Why does President Obama hate President Rutherford B. Hayes so, so much? Our Kenyan Overlord slammed the beloved Ohio beardocrat today for supposedly dismissing the hot new invention of his time, the telephone. That idiot hated the telephone like the dickens, Obama said, maybe. But what if Obama is wrong? What if Rutherford B. Hayes loved telephones? What if this blows your mind?
Here’s what Obama had to say about this dead old Luddite fail whale, via Politico:
“One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: ‘It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?’” Obama said. “That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore.”
“He’s looking backwards, he’s not looking forward. He’s explaining why we can’t do something instead of why we can do something,” Obama said. “The point is there will always be cynics and naysayers.”
This prompted the New York’s cynical New York publication to call the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center and ask if Obama’s story is bullshit. It is Bullshit, they said:
Wait, so Hayes didn’t even say the quote that Obama is mocking him for? “No, no,” Card confirmed.
She then read aloud a newspaper article from June 29, 1877, which describes Hayes’s delight upon first experiencing the magic of the telephone. The Providence Journal story reported that as Hayes listened on the phone, “a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more.” Hayes took the phone from his ear, “looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, ‘That is wonderful.’”
Is there any possible reason for keeping Rutherford B. Hayes off of Mount Rushmore now? Name one. You can’t do it. Name one. You’ve got nothing.
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Fox News Headline: Obama Pisses On a White Guy's Grave.
"Obama skullfucks white guy's grave angel statue."
“looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, ‘That is wonderful.’”
Hayes was the first client of a phone sex operation? Who knew?
This thread is done in two.
Nope. Baconzgood's post about the first time the phone rang in 60 years is money in the bank.
"What is covering your limbs?"
That scraggly hipster beard alone should keep Hayes off Mount Rushmore.
Animal Collective fans don't belong on Mt.Rushmore.
Yeah, Rushmore's the shit; pass the PBR!
"Unless "Mount Rushmore" is a shitty indie band"
And if it isn't, Hayes could still be in Z.Z. Top.
Karl Marx looking motherfucker….
Looks a bit Islamic to me. Does it fall two hand-widths below the chin?
Damn! Now my right wing buddies have a come back when I tell Palin's historical ignorance stories!
No.
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/1870.xh…
Not really. Play the Reagan card. http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/rea…
“That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore.”
Newt will never understand why himself is not on Mt.Rushmore either.
Mt. Rushmore isn't big enough.
Newt can't be on Mt Rushmore until they find a 400 ton hunk of cow patty to carve his giant head out of.
It saddens me that the American public doesn't appreciate the brilliance of that man.
It saddens him more.
Is there a Mount Lushbore? If not, there should be.
about the telephone: ‘It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?’
They went throught this sensibility-adjustment on Downton Abbey, too. Only "Downton" came across way sexier in its nonplussed outlook. Kinda like Sara Benincasa makes written accounts of poppin' Xanax so gnarlicious you'd forget Megs McCain claimed to have OD'd on anything else except ego.
Hey, what city is that Abbey in the Downtown of, anyway?
The election of Hayes is what began the Republican party's long tradition of screwing over the blahs and stealing elections. Frankly Im surprised the Republicans haven't tried to get him on Mount Rushmore.
They're too busy trying to get St. Raygun on there, FSM forbid.
don't forget those pushing for the Reagan Dime! Of course, that's mostly to get rid of that damn cripple Roosevelt.
Obama really hates Hayes because he pulled Union troops out of southern state capitals after the Civil War. Obama reckons another century or so of occupation might have done some good.
He's not the only one.
Another century? That's giving way to much credit to the traitor states.
Now if he would have dissed Chester A. Arthur….OHHHHHH man it'd be on like Donkey Kong!!!!!!! Baconz don't play that shit on my man C to the A Squared!
Chester had a bitchin' face do. Stache connected to the pork chops. Damn straight.
Grover Cleveland does it non-consecutively.
Biden already did that when he axed the $1 coin program.
Chester A. Arthur was of course the OTHER President who was harrassed by the opposition as being "not a natural born citizen".
President Rutherford B. Hayes was a total TAINT and if I lose sponsors for pointing it out so be it!
