Calvin Coolidge? Want to know how many votes John Quincy Adams got against Franklin Pierce? Curious about who got the highest percentage in the Round of 16?

Our question to you would be, "Why would you want to know any of that?" But we're not here to judge. We're here to make your life simpler.

Oh, but what if you're curious about the overall performance of an individual fighter? Sure, James Monroe was out in the 2nd Round, which means that he won one and lost one, but did he end up with more votes for him or against him?

We've got you covered:

Click to see just how much a statistical outlier like Jed Bartlet screwed up the numbers.

Of course, these numbers are as of last Friday and do not include this week's fight, but we thought we'd share anyway.

Onto the other things that we've looked at in the past.

Younger vs. Older
One would think that the younger combatant would be in better shape, and would therefore win more times than not. Well, congratulations on being wrong. The older fighter had won 58.6% of the time.

The older Grover Cleveland defeated his younger self, so there you go.

There were a few fights that we weren't able to count. For example, fights with Kang, the alien of indeterminable age, weren't counted.

Based on this fact alone, who would be more likely to win the championship: Andrew Jackson was inaugurated at 62 and left the White House at 70, while Barack Obama will be turning 50 this summer.

The Very Model of a Modern Commander-in-Chief
The president that served later won 59.6% of the time.

This should come as no surprise to anyone watching Obama marching his way to the Finals. Of course, there are presidents who have served even later than him. Nixon's Head and Dwayne E.M.D.H. Camacho served in the 31st and 26th century, respectively, yet they didn't last very long.

At the same time, we have George Washington. He was the earliest president in the bracket and he managed to get all the way up to the Semifinals.

He's also the only one to have lost twice, so there's that.

Based on this fact alone, who would be more likely to win the championship: Do we really need to answer this? Okay, fine. Obama.

Taller vs. Shorter
Tall guys have the reach, which helps explain how they won 61.9% of the time. That being said, the two tallest real presidents (Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, who stood at 6'4") both lost to people at least six inches shorter.

Based on this fact alone, who would be more likely to win the championship: Tie. They're actually both 6'1".

Tony vs. Doug
There are two ways at looking at this one, but in both ways, Tony won.

Before we started the 1st Round, we decided who would take who. That person would argue for that combatant for later rounds as well, unless both fighters had been argued for by the same guy. Doug put less thought into the "long game" and chose people he'd think would be more fun to argue for. As a result, he chose the Mike Bradys, Chester A. Arthurs and the Julia Manfields.

Tony was smarter in snatching up three of the four No. 1 seeds. As a result, Doug's combatants got knocked out pretty early on. Only one of his originals made it to the Quarterfinals, and that was Thomas J. Whitmore. After than, he was dependent on Tony's scraps.

That being said, Tony "gave" Doug Obama three times, and that hasn't really been working out for Tony.

But even then, Tony obliterated Doug in this one.

Who Had Better Picks?
As mentioned recently, Tony and Doug each filled out their own brackets of how they thought things were going to turn out. Going into the Semifinals, Tony had a 70-67 lead. However, Tony went 0 for 2 in the semis, while Doug correctly put Jackson in the Finals, meaning regardless of what happens this week, Doug eked out a win with this one.

Fictional vs. Real
Obviously, there are no fictional presidents remaining. It's worth noting that in total, fictional presidents have won 18 fights. We should also mention that Obama has had to clean more fictional presidents off the bottom of his shoes than anyone else. He defeated Thomas "Tug" Benson from the Hot Shots franchise, David Palmer from 24 and Jed Bartlet from The West Wing.

Political Party
In the past, we've made pie charts showing the political affiliation of the remaining fighters. We're not going going to do that here because it would just be a blue circle as both Jackson and Obama are Democrats.

Well, okay, they're only both Democrats in the strictest sense of the word. How pissed off do you think Jackson -- the first Democratic president -- would be knowing that not only there we had a black president, but that he was in the same party he helped originate? We wouldn't volunteer to be present for one of Jackson's fits of rage, but the "we have a black Democratic president?!" outburst would probably be one worth watching.

Well, at this point, we've looked at the numbers. The only thing left for you, the reader, to do is to vote, comment in this week's fight and wait for this week's results.

Our Fifth Beatle (Except There's Two of Us. So Third Beatle, But That Implies George)

As much as we make references to the HttCttD Offices and its staff, this whole thing has been cobbled together by two guys who, combined, used their interests in writing, history and general tomfoolery, decided to see what would happen if the presidents were entered into a tournament of death.

Yep, those are the guys.

As much as we'd like to pat ourselves on the back for being the greatest American heroes to ever walk the planet (a conclusion we'd reach using specious reasoning and nonsensical logic) we'd actually prefer to acknowledge someone who you don't get to hear from, except for when he leaves a comment. He's our artist, Tim.

When Tony and I were first fleshing out the specifics of the greatest idea of the 21st century (again, specious reasoning and nonsensical logic), we knew we'd be able to handle working together. We've worked together on a few projects in the past, and petulant name-calling aside (usually by me), things have gotten done. We do, however, have our weak points. One of which is lack of artistic ability.

