Truncated Presidential Terms

A full term for a US President is 4 years, which is 1,461 days.  Most presidents who did not reach the 1,461 days died in office, resigned, or had been elevated from the vice presidency to fill a vacancy.  However, there are four exceptions, presidents who served a full term and yet it was less than 1,461 days.  How does that work?

George Washington wasn't inaugurated until April 30, 1789.  As the new government was just getting started, Washington wasn't elected until April 6th.  He didn't leave Mt. Vernon until April 16 and was inaugurated upon arriving in New York City.  His first full term was 1,404 days.

John Adams served from March 4, 1797 to March 4, 1801.  Thanks to the absence of a leap day in 1800, his time in office was only 1,460 days.  Leap days don't occur in years divisible by 100 unless it is divisible by 400.  Thus, 2000 had a leap day for Bill Clinton's second term, but 1800 didn't for John Adams.

William McKinley's first term started on March 4, 1897 and ended on March 4, 1901.  Just like Adams, his term was missing a leap day in 1900.  Unlike Adams, he was reelected.  He was assassinated 6 months into his second term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt served for 3 full terms and began a 4th when he died.  The 20th Amendment had been ratified shortly before his inauguration in 1933.  The amendment changed inauguration day from March 4 to January 20.  FDR's first term began on March 4, 1933, but ended on January 20, 1937.  This proved to be only 1,418 days.

Of note, both John Tyler (1841-1845) and Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) had longer partial terms than either Washington or Roosevelt's full terms.  Tyler took over after William Henry Harrison died only 1 month into office.  That left 1,430 days for Tyler's partial term.  Johnson became president after Lincoln's assassination and served 1,419 days.

Presidents and the Supreme Court

Which president selected the most Supreme Court justices?  It should come as no surprise that President Washington, being the first President, had the opportunity to select every justice on the original court.  However, he only just surpassed another president.  Let's see which presidents had the most judicial picks and those with the fewest.

There have been 116 justices, 17 of whom were Chief Justices.  It is worth noting that the Court began with only 6 justices, before expanding to 7, 9, 10, and then shrinking to the current 9.

Four presidents did not select any justices.  William Henry Harrison (9) died only 1 month into office.  Zachary Taylor (12) died 16 months into office.  The Congress changed the law in order to prevent Andrew Johnson (17) from having an opportunity to select a justice.  Of note, the Court had 10 justices at the time and was slated to shrink to 7.  With Johnson's departure, the Court was restored to 9 justices.  Lastly, Jimmy Carter (39) didn't get to select a justice.

James Monroe (5), John Quincy Adams (6), John Tyler (10), Millard Fillmore (13), Franklin Pierce (14), James Buchanan (15), James Garfield (20), William McKinley (25), Calvin Coolidge (30), Gerald Ford (38), and Joe Biden (46) each selected one justice for the Court.

James Madison (4), Martin Van Buren (8), James K Polk (11), Rutherford B Hayes (19), Chester Arthur (21), JFK (35), LBJ (36), George HW Bush (41), Bill Clinton (42), George W Bush (43), and Barack Obama (44) each selected 2 new justices to the Court.  However, George W Bush had the opportunity to select the 17th Chief Justice, John Roberts.

John Adams (2), Thomas Jefferson (3), Theodore Roosevelt (26), Woodrow Wilson (28), Herbert Hoover (31), and Donald Trump (45) selected three each.  John Adams chose the longest-serving Chief Justice, John Marshall.  Of note, Marshall was the 4th Chief Justice despite being chosen by only the 2nd president.  Hoover selected Charles Evans Hughes for Chief Justice; Hughes had been an associate justice and was Chief Justice William Howard Taft's chosen successor.

Ulysses Grant (18), Grover Cleveland (22 & 24), Benjamin Harrison (23), Warren Harding (29), Harry Truman (33), Richard Nixon (37), and Ronald Regan (40) selected 4 justices for the Court.  Most of these presidents also selected a new Chief Justice among the four picks.  Grant chose Marrison Waite, Cleveland selected Melville Fuller, Harding installed former President William Howard Taft, Truman picked Fred Vinson, Nixon chose Warren Burger, and Reagan elevated William Rehnquist (Rehnquist had been one of Nixon's Associate Justice picks).

Abraham Lincoln (16) and Dwight Eisenhower (34) each had 5 Court picks.  Lincoln chose Salmon Chase as the Chief Justice.  Eisenhower selected Earl Warren to be Chief Justice.

