In our continuing series of scholarly meditations on the United States Presidency, we now bring you a list of five presidents who could kick the crap out of Chuck Norris. Of note: only one of the top five served after 1908, although two honorable mentions came later. Where have all the real men gone?)
5. Abraham Lincoln The only man on this list never to have seen combat. Still, preserving the Union and ending slavery were awesomely badass, and it's little known today, but the young Abe was said to have superhuman physical strength. Trust us, this was one man you wouldn't want at your Festivus party if you were the reigning champ in the Feats of Strength portion of the holiday.
Some claim he picked up a barrel of whiskey and drank from the bunghole. (His buddy William Herndon later said this wasn't true. He only lifted it to his waist, but he did bend over and drink from the barrel.) Others say he could down a tree as fast as any three normal men. In arranged wrestling matches, he was known to pick up town bullies and toss them around like they were empty beer cans. Others say he could dead-lift up to 1,200 pounds and walk around with loads weighing half that. And on top of all of that, he was a helluva lawyer and (it bears repeating) he ended slavery. Chuck Norris couldn't do that shit.
4. Ulysses S. Grant After running through a seemingly endless series of pussies at the head of his army, President Lincoln finally found a tough guy in the unlikely form of US Grant, a failed businessman and cigar-chomping chronic drunk. By ever-advancing and never retreating, Grant smashed the Confederacy in a couple of years; had Lincoln never demoted the preening-yet-timid General McClellan, the Union might have been sundered forever.
While his scandal-ridden presidency was by most accounts a failure, Grant's reputation for honesty remained intact, not least because of the severe financial hardship his family endured after his retirement. In fact, they faced ruin as Grant lay wracked in pain and dying of oral cancer, but the tough old general manned up, geeked himself on brandy, morphine and cocaine-infused medications, and cranked out a memoir that sold Da Vinci Code numbers and saved his heirs from the poorhouse. Could Chuck Norris do that? We don't think so.
3. George Washington Sure, he kicked Froggy tail in the French and Indian War and booted the Redcoats off our shores later, and the Iroquois called him "Town Destroyer," but the most badass thing George Washington ever did was to head back to Mount Vernon. Had he done what very many people were asking him to do, he could have been Dictator-for-Life, and America might never have amounted to more than an English-speaking version of Brazil. Instead, we became a democracy, with more or less fairly elected leaders. Would Chuck Norris do that? Nah, he'd probably opt for the ruler-for-life route.
