How to Fight Presidents by Daniel O’Brien is a cabinet of laughs. A constituency of “fact” and “history”. I’m trying pretty hard on the puns. I’m not a comedy writer here, people. I’m a comedy judger, which will make me rich if it ever becomes a thing. And if comedy judging is made up mostly of naps and boiled hot dogs.
How to Fight Presidents is the second book I’m reading recently with at least some of Cracked.com‘s soul in it. I won’t go into the same long winded schpeal about how much I really, really like Cracked.com as I did last time. But you should read it anyway, cause it’ll improve my bounce rate, and you want to pretend you know what that means.
The book isn’t too long, but there’s a ton of chapters, which makes it a great pooping companion. In effect, it reads much like a bunch of cracked articles. And if you clicked any of those words I just linked from, you’ll see that Dan O’Brien has written about presidents before. And, if he’s anything like me, he probably finds lots of opportunities in otherwise unrelated conversation to remind everyone that he knows a little more about them than they do.
For a book that made me laugh on nearly every single page, I still have to wish he’d included some references. Not that I’d have followed them, of course. But, the lines between comedy and history are obviously blurred and being someone who loves facts and jokes, part of me just feels… empty. You know? I complain, but if you haven’t turned off the common sense part of your brain, most of it is fairly transparent. Jokes are jokes. Although the Elk’s lodge fellows were a bit incredulous when I said Millard Fillmore could pee lightning. I probably just shouldn’t reference books without references. Dammit Dan.
My favorite section was definitely Abraham Lincoln, which comes just before a the presidents really started being pansies. Well, relative to the concept of the book anyway. The latter presidents definitely made the author work for it. Sometime shortly after Lincoln, the presidents gradually stopped being the get-it-done-at-all-costs types, and started being the figure-out-who-to-know-and-what-to-say-to-them types. Gosh darn it, I hate those types. And embellishments aside, they’re just not too intimidating. But they are funny, thanks to Mr. Dan.
Daniel O’Brien apparently has had some run-ins with the lawman for his liberal media agenda, mind-control, terrorist somethingorother as a result of How a Comedy Article Got Me Placed on the No-Fly List–which almost certainly has something to do with this book.
In Conclusion
Take it from me, the advice in this book is all fun and games; goofy toilet humor. literally, it’d be a great book to leave in the bathroom. But, there’s also a fair number of poop jokes. It’s just good, you should read it.
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