Edit — as a New Yorker I will die as I have lived – a Tilden man to the last.
It's been over one hundred years. Don't you think you should get over it finally?
"Tilden or Blood"
Tilden was actually from Philadelphia, anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilden
‘It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?’”
Santorum said the same thing about birth control.
He further noted that priests have been fucking little boys for years without the use of contraception and not one – not one single solitary youth has gotten pregnant. It was god's will.
The answer, in both cases, is "Sluts", right?
You know what else RBH (" the Hayesiest"!) hated?
Telepromptars. And the Irish, probably.
This is surely an impeachable offense.
Was Hayes the first person Murdoch phone hacked?
. "Somebody's gotta go and get a shitload of dimes.
Hayes invented the toll road?
YM "nickel", you dang whipper-snapper.
Is there any possible reason for keeping Rutherford B. Hayes off of Mount Rushmore now? Name one.
"Rutherford."
Also Lumpy Wallace's real first name on "Leave it to Beaver".*
*stuff like this is in my brain, instead of anything that could make me rich
Damn, thanks for that link. I love history.
Did you know Rutherford B. Hayes is a national hero in Paraguay? History! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14309
I knew that ZZ Top was old, but sheesh?
Tomorrow's Fox & Friends: "Rutherford B. Hayes? How low will this Kenyan bastard sink?"
Call the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center on the phone about what Rutherford B. Hayes thinks about the phone? How delicious *in my smarmy voice*.
Hello? Is this the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center?
Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
Bzg:
Nothing like going straight to an impartial source. Just what the Hell did they think the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center would say?
What's next? Call the George W. Bush Presidential Library and ask if the Iraq War was a bigass mistake?
I don't know what your smarmy voice sounds like, so I'm imagining Vincent Price going, "How delicious" and then doing his evil laugh.
"Mrs Limbaugh (you slut), just Mount Rush More and quit yer whining!!"
He's trying to make sure our childrens is not learning proper American history!
Yes, he loved phone. And he also loved lamp.
Lincoln never used a telephone either
Shorter Obama: We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
Contraception for some, miniature American flags for others!
Don't blame me, I voted for Kang.
Is that you, Princess Sparkle Pony?…
If you know of a better way to exchange protein molecules, I would like to hear it.
Don't blame me; I voted for Panamanian illegal alien strongman Kodos.
P-SHAW! Telephone. Get with the times Hayes! It's all done with fax these days!
Bah. Anyone who wants to have an actual INTELLIGENT conversation over electro-magnetic wires uses Morse Code.
And now another 60 years will go by until the phone rings at Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.
Beautiful.
Unless it's to ask "Is your refrigerator running?"
Back in the day, most phone and mail inquiries were probably from Ohio school children writing reports on the life and times of President Hayes.
The Internets have killed all that.
Game over. This thread is finished.
He's an appeaser! Like Wilt Chamberlain!
Psst! I think it was Aaron Neville!
Neville Longbottom?
Pippi Longstocking?
Scotty Pippin?
Wilt certainly did appeas'er – and her, and her, and her, and her, and ten thousand other hers.
Hayes also said, “Teleprompters will not get any president elected.”
Rutherford, I know the phone was all magical and new-fangled, but scissors were old-school tech even in your time. Trim that stache back, bro. You're not a baleen whale. Carve a path for your fork.
"Carve a path for your fork."
I like that. I like that!
edgydrifter:
Shaving back in the day was a bitch. Why do you think so many of those Civil War dudes had beards?
It took King Gillette to invent the safety razor and give America a clean face.
Timothy B Schmit in 2012
appeal to the bass
At least Hayes didn't puss out like William Henry "I died in thirty days" Harrison.
"Mediocre Presidents Song" for the win!
The only way that song could be better is if it came out between 2000-2008.
Another great one from Ohio, the self-proclaimed "Cradle of Presidents."
The problem is that, unlike Virginia, the ones from Ohio didn't actually turn out very well.
Not that California has anything to brag about, of course.
Apparently Harrison was quite the drinker.
Hard cider and all that.
Tippecanoe and cirrhosis too!