I can speak for myself when I say that I have no talent for drawing, nor do I know how to make things look pleasing to the eye. I can't really speak for Tony, but the fact that I can't think of any instance where I've seen him attempt to draw something leads me to the conclusion that he either can't or he just won't. He was the one who put together the blog's main artwork, and I'd say that came out looking pretty cool.

Scrolling up is for suckers.

I had an idea for the blog's logo, but no way of creating it. That's when I asked my friend Tim.

I've known Tim since I was in high school. I've asked him to design a number of things over the years, most of them had to do with half-baked ideas that I never got off the ground. I even got his artwork permanently etched into my skin.

According to astrology: The Pisces will offer admission to the gun show, even if you are without a ticket.
They're THAT kind!

So when I had my idea for our logo, I turned to Tim for help, who was happy to help out.

Although he always said he was happy to help out, I always felt like I was bugging him, so I didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of him and his time. When it came time to produce actual blog posts, I took it upon myself to create the artwork that topped the individual Monday posts.

I was proud of myself for finding a picture of William H. Taft where it looked like he was throwing a punch (he's actually throwing a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game). Other than that, it's pretty, umm, boring. A few weeks later, with Tony's help, we jazzed things up a bit.

Though it added about 15% more zing to the original model, was still an underwhelming amount of zing. But, what else could we do?

A month later, we were working up to the first fight we were actually looking forward to. Grover Cleveland (22) vs. Grover Cleveland (24), or "Clash of the Clevelands." Since this was a more exciting match (to us, anyway) I thought I'd ask Tim for help. I asked him if he'd be able to make this:

any more exciting.

Literally less than a half-hour later, he came back with this:

with a humble "How does this look?"

Tony's reaction was, "Holy shit! That's wonderful!" I agreed, possibly using other profanity. I decided since it didn't seem to take Tim that long to create this, to ask him if he wouldn't mind doing this for us every week. That afternoon, he sent me a bunch of others and he's been a part of the HttCttD family ever since.

So thanks again to Tim for giving us the artistic edge we had been sorely missing.

Creating presidential tourney of death-themed artwork isn't Tim's real passion. If you're interested in seeing some of his other artwork, you can see his stuff here. He's also quite good with the three-dimensional stuff as well. Feel free to check out Timbo's Creations.

As for this blog, we still have a week and a half of top-notch Chief Executive Fisticuffs left. This week, we're seeing who will be awarded the HttCttD Bronze, leading up to the exciting conclusion next week.

Doug's Picks

Last week, we took a look at the Presidential Bracket picks I made before we got this train rolling. This week, it's time to take a look at what Doug picked. Yes, we'll be comparing what Doug picked... what, 15, 16 months ago? Anyway, we'll be comparing them against the official BEWB of HTTCTTD. Also, we'll be comparing them against my picks, because... of course we will.

Anyway, here's his bracket.

Hmm, there's some familiar stuff here, isn't there? Time to dig in.

Jackson Bracket

Yeah, okay. Right off the bat, there are a couple of "Whoa, really?"s. I mean, he started out so well. He nailed the first two matches. Then, he went and pegged David Rice Atchison as a winner over Dwight. D. Effing Eisenhower. And that, my friends, is something I think we can safely call "Crazyballs."Atchison was never really president! I mean, really! Ah, but it gets better: he pegged Love Actually's Unnamed President as beating James Monroe. Yeah. He did that. Aside from that? Well, to be fair, he did peg the popularity of Kang and Whitmore, and once you get past his second round, things even out.

Points for this bracket: 22. Which, um... beats my 17 points. Damn.

Doug's response: Oh yeah, picking Atchison was really, really crazyballs. Except:

The later-to-become Border Ruffian got as many votes as Dwight D. Eisenenhower (who, by the way, was in terrible health condition). So really, instead of  "Crazyballs," I imagine you meant to say "Crazy Close." As for me picking Unnamed over Monroe... meh. I'm okay with missing that one. It's not like I had Billy Bob taking it all.

Washington Bracket

Quick aside: Doug and I are trivia nerds. Surprised? No, you're not. But what I'm talking about is the semi-competitive pub trivia type of trivia. And in that game, there's nothing more frustrating than when you come up with the right answer, then erase it and put down something else. Which of course, brings me to Doug's projected winner in the Polk/Truman match. D'oh! He had Truman, then he crossed that out and went with Polk. Oh, and he rode Polk to the next round. Whoopsie-daisy! Other than that, well, he picked Nixon over Tom Beck, but... I did that also, so I guess I can't give him too much crap. And he also had Reagan in the third round, which: no. But other than that, yeah, great!

Points for this bracket: 19. I win this one! Woo! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Doug's response: Yeah, that kind of sucks that I changed that one. My thinking was that Polk was known as "Young Hickory" because he was kind of like Andrew Jackson. Plus, the They Might Be Giants song had to have gained him some nerd votes, right? No, apparently not. And Reagan? I still hold that he should have made the Round of 16.

