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You are here: Home / Books / Open Thread: Strange Books

Open Thread: Strange Books

by $8 blue check mistermix|  March 18, 201410:34 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Books, Open Threads

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This has to be the oddest book review solicitation I’ve ever received:

[…] please for your own sake, educate yourself and review Dan Obrien’s How To Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against The Badasses Who Ran This Country (on-sale March 18, 2014).

Don’t be fooled: our founding fathers were more bandanas-and-muscles than powdered-wigs-and-tea. Take Andrew Jackson, who, as a prisoner of war, was forced to walk several miles barefoot across state lines, despite the fact that (a) he had smallpox and (b) his head had been recently sliced open when he refused to polish the boots of the soldiers who had taken him captive. Oh, and he was thirteen freaking years old when it happened. Now imagine that this man–and many others just like them–want to kick your ass.

This book gives you a quick rundown of each president’s backstory—Do they have any serious fight training? Are they violently insane?—followed by a best- and worst-case fighting scenario for each president.  For example:

·         James Buchanan: famously terrified of blood, so challenging him to a handcuffed knife-fight is a clear advantage for you.

·         John Q Adams: notoriously adept at swimming, so fighting him in or near a lake puts you at a considerable disadvantage.

·         George Washington: once wrote: “I hear the bullets whistle and, believe me, there is something charming to the sound of bullets.” So your best-case scenario would be to run.  Run as fast as you can.

Excerpt here if you’re interested.

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    dr.hypercube

    March 18, 2014 at 10:37 am

    Still the canonical treatment: In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why?

  2. 2.

    Librarian

    March 18, 2014 at 10:48 am

    I’m assuming this guy isn’t a professional historian.

  3. 3.

    PhoenixRising

    March 18, 2014 at 10:51 am

    Tom, I didn’t know you had time to review books this semester or I’d have asked. Though it would be hard to top the negative review that says ‘The events in this book didn’t happen, and if everyone used a Christian adoption agency, things like this wouldn’t happen’. Um…thanks?

  4. 4.

    Mr. Prosser

    March 18, 2014 at 10:53 am

    It looks like a comic and the drawing and ink work look pretty good.

  5. 5.

    Mr. Prosser

    March 18, 2014 at 10:53 am

    It looks like a comic and the drawing and ink work look pretty good.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 18, 2014 at 10:53 am

    Well, then there’s George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both huge supporters of the glorious adventure in Vietnam who had “other priorities” than actually putting their own precious assess into a rice paddy.

    Of course, both of them would have been killed by their own troops had they gone, so there’s that.

  7. 7.

    Violet

    March 18, 2014 at 10:55 am

    This book gives you a quick rundown of each president’s backstory—Do they have any serious fight training? Are they violently insane?

    I wish there were a book like this for potential presidential candidates. Think how useful it would be!

  8. 8.

    ruemara

    March 18, 2014 at 10:55 am

    The same historical accuracy as “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”, I warrant.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2014 at 10:58 am

    I read the excerpt and found myself wondering, just how weird were President Grant’s balls?

  10. 10.

    Scott S.

    March 18, 2014 at 11:00 am

    I’m afraid I really, really want this book now.

  11. 11.

    Violet

    March 18, 2014 at 11:03 am

    @Scott S.: Do we know the title and author?

  12. 12.

    Cyan

    March 18, 2014 at 11:06 am

    In a fight with Washington, you better run — he’ll kick you apart!

  13. 13.

    Citizen_X

    March 18, 2014 at 11:06 am

    @PhoenixRising:

    The events in this book didn’t happen, and if everyone used a Christian adoption agency, things like this wouldn’t happen.

    I’m nominating this, right now, as the greatest book review ever, or at least of the fantasy-Presidential-combat genre.

  14. 14.

    askew

    March 18, 2014 at 11:08 am

    That book looks hysterical and would be a great gift.

    On an unrelated note, does anyone have suggestions for good twitter handles to follow for foreign policy? I had been following Laura Rozen but she got infected with ODS bad in the past week and her feed became pretty useless.

  15. 15.

    Southern Beale

    March 18, 2014 at 11:10 am

    In what world are the 7th and 15th Presidents of the US considered “Founding Fathers”? I mean, I’ve never heard of Andrew Jackson referred to as a Founding Father and I fucking live in Tennessee.

  16. 16.

    Southern Beale

    March 18, 2014 at 11:11 am

    @askew:

    Don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for but I follow Al Jazeera America and Al Arabiya.

  17. 17.

    Librarian

    March 18, 2014 at 11:17 am

    I looked up the book on Amazon, and the author is apparently a writer for Cracked.com, so, while he’s not a historian, he’s also not a right wing hack as I was afraid of.

  18. 18.

