Two years ago, the only man I will ever love wrote the following words:
Earlier today someone asked the question, In a mass knife fight to the death between every American President, who would win and why?Someone beat me to the obvious answer that a final showdown would see Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt doing a dagger-wielding version of a Mexican standoff, so I took it too far and walked through how I thought every president would turn out. An hour later the result greatly exceeded the maximum 10,000 character limit for a post, so I’ve decided to blog about it instead.
Of course you did, you beautiful man. I am THIS CLOSE to quitting my job and getting a degree in military history just so I can teach an entire Military History 101 course about presidential knife fight rankings. Conditions include the following:
- Every president is in the best physical and mental condition they were ever in throughout the course of their presidency. Fatal maladies have been cured, but any lifelong conditions or chronic illnesses (e.g. FDR’s polio) remain.
- The presidents are fighting in an ovular arena 287 feet long and 180 feet wide (the dimensions of the [1] Roman Colosseum). The floor is concrete. Assume that weather is not a factor.
- Each president has been given one standard-issue [2] Gerber LHR Combat Knife , the knife [3] presented to each graduate of the United States Army Special Forces Qualification Course. Assume the presidents have no training outside any combat experiences they may have had in their own lives.
- There is no penalty for avoiding combat for an extended period of time. Hiding and/or playing dead could be valid strategies, but there can be only one winner. The melee will go on as long as it needs to.
- FDR has been outfitted with a [4] Bound Plus H-Frame Power Wheelchair, and can travel at a maximum speed of around 11.5 MPH. The wheelchair has been customized so that he is holding his knife with his dominant hand. This is to compensate for his almost certain and immediate defeat in the face of an overwhelming disadvantage.
- Each president will be deposited in the arena regardless of their own will to fight, however, personal ethics, leadership ability, tactical expertise etc., should all be taken into account. Alliances are allowed.
I WANT TO KISS HIM WITH THE KISSES OF MY MOUTH.
Ulysses S. Grant: A career soldier and a mean drunk. Ruthless. Comfortable with blood on his hands. Formidable physically. I think Grant is going to do very well. Top 10 certainly, and maybe he battles with Polk and Taylor for Top 5 outside the Holy Trinity?
I leave you with this.
“We are the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable caretaker presidents of the USA!”
Tags: knives, my husband, president’s day, presidents
“Assume that weather is not a factor.” – removing Chester A. Arthur’s formidable weather powers is a little unfair… he was the Storm of presidents.
I love you
Everything about this post makes me swell with patriotic joy. (Or patriotic mucus, if you’re Zoidberg.) U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
That brings up an important point: does Nixon fight as original recipe Nixon or as Nixon with his head in a jar? If the latter, will be be fighting as just a head in a jar, on Bender’s body, on that massive robot body at the end of A Head in the Polls that we never see again, or carried by the headless body of Agnew?
I NEED TO KNOW
I vote for the giant robot body as that was his best physical condition of his second presidency.
Barooooooo!
(NIXON’S BACK)
“Yes, but your body was on message. And that message was: ‘Look at my sexy robot body’. You’ve got real charisma from the waist down.”
“Nixon with charisma? My God! I could RULE THE UNIVERSE!”
Alrighty, now I have to watch the episode. Happy Presidents’ Day, kill all humans, etc.
Kind of like Animal Face-Off, but with Presidents.
I think we know our first order of business in the dystopian world where we have advanced enough to bring people back to life but we’re also for some reason ruled by a totalitarian government that likes to sedate us with violent gameshows: a presidential knife-fight reality show. Ryan Seacrest will host, Gordon Ramsay will be the knife-coach.
If Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir can provide color commentary, I’m in.
I put my bets on David Rice Atchison. He would sleep through the whole thing, and no one would even realize he was there until the end, when he would awaken and sneak up behind Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s last words would be “Who ARE you?!?”
not a prez, though?
OK, so I learned something today. Huh!
then again: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/atchison.a…
Yeah, he’d get disqualified for sure.
That’s why no one would be watching for him!!
Okay, yeah, you’re right, not really a prez. Unless MAYBE he was technically Acting President, while asleep, during the one day gap when Taylor refused to be sworn into office after Polk’s presidency ended. But the historians who care a lot about the rules of presidential succession say he wasn’t. (And if we were going to include Acting Presidents in the deathmatch, then Dick Cheney would be there too, and God knows what would happen.)
But if too many presidents try to hide and wait it out, there are shake-out events built into the environment that the Knifefightmakers can employ at any time.
Tornadoes, raptors, etc?
(Obviously, Teddy Roosevelt would lasso him a raptor and ride it around the arena, herding stragglers and wreaking havoc.)
edit: Ye gods, there is a photograph:
I need this in my life.
And you can have it in your life!
Here is the etsy listing.
Edit: DAMMIT, stupid links. Here’s the actual listing:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/104862554/teddy-roos…
This is my new everything.