Marshall Bracket

Oh. Uh. Okay, I'm sorry, my friend Prince has something to say about this:

Mmm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, to be fair, Doug made one of the same mistakes I did: assuming that a president who personally dispatched terrorists off his plane could kill a paralyzed man. Ha! We're so silly, the two of us. Unfortunately for Doug, he took Marshall all the way through the bracket which... didn't turn out so well in real life. The rest of his first round went slightly better; yeah, he had John Quincy Adams instead of Franklin Pierce, but that was a tossup. However, things just went off a cliff after the first round, as he had only one correct pick in the in the remaining matches. Oof.

Points for this round: 8. Brutal. I mean, I had 9 and all, which... okay, let's move on.

Doug's response: Yeah, no. This is just awful.

Roosevelt Bracket

And Doug rebounds from the ugliness of the Marshall bracket with this far more respectable entry. Doug fell into the Dubya trap, and backed Camacho for a little too long. He also had Dave over JFK, which is another one of those coin flips that I can't really fault him for, wont though I am to do just that. Still, the Dubya/Camacho thing really hoses the lower half of his bracket. Nice first half though, you have to give him that.

Points in this bracket: 17. This was the bracket I killed with 22 points, so... yeah.

Doug's response: Of course I backed the future five-time Ultimate Smackdown Champion. He's the future five-time Ultimate Smackdown Champion!

Just look at how his vice president disappears!

RUSHMORE FOUR

Oof. Doug came into the Rushmore Four with three of his four picks intact, and what's more, he already aced the first Rushmore Four match. I don't really know how the math shakes out, but... I guess it's possible he could win this thing? I feel ill. It's going to come down to the final showdown to settle this thing, isn't it? And that means... it's on.

The Chief: Any of you who have read this far know what the deal is here, so... we'll see you on Friday.

Tony's Picks

The day before Andrew Jackson and William H. Taft entered for the first fight in the Presidential Gladiatorial Arena, Tony and I decided to sit down and fill out our own brackets. We each filled in our own brackets, sealed them in an envelope and taped the envelope to the back of the Big Effin' White Board (or BEWB) which hung in my living room. It was decided that when we got to the Semifinals and compare results.

Fourteen months later, I've moved to Arkansas and I've taken the BEWB with me, but the Semifinals are here, so now it's time to take a look. We've decided the best way for us to do this is to have each of us look over the others' bracket and criticize them harshly. So I proudly bring you Tony's picks.

It's a lot to digest at once, so I'll break it down by bracket.

Roosevelt Bracket

Tony actually kind of killed it here. With the exception of the Gilliam-Madison 1st Round and the whole George W. Bush thing, he went perfect. And as much as I like to fault Tony for things, even (or especially) for things beyond his control, I can't really get on him for this. Because, seriously, there's no reason why Bush should have lost against a 68-year-old man on his deathbed.

Points for this bracket: 22

Tony's Response: Well, it wouldn't be the first time Dubya let me down. Hey-o!

Marshall Bracket

This quadrant fell most victim to, what I like to call, the Idiot Voter Factor. That's when people say that the guy in the wheelchair will beat the terrorist killer with the reasoning of "Yeah, but FDR killed Nazis." No, he actually didn't personally fight a single one, so I'll have to assume you're an idiot. While Tony was way off with James Marshall and Jed Bartlet, I can't really fault him for being wrong.

Tony did, however, rely on his heart a bit much with the Adams Family. He wanted that father-son fight and he let it cloud his judgment. Gerald Ford may have been a stumblebum, but not to the "lose to John Adams" caliber.

Points for this bracket: 9

Tony's Response: In my defense... um... yeah. I've got nothing on this.

Washington Bracket

Another admirable attempt. Except...

Nixon's Head going to the Round of 16? The dude was a head. True, he had a headless Spiro Agnew fighting for him, but that only raised more questions. I understand the entire premise of this blog is silly, but Nixon's Head going to the Round of 16? I feel like I'm that character Graham Chapman plays in Monty Python's Flying Circus.





Of course, it's kind of difficult for me to play the "don't be too silly" card when I post a video clip that ends with a Terry Gilliam animation.

Points for this bracket: 22

Tony's Response: Clearly I over-estimated the effect of the Futurama voting block. Sigh.

Jackson Bracket

Ooh. Okay. Let me bite my tongue for a bit while I talk about what's good about this.

He went 8 for 8 in the 1st Round. And the bottom half of this bracket is immaculate.

But then we get to the idea of Bill Clinton defeating Andrew Jackson and getting to the Rushmore Four. My reaction to this could be summed up with something that happened on Community last week. If only there were some sort of medium where we could get a clip of Community that lasts about a second or so. It wouldn't even need to have sound.

Oh wait, I just remembered that we have the Internet. Okay, so where was I? Oh right...

Clinton beats Jackson and goes the Rushmore Four?

If it's not moving, click the damn thing.

Yeah, that'll do.

Points for this bracket: 17

Tony's Response: First of all, there's no way Clinton doesn't fight like a dirty sonofabitch. So, the fight with Jackson should have been much much closer. Second of all, I think we're ignoring the greater truth of my bracket, and that truth is that it kicked ass. So to you, I can only say...

