Is Bush doomed to "die" in office?

[kerry-is-my-prez]

This is really meant as some light-hearted humor BUT for those who believe in fate....

http://www.who2.com/00presidents.html

For years people whispered that U.S. presidents elected in years ending with "0" were doomed to die in office. From 1840 through 1960, every president elected in the 20-year cycle died while he was still president. (Some called this "The Curse of Tecumseh" after the Shawnee chieftan whose brother allegedly predicted the presidential doom in 1836.)

Ronald Reagan finally broke the "curse" by serving two full terms as president before stepping down in 1989 -- though he had to survive a 1981 assassination attempt to do so.

-snip-

rest continued below

[Deja Q]

1. Oh, how can I say this with civility?

:evilgrin:

Pity Reagan broke the curse.

Pity karma didn't step in during *'s gloat-a-thon to Iraq.

[peekaloo]

22. Methinks

it was POPPY'S mojo that trumped Tecumseh's......}(


Jodie Foster my arse!

[kerry-is-my-prez]

2. continued...

Here's the full roll call of 0-year presidents through Reagan:


1800: THOMAS JEFFERSON served two full terms and so did Monroe BUT then:


1840: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON came down with a cold after delievering his inaugural address in frigid weather with Harrison refusing to wear a coat or hat. which rapidly developed into . Harrison died on April 4 of pneumonia. The new president


1860: ABRAHAM LINCOLN was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. on the evening of April 14, 1865. He died the next morning.

1880: JAMES GARFIELD was shot by assassin Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881. Garfield lived for two months before dying from complications on September 19th.


1900: WILLIAM McKINLEY was shot by unemployed millworker Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901. He died a week later. (McKinley was replaced by Theodore Roosevelt, who a decade later was shot but not killed while trying to regain the presidency.)


1920: WARREN HARDING became the first president to visit Alaska, but while returning south to California he came down with intestinal cramps and then pneumonia. Harding suffered an apparent stroke and died on August 2 in San Francisco.


1940: FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, first elected in 1932, was beginning an unprecedented fourth term when he died in April of 1945. FDR suffered a cerbral hemorrhage while on a working vacation in Warm Springs, Georgia.


1960: JOHN F. KENNEDY's death was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald during a motorcade through Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Two days later Oswald was himself shot and killed by Jack Ruby.


1980: RONALD REAGAN survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981.

2000: GEORGE W. BUSH selected

[jono]

5. gore-is-my-president

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[polmaven]

10. There! You just answered your own question.

The curse has evidently been on elected presidents, including, of course, Reagan, who survived despite the attempt.

[elperromagico]

14. Reagan's wounds were actually worse than

McKinley's or Garfield's. Medical technology enabled him to survive, whereas in 1881 or 1901, he probably would have died in office.

Perhaps the old Indian curse wasn't prepared for improvements in medical science...

[htuttle]

3. I'm not sure I agree that Reagan broke the curse

He was certainly brain dead by the time he left office.

[Military Brat]

20. What do you mean by the time he "left" office?

He was brain dead when he first got there :evilgrin:

[indigo11153]

23. All joks aside

Reagan was never a shiny marble but last poster was right. Reagan really was brian dead when he left office.

[devinsgram]

38. Correct, he was already ill

while in office, and his disease has left him a vegetable. So technically you could say he was given a death sentence while in office.

[Champion Jack]

4. "For years people whispered that.....

...U.S. presidents elected in years ending with "0" were doomed to die in office.

The key word here being "Elected".
Whistleass has nothing to fear.

[Freddie Stubbs]

31. He was elected

The voters don't elect the President, the Electoral College does. So he would be technically subject to curse, if you believe that stuff. Sure, Reagan survived an assasination attempt. But so did Ford.

[Astarho]

6. There is another way to look at it

I have heard that every 20 years the president does not complete his term, which up til now has meant death. But Gore was elected and has not completed his term (or even started it). Maybe Reagan changed the curse.

[grok]

7. Doest that mean

that Gore will die soon?

Grok

[Zomby Woof]

30. see my other post

Every 20 years, presidents do complete their terms. Lincoln completed his 1860 term, and FDR his 1940 term. There is no curse, other than base-10 arithmetic and an abiding fascination with the number zero makes people willing to suspend good judgment, plus all of this is based on what is an apocryphal story - no such exchange took place between Tecumseh and Harrison - it's in the same mythical mold as Washington and the cherry tree.

