VEEPS: Profiles in Insignificance
By perrin
Nearly every vice president since the creation of the office in 1789 has lamented the ineffectuality of his position. Called “laborious,” “wholly insignificant,” or “not worth a bucket of warm piss,” it’s no wonder that so many of them have passed through history relatively unknown. Schuyler Colfax, Daniel Tompkins, Chester Alan Arthur—ring a bell? Don’t feel badly if they don’t. You’re not alone. Their job description entailed so little that Calvin Coolidge, for example, found the time to sleep 10 hours a night, plus a nap in the afternoon.
VEEPS is a frolic through the mishaps and misadventures of our nation’s second in command, with Wayne Shellabarger’s lively illustrations, and quick, funny anecdotes by Bill Kelter. The research is extensive and detailed, right down to the name Lyndon B. Johnson gave his penis. Nearly all the vice presidents, from Adams to Cheney, are exposed as a “platoon of rogues, cowards, drunks, featherweights, doddering geriatrics, bigots and atrocious spellers” or a combination of several of these. Even if the V.P. in question began his term with vigor, he, more often than not, sank into defeated insignificance. The main role of the vice president is, after all, simply existing in case the president dies. Though they sometimes get to go to important funerals if the president is too busy.
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