RUSHMORE FOUR

Tony's going into the Rushmore four with a total of 70 points. And fortunately for him, he quickly distanced himself from his prior mistakes (Clinton and the more understandable LBJ) by picking Washington and Roosevelt to go on to the Championship. Luckily for him, those are the two of his Rushmore Four picks that are still in it.

It's possible he could sweep this from now on. Or he could be shut out. We'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, get your votes in. The winner of this week's Jackson vs. Washington fight goes on to the Championship.

Today's the day...

We'll be honest with you. We've been doing this for over a year, and quite honestly, we're getting burnt out with this Wednesday Feature nonsense. Since Theodore Roosevelt is up this week, we were going to just leave a silly video of Mt. Rushmore and call it a day.



We feel that this video is so delightful that alerting our readership of its existence should almost count as a public service announcement or community service; thus, it would probably be able to carry itself as a post. However, being the teachers of all things that could be easily Wikipedia'd we are, we realized that the Roosevelt connection doesn't end there.

For starters, there's the fact that the Teddy bear originates from Theodore Roosevelt. Back in 1902, Roosevelt was on a hunting trip with Mississippi Governor Andrew Longino. Someone in the group had cornered a black bear and tied it to a tree after the bear had been exhausted after being chased by the hounds. The group had presented the tied up, near-dead bear to Roosevelt and told him to shoot it. Roosevelt thought it would be unsportsmanlike to shoot the bear in that condition and told someone else to put it out of its misery.

TRANSLATION: "Dick move, guys. Besides, I only shoot bears that I personally wrestle."

The story made its way to the press and Washington Post political cartoonist Clifford Berryman made it the subject of a cartoon.

WARNING: Dramatization may have overstated cuteness of bear.

The cartoon gave Morris Michtom an idea for creating little stuffed bears for his shop's window. After getting the OK from the president to use his name, Michtom named the stuffed toys "Teddy bears." The bears were quite successful, and Michtom later launched Ideal Novelty and Toy Company. Ideal later gave us the ideas for the Magic 8-Ball and the Rubik's Cube.

Just think, if Jimmy Carter's swamp rabbit incident had shaken out differently, we could have also had "Jimmy rabbits" today.

Hmmm, maybe not.

The popular toy also made way for the song Teddy Bears' Picnic, composed by John W. Bratton in 1907 -- during the Roosevelt administration.

Moving forward to the 1920s, when someone got the idea of carving four presidents' heads into the side of a mountain in South Dakota. That idea had been coming along swimmingly (for the most part), and by 1933, the U.S. National Park Service took control of Mt. Rushmore.

The previous year, songwriter Jimmy Kennedy put lyrics to Bratton's Teddy Bears' Picnic. Though, some would argue that the song's narrative is sloppy...



... we're glad all of these parts lead up to the delightful animation of the Mt. Rushmore Barbershop Quartet singing the song for us -- even if the Teddy bear made way for more unfortunate products.

Meanwhile, away from the forest, the battle between Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy rages on, and only one will chisel his place in the Rushmore Four.

Remember When Network Dramas Were Good?

Every time President Bartlet comes up in the bracket, I know that inevitably, I will lose a chunk of my week going through clips of The West Wing on YouTube. That's just how it works. Last time, I went back and watched some of the second season, starting with the opening two-parter, "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen." Those two episodes are incredibly riveting television, balancing the aftermath of an assassination attempt against the President* with a bit of origin story for the show, telling us how most of the major players came together to be on Bartlet's team. I have long thought that the two episodes, and especially the opening of the first part, rank among the finest moments of television ever aired. It's Aaron Sorkin at his finest, with everyone in the show firing on all cylinders, down to the minor guest stars. We were too far into the week last time for me to pull this particular post off, but I knew I had to do it when Bartlet next got into the Arena: a running diary of the show's opening minutes. This is that diary.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, here's what's up: early in the first season, Bartlet hired young Charlie Young to be his "body man." The two of them hit it off, because they are both awesome (it also helped that Bartlet had no sons of his own). Charlie also hit it off in a slightly different way with Bartlet's daughter Zoey. Charlie and Zoey started kiiiind of dating, drawing the ire of white supremacists (Charie is black, FYI), who, as the President was leaving a speaking engagement in Virginia, opened fire from a building across the street.

And now, without further ado... (all time stamps approximate)

00:00- Okay, I have to digress. Remember when TV was making the transition to widescreen? I think the first season of TWW was in "non-widescreen" format, and they moved to widescreen in the second season. Of course, since their flashbacks were in standard, we get... standard flashbacks. Weird transitional period for TV, is what I'm saying.

00:08- And of course, that's future-past-ad woman Elisabeth Moss as Zoey Bartlet, and future-CSI Jorja Fox as Zoey's Secret Service agent.

00:14- Also, if you're confused, this is Vice President Hoynes (Tim Matheson), talking with Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford). Lyman used to work on Hoynes' office before Hoynes became VEEP.

00:22- Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiit.

