Shrub's relative angrily ran over an old woman with a horse

[UTUSN]

Franklin PIERCE. Since he and witch Barbara BUSH share a common ancestor, he's not Shrub's ANCESTOR.

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http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/pagesix_u.htm

OVAL OFFICE ODDITIES

PRESIDENTS Day may not get much respect - but that hasn't stopped intrepid Webster Hall curator Baird Jones from compiling a roundup of fun facts marking today's holiday. We're told that Gerald Ford allegedly had a flatulence problem, often blaming the Secret Service men surrounding him. President Grover Cleveland was a draft dodger. He hired someone to enter the service in his place, for which he was ridiculed by his opponent, James G. Blaine. It was soon discovered, however, that Blaine had done the same thing himself. Franklin Pierce had a violent temper and was arrested after angrily running over an old woman with a horse in 1853. But the case was dropped so as not to expose the president to international embarrassment. Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. president to have personally hanged someone: He threw a noose over two criminals' necks while working as a sheriff of Erie County, N.Y., an experience he described as "nightmarish." Finally, John F. Kennedy was supposedly plagued by the venereal disease chlamydia and spent the first moments of the Bay of Pigs invasion getting a giant shot of penicillin.

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1. some of those reak of urban legend

especially the timing, if nothing else, of jfk's chlamydia shot.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I know that some of this is inaccurate

Cleveland did, indeed, hire a substitute, which was perfectly legal at the time. He did so because his brothers were in the service and he was left at home to look after his widowed mother. John G. Blaine, his opponant in the 1884 election, had served. The scandal that the Republicans were hoping to hang Cleveland on was the fact that he fathered an illegitamate child (actually, there is some doubt he was the father; the lady in question had several men friends, but all the others were married; to avoid scandal, Cleveland, then a bachelor, took responsibility, and supported the child). However, Blaine was invovled in a scandal involving taking bribes from the railroads, the Big Business at the time. As one editorial said, "We have been told that Mr. Cleveland is impeccable in his public life, but has a scandal in his private life. Mr. Blaine has an impeccable private life, but has a scandal in his public life. We recommend that each gentleman be placed in the position where they have shown impeccability." Cleveland hung the men because he was sheriff. Before him, the sheriffs would hire a substitute to do the hangman's duty; however the statute required the sheriff to do it, and Cleveland did not shirk his responsibility.