I genuinely might actually buy this. And put it up in my office at work.
I am so tempted.
A metal cage that drops onto small groups, forcing an immediate cage fight? (Seven presidents enter, one president leaves!)
This reminds me strongly of John Hodgman’s predicted battle between all animals and all humans.
“39) Jimmy Carter and a knife fight is a comical thought to me. Among the first dead would be my suspicion.”
Sad but true.
“[Martin Van Buren]: I’m going to say he makes middle of the pack before Jackson forgets who his friends are and tears into him like a wolverine.”
This whole list is the best thing yet this winter.
All I see is old Alexander Hamilton, continually pissed that he was never President and not invited to the arena, perhaps wearing an aesthetic eye patch, parachuting in and stabbing someone from behind (Fillmore, perhaps?), and then doing the “Are you not entertained?!” line from Gladiator.
The reanimated corpse of Benjamin Franklin will be laughing and tossing hundred dollar bills down into the arena from a blimp circling above.
Yessssss. I love the idea of multiple blimps/zeppelins flying over the arena, casting long shadows/moving among the clouds.
First lady zeppelin downthread!
William Henry Harrison would sneeze on everyone, climb a tree, and hold on for a month until everyone else had died of pneumonia.
I love this, but would Harrison himself be able to escape the pneumonia plague?
If he could last that long himself.
Historically he was able to last about a month so I’m (optimistically) assuming he’d last that long in the ring. I see it coming down to him, at death’s door, and Zachary Taylor, who invitingly proffers a bowl of cherries and warm milk to the starving man with a winning smile…
Actually, WHH didn’t come down with the fatal cold until about three weeks into his term, whereupon the mismanagement of his doctors and his refusal to rest sped him off.
Up until that point, Harrison was in very respectable shape for a man aged 68 – he rode often and maintained a small farm. It’s going to be a real surprise for the other knife POTUSes when the codger they figured for an easy kill turns out to be basically a late nineties Clint Eastwood with a deep knowledge of bayonet warfare.
Game changer!
I’m envisioning a zepplin piloted by Ruth Wilson and Eleanor Rosevelt dropping bombs on the whole brawl. Game over, boys.
Yes, totally, it is decreed. I see Abigail Adams there too.
I’m going to toss Dolley Madison into this as well, because lady had brass ones.
Way to sneak in that Song of Songs reference, Mallory. Making a great post greater.
I mean, one has to admit that Geoff Micks, president-knife-fight-speculator, has eyes like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set. His cheeks are like beds of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh. His blog posts are most sweet, and he is altogether desirable.
omg what’s terrible is I was actually thinking of Oscar Wilde’s translation of Salome
Ah yes of course, the human version of the Great Outdoor Fight. (Cats of course would not need knives, as they have many, many knives built-in to their tiny bodies.)
This is precisely what I thought of as well.
It would be Jackson and Grant in the final. Jackson would ultimately win by pantsing Grant. And then stabbing him.
This makes me so happy.
Wilson was the first one I thought of as easy pickings. I love my effete, intellectual dreamers, but he’s dead meat as long as Jackson and LBJ are in the game.
March Madness is coming up; presidential bracket, anyone?
I’ve seen Clinton in person, and he is a big dude. He might do quite well here. I think everyone is avoiding the obvious: Obama would be one of the first to go. Now how about an outlier: what if Putin showed up?
Game fucking over. Would any of us be surprised to learn that Putin wanders about with at least four knives secreted about his person at all times?
The ambidextrous James A. Garfield kills an easily-winded William Howard Taft, takes his knife, and fights with both hands.
This needs to become the new method for picking the 2016 Republican candidate? Hunger Games-style party convention (LIVE!!!! ON FOX!!!!), with the added bonus of fewer GOPs at the end.
John McCain will do surprisingly well for an old guy, but gets taken down late in the game while napping. Santorum, sneaky weasel that he is, stabs a few others (including Newt Gingrich, distracted by the women) in the back and hides amongst the trees in between, but ultimately gets stabbed with gleeful abandon by Sarah Palin, who wreaks havoc with her hunting knife prowess. Michele Bachmann teams up with Rand Paul and the power of their collective crazy eyes takes down the juggernaut of Chris Christie. Mitt Romney gets killed almost immediately. Michele turns on Rand but both fall to each other’s knives. It comes down to Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, slowly circling each other before remembering: The party needs a running mate.
The ambidextrous James A. Garfield kills an easily-winded William Howard Taft
I genuinely might actually buy this. And put it up in my office at work.
I’m not so sure about his ranking of about Grant. The man got so sick at the sight of blood, he couldn’t even eat steak unless it was cooked to the point of being charred. The reason he drank was to be able to stand the sight of blood in battle.
Calvin Coolidge busts out the weapon he’s been hiding–his wife’s famously inedible pie crust–and uses it to take out the competition (by choking? a blow to the head?)