00:26- It kind of looks like the Secret Service is doing a shitty job covering Bartlet in this shot, doesn't it?

00:39- The super-somber title card: appropriate for The West Wing, not at all appropriate for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Just sayin'.

01:31- Great reveal showing that Ron Butterfield has a wounded hand. But... given the chaos, when did he have time to dress his injury? Especially without Bartlet noticing? Of course, that's not all Bartlet hasn't noticed...

01:37- Coop is probably thinking "aw, geez, don't drag me into this."

01:47- My only beef with this scene is that when you first watch it, it's pretty damn hard to see why Butterfield starts freaking out. For the record, I think the blood first starts creeping into Bartlet's mouth around here.

02:05- I know it might strain credulity a bit to be all "how did no one notice he was shot," but apparently this bit is based in part on the Hinkley shooting of Ronald Reagan. They were on their way back to the White House when someone noticed Reagan was shot, and then they hightailed it to GW. Anyway, obviously this is when shit starts getting real.

02:09- Daaaaaaaaaamn that's some slick driving. Maybe this guy missed his true calling?

02:36- The paramedic here is... not that reassuring. C'mon, dude.

02:54- One of the great elements of this opening is how the energy/emotional levels keep shifting, as information is withheld and then revealed. We just saw Bartlet's Secret Service detail flip into DEFCON 1, and now we're back with people who have no idea what just happened. It's a great play towards keeping the tension building.

03:35- How come nobody's asking "Where's Mandy?" Seriously, though, this bit is jarring when you watch the series on DVD. Mandy's there, and then... she's not. What?

03:48- It's funny how, no matter how many times we watch this bit, and in how many different locations, it always gets extremely dusty in the room when we hit this point.

03:52- And I just have to thin-slice this part; Toby's (Richard Schiff) reaction increases the dust in the room by exponential levels.

03:58- Of course, it's funny how only the primary cast members hear Toby's shouting.

04:03- Credits! The West Wing's theme is pretty fantastic, in case anyone here wasn't aware of that. Note how we're back in non-widescreen.

04:20- Shout-out to Janiel Moloney, promoted to first-string after a season of both a) knocking it out of the park on a weekly basis, and b) making the aforementioned Mandy redundant.

04:49- And now we're back to an emotional low point. If this were set in modern day, Bartlet's shooting would already be all the Twitter trending topics within 30 seconds. But here we are at George Washington Hospital, and they don't even have a T.V. on in the lobby to let them know shit's going down.

05:24- And here, things start to turn, and we're about to start tumbling down the roller coaster, again, some more.

05:36- "Yeah, I guess I should've just taken his word for it when he said it was a drill." Also: C.J. just said it was Monday night: why are all the kids coming down with alcohol poisoning?

05:39- This is the second-best reaction shot we're going to get, by the way.

06:08- I like to think that one line got that guy his SAG card.

06:13- I have a slight nit to pick, in that I always think that the visiting national championship teams come around the White House in the middle of the day, or at least, before it gets dark. However, the caption at the beginning of the show told us it was 9:30 at night? You're receiving an NCAA championship team (I presume the national women's basketball champs, but it's unclear) at 9:30 P.M.? But, that minor quibble I have is always overshadowed by...

06:41- That. That is the look of a man who knows he is fucked. And in case you were wondering, that is the single best reaction shot we're going to get, because... damn.

06:45- Good thing there weren't any reporters around to capture the Vice President shitting his pants. Oh, wait.

06:59- Unnecessary shouting!

07:43- President Bartlet, everyone! Of course, we in the audience know he shouldn't be treating that question so glibly...

07:46- Annnnd we're back down again. Okay, yes, I shouldn't be banging on about this anymore, but... still. The way this episode is constructed is something of a master class in putting riveting televison together.

08:11- Couldn't get a Tom Brokaw cameo? Whaaaat?

08:21- Another fantastic element of this episode: Sorkin knows when not to have people talk.

08:37- Every time Peggy-- I mean, Elisabeth Moss-- shows up in TWW, I flip out a bit. Complete tangential side-note: here, she's playing Catholic Zoey Bartlet. In Mad Men, she plays Catholic Peggy Olson. Stop type-casting Elisabeth Moss! Let her play a Protestant for once!

08:43- Slipped a pretty good joke in on us, didn't you, Sorkin? You sly devil.

08:47- Another great reaction shot, and another example of Sorkin airing it out for his actors. Second tangential side-note: I was channel surfing one afternoon, and caught a bit of John Spencer** playing a role on one of those shitty syndicated sci-fi shows (you know, like one of the Stargates***?) as like, a spaceship captain or something. IT WAS THE WEIRDEST THING EVER. That's Leo, not Captain What's-his-face! But I digress.

09:17- You've almost forgotten about Josh at this point, haven't you? By the way, the way this is structured is a subtle call-back to the pilot episode of the show, where we meet the cast in a series of rapid-fire bits where they learn that POTUS was in a bike accident while on vacation. Here, we're getting the same thing, only the stakes are a billion times higher, and there are no trees involved. Or bikes.

