And then there was this recent post on FB: “Herman Cain is an American success story, well educated, exceptional business experience, and, quite possibly, just what this country needs…sort of how the Founding Fathers thought the Presidency should be, business leaders coming to Washington for a few years to serve…”

BUSINESS LEADERS! Such great fun! The founders as ‘business leaders’ coming to Washington to serve. Thank you. John P. Zorich, for your remarkably confused look into the founders’ intentions regarding public office![1]

I guess it’s more of that zany rightwing Hysterical History as it Never Happened.

Should anyone tell this Eric Foner of the mullet set that the ‘business’ of four of the first five presidents was running slave plantations? (NOTE: This was during the time when, as Michele Bachmann reminds us, ‘our Founding Fathers’ were working ‘tirelessly’ to end slavery.)

Oh. And just a quick factual note…

On that founders-as-part-time-non-professional-politicians thing? Two of the—some might say—‘significant’ founders, Thomas Jefferson (author of one notable founding document), and James Madison (architect of another semi-important puzzle piece of the American charter), who were both elected to the presidency (numbers three and four for those bereft of actual knowledge–as distinct from memorized talking points) were career politicians. (Egads!)

That’s right histerians:

Jefferson held public office for 40 virtually uninterrupted years from 1769, when he was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, to 1809, when he concluded his second term as President (after which he continued his public career as founder of the University of Virginia). You see, his slaves made it possible for him to be a professional politician AND a businessman! He was THE go-getter Founding Father!

James Madison was appointed to Orange County, Virginia’s Committee of Safety in 1774, held office in the Virginia state legislature from 1776 to 1786, was a delegate to a minor political convention of some sort in Philadelphia about the Articles of Something or Other during 1787-88 where he semi-famously masterminded the creation of a document that still holds a somewhat important place among the founding charters, returned to the Virginia state legislature in 1789 and served there until 1797—somewhere along the way correcting some mistakes in the document he authored at the Philadelphia convention by writing several amendments that had something to do with rights he had somehow forgotten to mention… In 1798 he co-wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions with Jefferson (to complain about some nonsense), somehow got himself reelected to the Virginia Assembly despite this long string of bumbling efforts, became Secretary of State in 1803, and managed to get elected President of the United States in 1808 serving two terms ending in 1817. So, its true, Madison did return to his private pursuits and gave up politics after the presidency. No career politics for THIS Virginia businessman–43 years is quite enough; let the professional politicians serve their entire working lives in government! A businessman has REAL work to do creating JOBS! (or purchasing more slaves, as the case may be…)

So goes the romantic notion of the Founders as citizen-politicians, short-time volunteers who only reluctantly serve the nation and return to private business pursuits as soon as they can get shut of their onerous public duty.

It would be a great help to public discourse if folks of the slightly-to-the-right-of-reality persuasion would look shit up before quacking.

[1] This guy’s profile describes him, somewhat redundantly, as an ‘American Conservative Libertarian Capitalist’ and shows both Carrie Underwood and Bruce Springsteen as musical favorites (hyuk!hyuk!hyuk!). WHY do these guys always list Springsteen? Are they as clueless about Springsteen’s lyrics and politics as they are about everything else? (oh, yeah…I guess they kinda are…) I mean, I like the Boss, but truth be told his lyrics aren’t exactly subtle about his class commitments and politics. Hey, Bruce! Could you do a press release or something?