President Hayes graduated as valedictorian of his 1842 class at … wait for it … Kenyon College. Coincidence? I think not.
My mind is blown!
Where's the beard certificate Hayes!?!?!?
But I learned on Decoded that Mt Rushmore is really a KKK holy ground. Because Lincoln was totally cool with the KKK.
No, that was Lincoln Borghlum, like in the wheat.
Hayes also pretty much stole the election of 1876; luckily America has managed to never screw up like that again.
at least his campaign wasn't using robocalls
Wait a minute… wasn't he 'awarded' the presidency, by a congressional commission after he lost the popular vote to the democrat?
This sounds awfully familiar…..
What a phony.
I'm guessing the phone at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center doesn't exactly ring off the hook most days.
Wonder shone in the eyes of the staff when it started ringing.
Was it the same one old Rutherford himself used?
Probably it's the guys over at the Millard Fillmore Presidential Center checking to see if their phone is still working.
FTW!!! That one cracked me up!
LH:
Somebody beat me to the Prince Albert wheeze and I used the refrigerator gag above, so I got nothin'.
In 1876, Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious and hotly disputed elections in American history. Although he lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Hayes won the presidency by the narrowest of margins after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty disputed electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election and Hayes accepted the end of military occupation of the South.
A 19th Century GW.
Let's be clear that the Republicans and the Democrats in those days were ideologically opposite to what they generally represent today.
Schmannity:
There is an entire chapter in John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s "Profiles in Courage" about Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar and his single vote to support the decision of the Electoral Commission.
They don't make 'em like they used to!
Apparently, any person (read: man) of importance in latter 19th Century American just had to wear that beard, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lucius_Quintus_…
My Daddy taught me to shave with a straight razor. It's impossible to not cut yourself all up.
The biggest, problem, however, is learning how to sharpen the damn thing. If you think sharpening a knife in Boy Scouts was tough, try a razor. It's just too hard. So, folks just gave up and didn't do it.
Well, Confucius was supposedly backward-looking as well, but he gets to hang out in every bonzai pot just the same, doesn't he? Well, DOESN'T HE?
Give the Prez a break, that's the version of the story they teach in the Madrasas.
How could you track your college b-ball brackets on one of them old-fashioned phones, huh?!?
In fairness, there were only two teams in the tournament at that time
Harvard v. Yale
How do we know it's Rutherford B. Hayes? All those old geezers had beards down to their shoes in those days.
Who's to say it wasn't a disguise. Who?
Samuel J. Tilden loved the telephone way more than Hayes did.
Just sayin'.
Anyone else check out the woman labeled as "Solid South" whom Rutherford is mackin'? Dat ass.
Excuse me, but the hair is atrocious.
What, Mr. Hayes, a couple of electoral college votes are thrown your way, and suddenly you're *too good* for hair care/barbering?
FYI: young Rutherford B Hayes looks like Jeff Buckley
"The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital."
That is what he said. That is what Rutherford Birchard Hayes said.
He was elected president in one of the most contentious and hotly disputed elections in American history, and this is what he said.
"Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit… The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers."
Rutherford B. Hayes was a brave man. He left a successful political career to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War. Wounded five times, he had a reputation for bravery on the field. But when he talked of partisanship, this is what he said.
"The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party…. but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best."
It will never occur to Fox and Friends as they blather on about this that the two quotes are not mutually exclusive. I mean, Ol' Ruthy could have waxed poetic re: the new fangled device on several occasions.
Could Hayes have been for phones, after he was against them?
Alex Bell probably slipped him some phone company stock right before the IPO and President Hayes saw the light.
That's the way things were done back then. Totally different from today.
Isn't that what Bill Clinton said to Al Gore when he invented the Internet?
That story about the Compromise of 1877 is very interesting because it is an example of the South clinging to ideals that are not really defensible. Yet they refuse to cooperate and instead resort to various kinds of pressure to get their way, or to impose "Compromises". These Southerners are the intellectual ancestors of today's Conservatives, the more extreme of which have no logical basis for their "opinions" yet they cling to them out of some combination of defensiveness and greed, maybe? Can't you just see Ann Coulter speaking out eloquently on the side of slavery?