09:37- Those last four lines give us a lot, even though they don't really seem to. Again, this is where a lesser show would flunk the "subtle writing" test. And by "lesser show," I mean, "a show that shows you establishing shots of Paris, and then has to give you a caption to say, 'hey, we're in Paris, y'all!'" Cough.

09:44- EXTREMELY DUSTY IN THE ROOM, AGAIN.

10:01- And here, Mrs. Bartlet and Zoey get their own punchlines. Love it.

10:13- Subtext: "Fuck this up, and I will END YOU."

10:55- This raises a whole lot of questions. Obviously, Dr. Lee needs to know this because it will affect how he treats the President... but... wouldn't everyone else in the room wonder why he's doing what he's doing? I honestly don't remember if they ever bring this scene up again in season three, but... hmmm...

10:55- Also, the way this scene is blocked means we miss out on what is probably another fantastic reaction shot. Rare slip-up on Thomas Schlamme's part, eh?

11:19- In case you were wondering how they catch the guy at the beginning of the next episode, this is the only clue you get. Of course, this mini-scene is really only serving to get us to lower our guards, because...

11:26- Here comes the cavalry!

11:34- We hear CJ Cregg, but... where is she? Seriously, is she in this shot at all?

12:19- Annnnd, we're out. It's been a helluva ride, hasn't it? I could go on with this for quite a while, but... well, this episode has already been recapped by people better at it than I, so... yeah. Also, I don't want to be up until three in the morning writing this post.

Anyway, I maintain that the twelve minutes we just barreled through were incredible television. Dense, emotionally churning, with a few good jokes. It was The West Wing at its absolute finest, and I don't know if you can find its equal on network TV. Hell, I'd put it up against some of the best cable TV, though with the caveat that I have not yet succumbed to The Wire. But this twelve minutes of television puts me through the ringer every time I watch it. That's no small feat, and it's why The West Wing was the best. Hats off to everyone involved.

Also, if anyone knows who is responsible for keeping this show off Netflix streaming... tell me their address; I have fifty-thousand angry letters to write.

Okay, that all I got! The matchup between Bartlet and President Obama rages on! We'll be back Friday to survey the remains.

*- well, actually not... spoiler!
**-also, R.I.P. John Spencer. :(
***-IMDB suggests it was The Outer Limits, which... doesn't seem right. Did I dream this whole thing? Possibly.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

It seems weird to wish George Washington a Happy Birthday when it's not his birthday. Yes, we're a week late, but we have our reasons. First of all, Washington wasn't up last week. Secondly, we've decided to take it upon ourselves to over-correct for the fact that Washington's Birthday -- the federal holiday -- always falls before George Washington's birthday -- the day. And, although today is notable as being Leap Day, we've already spent time discussing how circumstances of our calendar screwed John Adams out of one day in office.

First, let's get one thing straight. The day we know as Presidents Day is officially known as Washington's Birthday and it actually has nothing to do with Lincoln's Birthday, which is Feb. 12. Lincoln's Birthday is marked in some states, but was never a federal holiday. If you've ever seen the 1942 film Holiday Inn, you know that it's okay to spend Lincoln's Birthday in blackface.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bing Crosby.

By an 1885 Act of Congress, all federal offices in the nation would be closed to mark Washington's Birthday. It was celebrated on Feb. 22, his actual birthday, until the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971, which declared that certain holidays (ex: Columbus Day, Memorial Day and Washington's Birthday) would be observed on a Monday to give people three-day weekends.

However, for reasons that the Internet cannot explain, Congress dubbed Washington's Birthday to be the third Monday in February. That meant that it would always fall somewhere between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21, thereby ensuring that we would never celebrate Washington's Birthday on Washington's actual birthday.

But really, we shouldn't get bent out of shape that we celebrate Washington's birthday a week early. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec. 25. No one knows when he was born. There seem to be varying accounts about his birthday and while they can't agree on what day he was born, the one thing they all can agree on is the fact that it not late December.

By the way, we can pinpoint the exact date Julius Caesar was assassinated (March 15, 44 BCE) and the Great Fire of Rome (July 19, 64 CE), but no one present for Christ's birth said, "Hey, if what everyone is saying is true and this baby was born of a virgin and is the son of God, one of us should probably jot this date down somewhere in case it becomes important"? In fact, we're not even able to ballpark it down to a range of a few years.

We digress.

Point being, though we don't celebrate Washington's birthday when we should, Washington should be thankful we're only off by a week and not by several months... except for in the State of New Mexico.

This week, George Washington is in the Arena with Jack Ryan, who is also celebrating A Very Merry Unbirthday* today. Both Unbirthday Boys need your votes and your comments.

* We actually don't know Jack Ryan's birthday, but we do know that he was born in 1950. Since that wasn't a leap year, we know this his birthday is NOT Feb. 29. BOOM! Calendar logic.

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.

Conspiracy!

Even though the JFK assassination was almost 50 years ago, it's still unclear how it all went down. The Onion did a great story on it in its Our Dumb Century book.