[pippin]

8. DUers who subscribe to astrology have raised the question

on another thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=111&topic_id=12336

[maddezmom]

9. after reading this thread

he could be in the WH for a very long time. The whole scenario scare the shi* out of me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=793308

[leyton]

11. Technically...

I read somewhere that technically Reagan did die in office... didn't he have to be resussitated (mangled that spelling, I'm sure)? And if the curse is that the prez won't complete one of the terms he or she was elected to, as Astarho said, I think that might apply to Reagan too. Wasn't Bush #41 President for a few hours?

Well, I'm grasping at straws here. But oh well.

[hippiechick]

17. 41 was Prez the whole time, IMO

Reagan was a prop ... all the real evil bidness of the 80's was going on behind the scenes via Poppy, Cheney and the Carlyle crew - just like now.

Reagan's Alzheimer's probably set in in the late 1970's.

Shrubby's just the current photo-op man.



:hippie:



edit: typo

[dkf]

12. W choked on a pretzel and survived.

Maybe he too has broken the "curse".

[Yupster]

13. Even more spookiester

and it's not like presidents die in office all the time.

In fact, only one president has ever diedd "outside" of the curse while in office.

That was Zachary Tayler, the old Indian fighter, and Jefferson Davis' father-in-law. He was elected in 1848, but died in office in 1850, another zero year. He was the only non-zero president to succumb to the Indian curse.

[Catshrink]

15. No!!!! If anything happened to Shrub he'd be martyred forever.

Can you just hear the wailing in freeperville? If we think the media sucking up is bad now, just imagine what it would be like if Jr. didn't finish his term.

[jab105]

18. Absolutely...

I want him to be 100% healthy when he packs up his bags and goes back to Crawford!

[hippiechick]

19. Crawford? You mean The Hague ??

:evilgrin:

[Catshrink]

21. One can only hope...

frog-marched out of the whitehouse and on to the Hague with The Dick, Rummy, Condi, and Wolfie in tow.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[havocmom]

24. If Karl thinks it would help

and the puppet cannot regain the psuedo-admiration of a hood-winked nation... Wouldn't rule any tactic out with the neo-cons.

[ldoolin]

25. Looking at the same thing from a different angle...

...consider the 40-year cycle theory of American politics. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with this theory, but find it very interesting:

1932: FDR elected after approx. 40 years of nearly uninterrupted conservative Republican administrations (with the only break being Woodrow Wilson,popular 2-term Democrat from 1913-1921.) Modern liberalism defined by the New Deal, Democratic era begins.
1968: Nixon elected after nearly 40 years (36 in this case) of nearly uninterrupted Democratic administrations (with the only break being Eisenhower, popular 2-term Republican from 1953-1961.) Modern conservatism defined, Republican era begins (note: Jimmy Carter is an exception to this theory - but then, so was Watergate.)

1924: Left-wing insurgency campaign of Robert LaFollette goes down to defeat at the polls, but launches the Progressive movement and politics which eventually land FDR in the White House in 1932. 40 years later:
1964: Right-wing insurgency campaign of Barry Goldwater goes down to defeat at the polls, but launches the New Right movement and politics which eventually land Reagan in the White House in 1980. 40 years later is 2004.

1992: Popular 2-term moderate Democrat (Clinton) elected President in the midst of an otherwise Republican era. Look back exactly 40 years and we see:
1952: Popular 2-term moderate Republican (Eisenhower) elected President in the midst of an otherwise Democratic era. Look back exactly 40 years and we find:
1912: Popular 2-term moderate Democrat (Wilson) elected President in the midst of an otherwise Republican era.

1929: Period of turmoil and crisis begins in American politics with the stock market crash and Great Depression. Slightly less than 40 years later:
1965: Period of turmoil and crisis begins in American politics with the escalation of the Vietnam War, campus New Left, Sixties counterculture, etc. Almost 40 years later:
2001: Period of turmoil and crisis begins in American politics with September 11.

1881: Democrat James Garfield dies in office in September after an assassination attempt in July. 42 years after that:
1923: Republican Warren Harding dies in office of a heart attack in August. 40 years after that:
1963: Democrat John F. Kennedy assassinated in office in November. 40 years after that, it's 2003.

Draw your own conclusions.

