We spoke to Roger Kaplan, the regular American Spectator tennis correspondent, on the subject of Presidents Day, who admitted to feeling peeved by the lack of response from the White House to the offer from his organization, the East Side Athletic and Social Club, to give the First Couple some much needed PT on the tennis courts, with special attention to foot work, at a special sale price of only $225 per hour. His remarks (edited):
It is Feb. 19, 2024, Adar I 10, 5784, and two questions occur to me that shouldn’t to someone my age: Why is “Presidents Day” celebrated with paid leave for federal workers and all manner of others who pattern their terms of employment on the feds’, spreading sloth and incompetence? And why are there two months of Adar?
I can see the value of honoring George Washington’s birthday or marking the date of his passing with respectful remembrance, or Abraham Lincoln’s, or in fact any other’s — different states and localities even might want to decide which ones to observe — why not? — but an abstract “Presidents Day” is empty, even sinful — a kind of idolatry.
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Stronger cases can be made for Memorial Day and Veterans Day, for they underscore the debt all Americans owe to the veterans who fought in all the wars that preserved our country. We are saddened by the lives lost but strive the rationalize the bitter necessity or understand the shoddy policies that brought them about in the hope of preventing others. And yet, even here, I think it is far more meaningful — and emotional — to remember specific wars and specific veterans. We mark Nov. 11, Armistice Day, to remember the horror and meaning — if we can ever find it — of World War I. We mark Pearl Harbor Day and the V Days ending World War II in Europe and Asia to ponder the enormity of that fight. Being specific is always good advice.
The perverse effect of these abstract holidays is not that they turn into “gimme” frenzies, with commercial establishments using the occasion to promote sales. Actually, there is nothing wrong with hucksterism, and we should not denigrate the commercial reflex in a land that was founded by commercial men and owes its greatness in so many fields, from space exploration to medical breakthroughs to great music and writing, to the culture of business, aka the spirit of enterprise, and the work ethic. You cannot blame a store owner for luring idlers into his shop; on the contrary, if they are idling instead of working, whose fault is it? It is the fault of the wannabe tyrants downtown (I’m writing from Washington) who grab every opportunity to buy votes for their awful policies. Unpaid leaves are ways to buy off, or at least demoralize, the people, but they are borrowing against their children and grandchildren.
Just by way of short preview, the bad guy was a greedy and power mad scoundrel called Haman, who wanted to wipe out the Jews because they preached and tried to practice virtue as defined by the Higher Power, which went against his own preferences. But the king whom this sociopath was supposed to serve but against whom he plotted was, to use an anachronism, something of a philosemite since he was in love with a Jewish princess, Esther, crazy love at first sight like — I am not trying to be silly — Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
Purim, in other words, is specific, as is the next holiday, Passover. Purim and Passover are not “deliverance days” (as in “Presidents Day”); they are there to remember specific people and events. And as for us, today, Americans in America, we must stop the futile effort to get to Nowheresville while obsessing over old rich guys running for president, consumed by their own distasteful vanity, nothing there but suits overstuffed with bile and mouths full of feet. We should be talking about young(er) guys — or even dolls — willing to serve the Republic and worthy of the voters’ gamble. We need specific names. It is not too late. On the contrary, it’s a long time to November. I say draft a few good men and women to make competitive teams, draw the starting line, and get a real, honest, exciting, patriotic race going, a race for America, and totally ignore the others. It will work.
(And, yes, my vote will be influenced — not bought! — by an honest offer, such as managing the White House tennis court.)