"Can't you just see Ann Coulter speaking out eloquently on the side of slavery?"
Ehhh, not exactly.
I can see her giving one of her frothing at the mouth rants on the side of slavery, complete with some loony sound bite about how abolitionists eat babies — but I can't see her speaking eloquently about anything, ever.
Rutherford B Hayes actually wanted telephone lines extended to all 57 states.
For this he hired Alexander Graham Worshokski – the first telephone Pole.
Yes, it's not like a search on the alleged quote (excluding "Obama" to get rid of noise from today) wouldn't find it listed all over the place as a purported example of shortsightedness. Not that this really excuses sloppy fact-checking by White House speechwriters, but it's not exactly like Obama was just jonesing for the opportunity to slam Hayes.
Actually, Mr. Obama said "reportedly." No one can dispute that quote was reported prior to Mr. Obama using it.
Further, a quick check showed me that, indeed, Mr. Hayes is not on Mt. Rushmore.
That's Obama 2, Right Wing Nutz 0.
Again.
"We caught the nigger on a fact!! We caught the nigger on a fact!! Oh glorious day, boys!1!!!!11!!"
This totally screws our relations with Paraguay.
Smitros:
I wasn't until I read richmx2's comment, below, that I got yours.
Strange. Wikiquote claims an actual source:
"That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"
–To Alexander Graham Bell after a demonstration of the telephone, as quoted in Future Mind : The Microcomputer-New Medium, New Mental Environment (1982) by Edward J. Lias, p. 2
So apparently this scurrilous Rutherford B Hayes bashing campaign has been going on nearly as long as the nefarious plot to install a Kenyan Usurper in the White House!!!
After the Kenyon Usurper occupied it in 1876 (please see page 1).
After the Kenyon Usurper occupied it in 1876 (please see page 1).
TO THE CHALKBOARD!11!!!!!
So, "reportedly said" is entirely true, which makes it PANTS ON FIRE!!!!
Jim, I'm not sure why you're harping on the Compromise of 1877. Why, it says right in wikipedia:
It may have been a hefty price to pay, but as a result, racism was ended forever and black people never had any problems exercising their civil or human rights in the South ever again.
…Right?
Actually, the full quote was:
"It's an amazing invention, but it doesn't run Angry Birds, so who would want to use one?"
Rutherford B. Hayes: still better than george w. bush
Even worse, I hear that Obama thinks that Bogart said "Play it again, Sam"
we can still make fun of millard fillmore though right?
I am so pleased to see someone else shares my opinion of Hayes being the worst non-Bush president.
All in all, I still think it is tough to knock Richard Nixon from first place.
Ending Reconstruction and allowing the South to fester into what it is now so that the guy that did not win the election could take office was pretty bad. Nixon, despite his many flaws and sociopathy was at least egotistical enough to do some good things (even if just because he wanted the praise).
That Civil War was pretty bitter. I don't think keeping the US Army in the South would have helped much – any more than keeping the US Military in Afghanistan and Iraq has turned out very well.
It was the Army that told former Confederate soldiers they couldn't continue to wear any part of their uniforms – when those were often the only clothes they had left.
It was the death of Lincoln that killed a fruitful Reconstruction. US Grant's generous surrender terms started to set the right tone. Stationing troops in the former Confederacy didn't move the process forward much.
Richard Nixon was astonishingly corrupt. He accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash "campaign contributions." He know many of these things he did were illegal. But he did them anyway. In my view he remains the flat out worst.
Stationing troops in the former Confederacy didn't move the process forward much.
Given how delightful the blacks were treated, especially once those troops were withdrawn, I have to respectfully disagree about whether their presence was helpful.
Honestly, I'd beg to differ. One of this nation's greatest sins after slavery was getting lazy on Reconstruction. What could have been one of the most glorious opportunities to set the nation up for long-term glory was dropped like it was hot, and the Civil Rights Movement a hundred years later was only ever able to address a few of the failures. I can not even imagine how much further we'd have been along in 2012 were it not for setting back an entire group of people a hundred years more than they were already set back.
Little known fact is that the other end of the line was also the first known phone-sex operator.
Unfortunately, this did the good President no good, because back the day you needed both hands to hold the phone.