Andrew Jackson (7) and William Howard Taft (27) selected 6 justices for the Court.  Jackson replaced John Marshall with Roger Taney, the Chief Justice who is forever stained with the Dredd Scott decision.  Taft, who would later be appointed Chief Justice, elevated Edward D White to be Chief Justice.  He would replace White only a decade later.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32) chose 9 justices during his three terms as president.  He elevated Harlan F Stone, an associate justice, to be the Chief Justice.

George Washington (1) selected 10 justices for the Court.  Though there were only 6 justices at the time, the turnover was higher.  In these early days, the Court didn't possess the prestige or power that it would gain in later years.  For the first Chief Justice, he chose John Jay.  Jay stayed in the position for 5 years before resigning to run for governor of New York (he won).  Washington next chose John Rutledge.  Rutledge had been rejected for associate justice by the Senate in 1789 and, when the Senate was again in session, he was rejected for Chief Justice as well.  He served about 5 months as Chief Justice.  Thus, Washington chose the 3rd Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth.

Send in the Rookies!

Much has been said about Trump selecting people with insufficient experience, especially from those who have buckets of experience (I'm looking at you, John Bolton).  However, look at what we are getting for our hyper-experienced government employees: disaster.  I am reminded of a quote from William F Buckley: 

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory, than by the Harvard University faculty.

Experience in government is bad.  The longer people are in government, the more corrupt they will be.  It is not by accident that people with 6-figure salary soon have an 8-figure net worth.  When trillions of dollars are sloshing around, it is very hard to resist appropriating some.  Shrinking government would be a great first step, but only noobs can do that.  After a few years, only the most ethical of people can avoid being corrupted.  Ron Paul managed to stay true to his limited government principles even after 20 years in the House.

During his first term, President Trump tinkered with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which gave us bureaucrats outside the purview of the president.  The spoils system - which saw the president sweep all the offices and give them to supporters - was in poor regard.  Yeah, that's hardly a surprise.  The Pendleton Act took most offices out of the president's hands, effectively making them unresponsive to executive control.  Spoils was bad, but this has proven worse.

Maybe Javier Milei's chainsaw is available.  We have vastly more deadwood to trim than Argentina.

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Robert "Duke" Anderson (Sean Connery) is released from prison after a 10-year sentence.  His first order of business is to hookup with his old flame, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon).  She happens to be living in an upscale building, thanks to her sugar daddy, Werner (Richard Shull).  The wealth on display get Duke's larcenous desires sparking and he starts planning a heist.  He will need help, including funding and manpower.  He checks in with local mob boss, Pat Angelo (Alan King).  Of course, Angelo is under surveillance and everything that he and Duke discuss is recorded.  Then Duke checks in with the Kid (Christopher Walken), a youth who was released from prison the same day as him.  The Kid was in for drugs and is under surveillance, so everything Duke says to him is recorded.  This repeats with each new recruit, though a different law enforcement agency is recording.  In one case, a private eye is doing the recording.  All the pieces of the planned heist have been revealed but no one sees the whole picture.  The caper launches with the police in the dark.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion.  The various residents of the apartment complex are being interviewed on site as the police carry away bodies on stretchers or attend wounds to the tenants.  Clearly, something went seriously wrong with the heist, but what?  Were the police in the know?  Had they been lying in wait?  How many of Duke's men escaped?

The movie is a commentary on the surveillance state that the US had become but also the uselessness of that surveillance.  Indeed, even today it always turns out that the various law enforcement agencies - most notably the FBI - have a file on the latest mass shooter or bomber.  Is Lumet arguing that surveillance does not help prevent crimes?  Maybe.

This was Christopher Walken's first big screen role.  The halting cadence that is frequently used to mimic him is absent here.  Where this was Walken's first movie, it proved to be Margaret Hamilton's last.  She plays one of the tenants here though she is most remembered as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939).  Also of note, Garrett Morris plays a cop.  This predates his debut as one of the original SNL cast members in 1975.  When I first saw this movie, I expected him to be comic relief rather than a police commando.

This is one of 5 collaborations between Sean Connery and Sidney Lumet.  The first was The Hill (1965), which is the best of the bunch.  Next was The Offence (1973), which is a bleak, dark film.  Then Murder on the Orient Express (1974), where Connery has a small role, and lastly Family Business (1989), which was mediocre.

Just okay.

