Barack and the “other presidents” on the dollar bills

The Audacity of Hype played the race card, and then issued a denial so weak it would need steroids to compete with all of his other denials, flip-flops, and general switcheroos.

Riley over at VV has the details:

Looks like Barry Obama is first to raise the issue of race openly in the general election campaign –

Yesterday in Missouri, Obama predicted McCain and the GOP would use racially tinged attacks against him.

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. ”You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” 

An Obama spokesman denied that the line about “dollar bills” was related to the Democrat’s race.

So, if the line Obama uttered about “dollar bills” wasn’t about race, what was it about? 

“What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn’t get here after spending decades in Washington,” Gibbs said. “There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn’t come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race.”

This is disingenuous for his campaign to claim that isn’t what Obama was talking about without providing a feasible alternative explanation and this one just doesn’t hold water.

Riley then goes into detail on just how thin this reed is:

For the record (and for Barry so that he doesn’t get all confused again as he did when he claimed there were 57 states or that presidents could serve 10 years in office), the “other presidents” (did I miss an election and inauguration somehow?) who appear on current dollar bills are: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and Grant.  None of them spent “decades in Washington” before becoming president.  Even among those who appear on bills no longer produced — McKinley, Cleveland and Wilson — none of them spent decades in Washington, either. 

Actually, not even Riley does this nonsense justice.

Of all the presidents on bills in circulation, not one spent a decade in the nation’s capital before achieving the Presidency:

• Washington ($1): Less than three months in Philadelphia for the first Continental Congress of 1775 and roughly four months as President of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  Total time in the capital: Less than one year.
• Jefferson ($2): Fifteen months in Philadelphia for the second Continental Congress; Secretary of State for four years and three months (New York and Philadelphia); Vice President for four years (Philadelphia and Washington).  Total time in the capital: nine years, six months.
• Lincoln ($5): Member of Congress from 1847 to 1849.  Total time in the capital: two years.
• Jackson ($20): Member of Congress for nine months (December 1796 to September 1797), U.S. Senator (September 1797 to April 1798 and from March 1823 to October 1825).  Total time in the capital: three years, eleven months.
• Grant ($50): Commander of the U.S. Army; stationed in Washgton from April 1865 to March 1869.  Total time in the capital: three years, eleven months.

In fact, even of the Presidents on bills no longer in circulation, none spent even two “decades” in the nation’s capital.  McKinley was a Congressman for 13 years, while Madison’s tenure in the Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention, Federal Congress, and State Department came up just short of twenty years.

Moreover, everyone who made it on to a dollar bill was considered an outsider during his political career except for McKinley and Madison.

So either Obama is ignorant of our nation’s history, or he’s hoping we are.