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/1870.xh…
Barry knows stuff
Don't tell me Barry made a mistrake. Hell, I nevre make mistrakes.
Well, you can say what you want about Rutherford B. Hayes.
Over the next few years, as his dinner was interrupted almost every night by solicitation calls from fake cancer charities and bogus law enforcement organizations, President Hayes' enthusiasm for the telephone waned a wee bit.
but this Muslin communist will never have a song about him like "Hoorah for Hayes and Honest Ways!"
https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774….
"Hooray for Obama, he'll Help Yo Momma" ???
Headline: Obama Beats up Old White Guy
Actual comment at FoxNation: "Obama speech writers don't care who they hurt or how many lies they tell."
Yes. Something must be done (*sob*!) to protect poor Rutherford! LEAVE RUTHORFORD B HAYES ALOOOOONE, YOU ANIMALS!!!!!!!!!!!!
At his age, Rutherford should be damn happy anyone is talking about him at all.
I sure don't recall my grade school closing for his fuckin' birthday.
Well….he was no James Garfield.
He's not on Mount Rushmore because the beard wouldn't fit.
Needs a skinnier beard, like Michele Bachmann.
From Free Republic:
Sarah Palin was right about Paul Revere, and Obama is ignorant when it comes to Presidential history!
(srsly, this is in like 72-point typeface…and 2 posts later it's followed by:)
Alinsky’s rules for radicals: Ridicule is the most potent weapon. So the Orwellian leftist rewrites history, ridiculing perhaps the best man, and one of the better presidents of the second half of the nineteenth century.
and the thread winner:
With a name like “Rutherford Hayes” he probably thought he was a “brother” at first, and felt let down that he wasn’t….
Shit, where's my RightWing Bingo card?
Has Politifact weighed in yet with a pantaloons- and/or britches-on-fire?
Oh, *yeah*?
Well, they don't even *have* telephones in Kenya!
They use drums!
I really miss Dennis Hopper.
Cooledge ordered the telephone removed from the Oval Office as one of his first acts as President.
His actual first act as President was to go back to bed after he swore the oath.
"a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more."
First presidential phone sex?
That'll definitely teach Obama to reference obscure persidents, again, won't it? I sure as hell hope so. There are so many better (and more easily referenced) historical figures to shit on.
Rutherford Hayes? A great President? Or the GREATEST President?
Rutheford B. Hayes is a hero in Paraguay, and has a Department and a city named for him… http://mexfiles.net/2010/07/23/a-gringo-they-like…
Im with you, sister! To me he shall always be Rutherfraud B. Hayes.
Republican President R. B. Hayes was the 2nd Greatest ever Republican Friend of the Negro because he removed the Tyranny of Federal Occupation from the negro homeland, allowing themselfs to get back on the plantations to perform the job God intended when he created them.
Very cool, and if you read the verses you see that presidential campaigns have been built on total B.S. for well over 150 years!
beardocrat
No need to bring Mr. Bachmann into this…
Obama was just phoning it in.
glamourdammerung:
I completely agree with you that keeping the peace in the South – and keeping the Black folks from being reinslaved – was very important. No doubt they needed to be protected.
I was addressing thie issue of reconcilitation.
Like Mr. Miyagi said – "Balance."
Reconstruction was a horrible mess. Grinding the South wasn't "with malice towards none, and with charity for all."
The mid-19th century was rampant, unregulated capitalism. Contractors sold the army wooden hams and paper shoes and "gunpowder" that was nothing but charcoal.
Scalawags and carpetbaggers saw a quick buck, and plundered the South. Remember, Reconstruction went on almost three times as long as the Civil War, with miserable graft, corruption, and massive theft.
A Marshall Plan to actually rebuild the South would have made a huge difference. And the Panic of 1873 certainly didn't help.
Once the North made the War about freeing the slaves, it was inevitable the Black folks would be blamed for the loss once the War was over. Former slaves needed protection, education, and the opportunity they deserved. You are so right – it was a terrible waste, and we all would be so much better off today if Lincoln had lived and Reconstruction had actually reconstructed something.
Perhaps the North won the War. No question our Nation lost the peace.
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