Borderline (1980)

Jeb Maynard (Charles Bronson) is the head honcho of the La Mesa office of the US Border Patrol.  Illegal crossings have gone way up recently so Jeb sent to Washington for more help - maybe a dozen men; instead, only Jimmy Fante (Bruno Kirby) has been sent.  That night, Jeb takes Jimmy - affectionately nicknamed "the kid" - with him on a border sweep.  Meanwhile, veteran Scooter Jackson (Wilford Brimley) will patrol the highway for suspicious vehicles.  The uptick in crossings can be linked to a new coyote, El Marino (Ed Harris), a Vietnam veteran who has useful skills for smuggling people into the United States.  He is also willing to up the stakes, since he carries firearms.

The story follows Jeb's efforts to find the murderer of one of his border agents and break up a major smuggling ring.  Though the murder officially falls under FBI jurisdiction, they think it is drug-related.  Yeah, even in 1980, the FBI was incompetent.  Jeb has to use boot prints, tomatoes, tire tracks, and an illegal alien to track the murderers.

This was Ed Harris' first big movie role.  He brings his standard intensity to the role, making El Marino an intimidating adversary.

Despite being a 44-year-old movie, it demonstrates how the southern border is a longstanding problem that remains unresolved.  In the movie, it is suggested that illegals are actively imported by big business as cheap labor.  Amazingly, the big businessman behind the scheme (Michael Lerner) is found not guilty in court; he gets away with it though his underlings go to jail.  Of note, there was a lot of cooperation with and input from the US Border Patrol during the making of the film.

Just okay.

The Naked Face (1984)

Dr. Judd Stevens (Roger Moore) is a psychoanalyst in Chicago who has recently been widowed.  As such, his life is consumed by his work and meals at home alone.  Then, one of his patients is murdered.  Curiously, the patient was wearing Dr. Stevens' raincoat when he was stabbed to death.  Lt. McGreavy (Rod Steiger) and Detective Angeli (Elliott Gould) arrive to investigate.  McGreavy almost instantly suspects Stevens as the murderer.  Throughout the investigation, he is hostile to Stevens.  When more people in Dr. Stevens orbit die, Judd starts investigating on his own with the help of Private Investigator Morgens (Art Carney).  Judd believes he is the true target.

Filmed before Moore's final outing as James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985), this is an unusual role for him.  He is neither a lady's man nor a man of action.  When danger approaches, he runs away and hides in the backroom.  When fisticuffs are required, he gets beaten to a pulp.  When his brother-in-law, Dr. Peter Hadley (David Hedison), urges him to date, he begs off.  He's practically a shut-in.

Rod Stieger and Elliott Gould run the good cop - bad cop routine, Stieger being bad cop.  McGreavy's previous partner was killed by a psychopath some years earlier and Dr. Stevens' testimony was decisive for a successful insanity defense.  That explains McGreavy's hostility.  The usually wisecracking Gould has no personality here.  He is a bland character who serves as a whipping post for McGreavy's frustration or a sympathetic ear to Stevens' complaints about McGreavy.  The script does Gould no favors; it could have been a much better role.

Though it proved to be a small role, Art Carney is great as the private eye.  Of course, the haggard and world-weary private eye was his go-to role for some time (e.g. Sunburn, The Late Show).  Where Gould is bland and forgettable, Carney shines in his scenes.

Overall, it is just okay.  The cast is far better than the script.  There are not enough patients to make it a mystery as to which one is the source of Dr. Stevens troubles.  Ann Blake (Anne Archer) is a headliner among a bunch of unknown character actors.  Gee, what could this mean?  However, the ending did come as a surprise.

The Blanket Pardon

Despite promises to the contrary, President Biden has pardoned his son for all crimes - whether convicted, charged, or even suspected - from 2014 through today, December 1, 2024.  Wow, we didn't see that coming at all.  What a huge surprise.  Sure, every political pundit predicted exactly this would happen, but otherwise this comes out of the blue.  Yes, with all the Trump cases dropping away, there is no longer any need to appear 'unbiased' and 'evenhanded' regarding justice.  Nope, now there is no political cost to President Biden for pardoning his son.  Yeah, it may look bad in the history books, but family is family.

Now the real fun begins.  Soon, there will be stories in the media why this was the right thing to do, a noble thing to do, and mostly Trump's and/or Republicans' fault.  Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, is going to have a stressful day tomorrow.  Good luck.