Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader always enjoys reading the Colossus’ site. It is one of those sites hereads pretty much every day. Well, your Maximum Leader just read the great Presidential Madness Bracket post that the Colossus put up yesterday. It is fabulous. You should go and read it. Now. Your Maximum Leader will wait.

Wasn’t that cool. Your Maximum Leader wishes he’d thought it up. While a Washington v Lincoln matchup in the fourth round wasn’t really “unfair” (hey, that is the way the brackets go) it did come a bit too early. Your Maximum Leader really has two beefs.

Beef Number 1 - how the hell did Thomas Jefferson make it so deep? I can see the early round victories (vs G H W Bush and JFK) but beating Truman? Beating Truman (your Maximum Leader types again!)? What the hell? Your Maximum Leader thinks that Thomas Jefferson earned some points for pre-Presidency activities (probably the Declaration of Independence). His presidency, other than the Louisiana Purchase, is one mistake after another. Compare that to Truman and your Maximum Leader just doesn’t see how Jefferson can win that matchup. Then that bye helped out Jefferson as well…

Beef Number 2 - FDR beating out Washington. FDR over THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY? No no no. In how many ways is this wrong? Your Maximum Leader can hardly ennumerate them. While your Maximum Leader acknowledges quite freely that when you are dealing with the three demi-gods of the presidency (Washington, Lincoln, and FDR) you are just parsing; but he doesn’t like this parse. The determining factor for your Maximum Leader comes down to the political legacy and how it shaped the country. Washington’s political legacy in so many way was preserved and continued until FDR. And FDR’s legacy - the bloated all-powerful Federal Government - is a cause for reform and reaction itself. Your Maximum Leader will also grant the herculean efforts required to direct the nation at war in WWII. But by that time the US would only have been beaten by force of arms. In Washington’s day the union was so fragile that it was feasible that some disgruntled farmers in western Pennsylvania could have destroyed the union. Managing the developing factions throughout the nation and setting the country on a firm economic, diplomatic, and political footing was no easy feat.

Regardless of the quibbles… Your Maximum Leader salutes the Colossus for a great (and thought provoking) post.

Your Maximum Leader now returns to his day-long tribute to the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Carry on.