    Tommy

    March 18, 2014 at 11:18 am

    @Southern Beale: I have the Al Jazeera America app on my phone and tablet. Now I am a creature of habit, so I tend to head to the same news sources I trust. New bookmarks rarely get added. But I find myself going to Al Jazeera America more and more often. IMHO a really quality news organization. Plus, hey it is free :).

  19. 19.

    Violet

    March 18, 2014 at 11:19 am

    @Violet: Okay, apparently I’m completely blind and the title and author are there in the quoted bit. That’ll teach me to post before coffee.

  20. 20.

    Ben Cisco

    March 18, 2014 at 11:56 am

    Traffic-related WTF of the day: How hate-filled do you have to be to purchase a personalized plate reading FTHELEFT – just in case it wasn’t obvious ENOUGH that you’re a massive dbag?

  21. 21.

    Bobby Thomson

    March 18, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    @dr.hypercube: But containing obvious inaccuracies:

    Ronald Reagan looks like he would know a thing or two about brawling, and he spent a lot of his prime in either the military or playing a cowboy.

    Please. Reagan’s eyes kept him from serving overseas and he spent WWII making propaganda movies and selling war bonds.

    And the Bushes are rated way too high. Poppy was already too old for that shit by the time he became president, and don’t get me started on Junior.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2014 at 12:07 pm

    @Librarian:
    I knew there was something familiar about the tone of the writing.

  23. 23.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    March 18, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    And the Bushes are rated way too high. Poppy was already too old for that shit by the time he became president, and don’t get me started on Junior.

    Agreed on pere Bush but a coked up and drunk W is not somebody I would have wanted to have to take on in a fight.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    March 18, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    Appearance of Impropriety, meet New Drug Approval.

    http://www.samefacts.com/2014/03/drug-policy/waiting-for-zohydro/

    Naw, nothing bad could possibly come of this.

  25. 25.

    Cervantes

    March 18, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    @dr.hypercube: I had not seen it before. The addendum is good, too:

    September 6, 2012 — This is already by far my most popular post in the last three years, with 67,996 viewers as of this update. Of course I’m delighted that you’ve all enjoyed it so much, and I apologize to all of you more knowledgeable on the subject matter than I am: I will not make any major edits to the content, but I acknowledge that I failed to sell Lincoln, underestimated Carter’s nerve, oversold Grant and Johnson, and could have spent a lot more than an hour fleshing this out into a detailed orgy of historically accurate violence. Cheers!

    Anyhow, thanks!

  26. 26.

    Cervantes

    March 18, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: On the way over, if not before.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    March 18, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    @Librarian:

    Sounds like one of Glenn Beck’s minions.

  28. 28.

    Woodrowfan

    March 18, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    I so want this book. I wonder if I could adopt it for a class??

  29. 29.

    JoyfulA

    March 18, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @Southern Beale: I had the same doubt about Andrew Jackson and looked him up on Wikipedia. Of course, he was not in a powdered wig at Independence Hall, but he did fight in a militia in the Revolutionary War at a young age and was captured and imprisoned by the Brits. In fact, the facts of this book seem to be the facts from Wikipedia, including the scars and smallpox.

  30. 30.

    askew

    March 18, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Excellent recommendations. Thanks.

  31. 31.

    Bobby Thomson

    March 18, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: But you forgot Poland a key proviso – each president fights at their physical peak while president. I don’t doubt Junior was still hitting the bottle in the White House, especially in the days after 9/11, but I suspect he quit blow.

    ETA: the commenters on that piece do an injustice to Lincoln. According to the autopsy report he was still an incredible physical specimen when he was assassinated.

  32. 32.

    The Other Chuck

    March 18, 2014 at 1:08 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: I’m assuming the fight would be with said president in his prime: Pappy Bush was probably in pretty good shape when he was flying combat: those planes weren’t exactly fly-by-wire back then. Even a middle-aged Bush would have the crafty dirty tricks of a spook.

    Shrub would just have Cheney hold your family hostage til you threw the fight.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    March 18, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    @burnspbesq: Are we sure that’s not the onion?

  34. 34.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 18, 2014 at 2:12 pm

    Thank you, imaginary internet friends, for the many references in this thread to “a historian” rather than “an historian.” My day is now better.

    As I once heard it explained, “Do you live in ‘an house’?”

  35. 35.

    debbie

    March 18, 2014 at 2:32 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Not to sound like a broken record, but Glenn Beck has called Jackson a
    Founding Father. He calls every President he likes a Founding Father.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    March 18, 2014 at 3:26 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Are we sure that’s not the onion?

    Yes, we are. Unfortunately.

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    March 18, 2014 at 6:14 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Unless you were Vietnamese, in which case he would have run away.

  38. 38.

    Aunt Kathy

    March 18, 2014 at 7:38 pm

    Looks like a spinoff from this book, by a different author (but is also someone who writes for Crackd).

    http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Relentless-Onslaught-Gunfighters-Commanders/dp/0061749443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395185686&sr=8-1&keywords=badass

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