[The Zanti Regent]

43. Every 36 years there has been a political realignment

Look at this:

1788--Constitution ratified and the new Federal Government replaces the Articles of Confederation...

1824--Old Democratic-Republican Party collapses, John Quincy Adams elected...

1860--Republican Party becomes majority party with election of Lincoln...

1896--Populists take over Democratic Party, GOP becomes dominant party again...

1932--Great Depression destroys GOP majority coalition, Democrats take over as majority Party...

1968--Nixon and George Wallace tear Democratic coaltion apart and usher in GOP dominace

2004--???????

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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[Zomby Woof]

27. the fallacy here - no curse exists

Look that list, and you will see that two did not die in the term elected with a "zero" year - the "curse" was adapted and stretched beyond its strict definition in order to accomodate all of the presidents since Harrison.

Lincoln didn't die in his 1860 term, and FDR didn't die during his 1940 term. Technically, they, like Reagan, survived the "curse", because they survived the term in which they were elected that ended in zero.

It's coincidence, people. Chimpy will likely survive this term (and the next one if Dean gets the nomination), and then what talk of a "curse"?

[UrbScotty]

28. No. Let him live to feel electoral defeat.

[mrgorth]

29. More importantly

he will not live out his second term.

[devinsgram]

39. If he makes it back into office

for four more years, Cheyney won't need him any longer. Bye, bye Bush.

[no_hypocrisy]

32. Like a cockroach after a nuclear blast, * will be with us for a while.

This guy is living some charmed life. It's a shame that he's a worthless pile of garbage.

[Pastiche423]

33. Seeing him frog marched

out of the White House, while Dean and his cabinet* walk in w/suitcases in hand and Sharpton is slapping a donkey on the front lawn would be orgasmic.

*cabinet = Kucinich, Sharpton and CMB

[mlawson]

34. If it happened in the next few months, McCain would

be the 43rd (legit) president. The repukes would not run cheney (health reasons, he could not win), so I imagine they would run McCain and Frist. We would lose, 'big time'.

So, let's keep the cretin healthy...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

35. if God is a merciful one....?

[bubba_fett]

36. snopes

the occasionally conservative snopes did a thing about the 'curse' here: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/curse.htm

[murielm99]

37. We have a local meteorologist who studies weather cycles...

Recently, he applied his studies to presidential cycles. He says we have a nasty presidential cycle every 29 to 29.5 years.

The last one was between July 30, 1974 and May 15, 1975. We had the Watergate scandal, and got rid of Nixon.

The previous one, he says, came just before the end of World War II, when FDR died, and we dropped the atom bomb on Japan.

He cites a similar cycle for events of World War I, and back into the 1800s.

He says we are in a bad presidential cycle now. (Duh). This cycle began in June 2003, and should end about mid July 2005.

He says Shrub may not be elected. There may be another presidential scandal or resignation. The Middle East, Africa or China could have some big changes by the end of 2005. The economy will not do well. A disease or insect pandemic is possible, as in 1918 and 1888.

He says anything may happen, especially after Sept. 29, 2003.

This guy is a good meteorologist, and very sharp. His weather cycle theories stand up. Who, knows? Maybe he is on to something!

[LeahMira]

40. Perhaps HE believes it...

... because everywhere he goes he is surrounded by his "palace guard" ... as during his trip to England... and real people are never allowed near him... they are kept in the protest area pens.

[evil_orange_cat]

41. wishful thinking, LOL... plus, unless Cheney and co. die too...

what's the point? Rove, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rummy, etc will all still be there.

[Spirochete]

42. Well, if he does..

then Ashcroft will probably run against him in the primaries. hehe

[shimmergal]

44. Call me weird, but

I halfway believe that beyond Tecumseh's curse, this phenomenon draws on very ancient roots. Ever hear of the sacrificial death of the king? It was supposed to be necessary, periodically, for the land and people to prosper.

Applying this today gives lots of room for speculation. Personally I
find it hard to imagine Bush as a satisfactory sacrifice to whatever deities demand this.

OTOH, after reading devinsgram's post, maybe we have to worry about Gore's health and safety in the coming years? Stay well, Al, and out of small planes. ('Course perhaps "not completing his term" just refers to the consequences of the SCOTUS's decision?)

Logical by modern standards? No. But fodder for wonderment, nevertheless.