At first, it was decided that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot Kennedy. However, there were some inconsistencies with that story, and it seemed to be a conspiracy. When several groups launched their own investigation, but that only uncovered more inconsistencies.

In the '70s, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations came to an inconclusive conclusion. They pretty much said "Yep, it was a probably was a conspiracy. But we don't know who was involved. We don't think the Soviets or the CIA were involved. Okay, we're getting lunch, now. Great job, guys!"

Let's take a step back for a second. Yes, there were so many assassinations that the U.S. House of Representatives launched a committee to investigate them. But conspiracy theories don't die just because a House Committee kills it.

Did the CIA kill Kennedy? George H.W. Bush was at one point the Director of the CIA, did he kill Kennedy?

According to the Internet, YES!

Of course, everyone on the Internet is full of accurate information.

When you first read this, it sounds like someone who has no idea what they're talking about. Bush was director over a decade after the JFK assassination, which took place in Dallas, not Houston.

But then after you give it a little more thought, you realize that it's a riddle. Guess who was director of the CIA when JFK was assassinated in Houston.

Answer: No one.

Guess how Gary Trudeau portrayed George H.W. Bush in the comic Doonesbury.

As invisible!

So JFK's shooter was "invisible," which could be a cryptic way of saying it was "no one." The same "no one" as whomever was the Director of the CIA when JFK was assassinated in Houston.

What's that Internet? You have more?

It looks like a shadowy figure standing outside of the Texas Book Depository. He's circled and labeled "GHWB?"

So that solves it. George H.W. Bush may or may not have been involved with the JFK assassination.

You guys should be lucky that Zachary Taylor and James Buchanan didn't meet each other in the Arena, because us answering the "Did Buchanan kill Taylor?" is even crazier! (The Internet gives no clues, so we'd be forced to make shit up.)

Regardless of what really happened in Dallas that day, the fight in the Arena between Bush and Kennedy rages on.

An Abe of All Trades

Abraham Lincoln, somehow, keeps getting cooler.

In life, he barely got by on the Cool-O-Meter (assuming that's a real thing). He clawed his way out of the life of the poor farmer to become a successful lawyer. He managed to get elected to the House of Representatives for one term. After that, it was a parade of lost elections. A senate seat, the vice presidency, there wasn't an election Lincoln couldn't lose.

By some luck, Lincoln won the Presidential Election in 1860, but only because the Democratic Party split their votes and entered two candidates. And when he did win, seven states couldn't even bear with the idea of Lincoln being president and ended up seceding from the Union before he could even take office (another four would eventually follow officially). Yes, he won re-election, but none of the states that hated him had a say in that vote because they were not part of the country at the time.

Lincoln received death threats and even survived an assassination attempt in which a man shot his hat off of his head. Some even rejoiced when John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln.

Since then, the Lincoln-hate as subsided and he's been considered one of the best presidents in our history. Partly because he freed the slaves (although, technically, not really), but also because he saw to his goal of preserving the Union. We put him on our money and we put him on Mount Rushmore.

His street cred keeps increasing, well-beyond larger-than-life proportions. That probably started in 1989, when two time travelers abducted Lincoln for a history project. Lincoln, either being a good sport or suffering Stockholm Syndrome, turned out to be the perfect way to top off the high school students' presentation. We have no idea how he grasped the modern vernacular so easily and was able turn phrases like "Be excellent to each other" and "party on, dudes," nor is it clear why the electrically-powered lights aren't freaking him the hell out. But hey, he's Lincoln.

In the 21st century, we Americans were given the question, "What if Lincoln also hunted vampires?" Well, actually, the initial question was "What if we added zombies to Pride and Prejudice?" The result was Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, a novel which became something of a cult hit, which told the world that writing glorified mashup fan fiction could earn you big bucks. Well, some bucks, at least. A wave of glorified mashup fan fiction followed, eventually resulting in the question "What if Lincoln also hunted vampires?" This, in turn, led to the novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which has somehow emerged from the scrum of glorified mashup fan fiction to become the first such novel to be made into a movie.

Glorified mashup fan fiction aside, the idea of Lincoln as a vampire hunter is just ridiculous enough for this blog to endorse. But we have to ask-- what else about Lincoln do we not know? Did he have other powers? While nothing concrete has come to light, there is an interesting evidence that there may be some zombie killing in there as well. Don't believe us?

Are we supposed to just ignore the fact that a show about killing zombies starring an A. Lincoln will be returning on Abraham Lincoln's birthday?

Yeah, we didn't think so.

Meanwhile, a more sedate-- some might say more "truthy" Lincoln movie is in the works. It stars Daniel Day Lewis, a guy who, while he doesn't really make a lot of movies, per se, tends to kick ass in the roles he does take. But, does he look like Abe Lincoln? Survey says... yes.

The film, tentatively titled Lincoln, also stars Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Hal Holbrook, and James Spader. Oh, and it's directed by some guy named Steven Spielberg. I guess you could say ol' Abe is finding himself a little... popular.

Zombie-killing, vampire-hunting and history presenting aside, we here at HttCttD are only interested in one thing -- Abraham Lincoln: Presidential Gladiatorial Arena Combatant.

The fight between Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln rages on until Friday morning, and if you haven't voted yet, please do so. And, or course, be excellent to each other.

Pre-Game Analysis, Only It's Wednesday

The Chief: Good afternoon, loyal readers. It has come to our attention that some of you feel as if we did not handle this week's fight properly when we allowed Doug and Tony to literally throw their arms up in the air and say, "It doesn't matter what we say, you're going to vote for Bartlet anyway." We should have realized that you, the loyal reader, don't want to hear them bitch about how life is unfair. You just want to hear them discuss presidential fighting. You guys got cheated, and that's not right. To make it up to you, we got Doug and Tony and we forced them to take this fight seriously.

Doug: This is nonsense, what do you want from me?

The Chief: We want you to actually weigh in on who you think would win this fight.

Doug: Roosevelt-Lincoln? We're not doing that yet. That's next week.

The Chief: No, not Roosevelt-Lincoln. I'm talking about Pierce-Bartlet.

Doug: I already did.

The Chief: No, you went on a tirade about how no one cares what you think and you accused the voters of not actually reading the post, and you implied that most of this week's voters only show up when Bartlet is up.

Doug: Nonsense. We always get 160+ votes in our first 24 hours of voting.

The Chief: What I want you to do is to actually give us your thoughts on how a fight between Pierce and Bartlet would go down.

Doug: Well, let's see. Franklin Pierce is a good decade younger. He has military experience, as opposed to Bartlet, who has none. Bartlet has multiple sclerosis which has left him temporarily paralyzed.

The Chief: You're saying Pierce has the upper-hand?

Doug: No, I'm not finished. On the other hand Pierce was a lousy president. And he's pretty forgettable. No one knows who he is or when he served except for history nerds like myself. I mean, look at how many Twitter followers he has:

He has 230. Somewhat impressive, I guess.

Bartlet, on the other hand, was on a popular TV show that has won a lot of Emmy's. Look at how many Twitter followers he has.

Whoa! That's over 100x Pierce's followers!

The Chief: But we're trying to see who would win a physical fight, not who is more popular.

Doug: But he's smart, and really good at debating.

The Chief: Does he have any experience fighting? Was he in the military? Was he even an athlete?

Doug: I don't think so.

The Chief: What about his MS? You said that sometimes he could become paralyzed. Do you think that would make him a good fighter?

Doug: I don't know. I guess we should ask his Twitter followers.

The Chief: Okay, you know who has even more followers than Bartlet?

Doug: Whoa! Over 100,000 followers? Good thing he's British not eligible for the presidency because that dude would clean up in the Arena!

The Chief: Okay, I think I've had enough of your sarcasm. Let's move on to Tony.

Doug: You're sick of my sarcasm, so you're going to move on to Tony?

Tony: Gee, thanks.

The Chief: Oy.

Tony: Look, you want to talk about Bartlet? Fine, we'll talk about Bartlet.

The Chief: Doug seems to think his M.S. would be an issue.

Tony: Oh, he would think that, wouldn't he? The fact is, Bartlet was in remarkably good health for most of his eight years in office. He suffered, what, three M.S.-related attacks in all that time? And it's not like those attacks knocked him on his ass for weeks on end. You slide Bartlet into the Arena on any random day of his presidency, and you've got great odds that the fighter you're going to get is going to be, relative to the Arena, at least, rather robust.

"Relative to the Arena" being the key term, here.

The Chief: Okay, but Bartlet doesn't have any military experience.

Tony: Well, that's true. But you've gotta admit, the man's got stones. The kind of stones that lead him to cursing out God in Latin in the middle of the National Cathedral. That's some serious stones. I mean, it takes stones to curse out God in any language at any place, but that's just a triple whammy of cojones, right there.

The Chief: Right, but again... no military experience.

Tony: Cojones is Spanish for balls.

The Chief: I know. Hey, did you know you're supposed to italicize words when they're from other languages?

Tony: Every word in English is from another language, so nyeh.

Damn right.

The Chief: Military experience.

Tony: Okay, confession time: I don't give a rip about what a hot damn general Pierce was. Why? Because of the raging drunkenness. Pierce's raging drunkenness, that is.

The Chief: Okay, here we go.

Tony: I'm just saying, you've got a much better chance at pulling out a pickled Pierce than you have banking a bedridden Bartlet.

The Chief: ...

Tony: Sorry.

The Chief: No, you're not. However, aren't you forgetting the affect Pierce's alcoholism would have on Bartlet?


Tony: Eh?

The Chief: Bartlet's Chief of Staff is this guy:

Tony: Bartlet keeps Leo around because a) Leo is awesome, and b) they're old friends. Neither description applies to Pierce. Bartlet is going to unload a whole heaping helping of Catholic badassery on Pierce, and frankly, Pierce is going to be lucky if there's enough of him left to bury after it.

The Chief: Well, there you have it, folks. An occasionally honest pre-game analysis delivered in the middle of the game. How... splendid.

Vote here if you haven't already. Polls close Friday at 9am MST.