{"id":2542,"date":"2011-09-28T10:27:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T14:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?p=2542"},"modified":"2011-09-28T10:34:43","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T14:34:43","slug":"michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html","title":{"rendered":"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Asked by Joy Behar onHeadline News whether America would vote for a &#8220;fat&#8221; candidate for President, controversial film-maker Michael Moore, who has never been accused of being too skinny, responded that most of America is fat and would probably identify with an overweight Commander-in-Chief.<\/p>\n<p>Historical note: There have been a number of chunky Presidents. William Howard Taft had a 54-inch waistline and weighed more than 300 pounds. Legend has it that he got stuck at least once in the White House bathtub installed during the administration of the much thinner Franklin Pierce.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MRC TV video player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mrctv.org\/embed\/105968\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Incidentally,\u00a0some claim President Millard Fillmore installed the first White House bathtub. You can blame journalist and satirist H.L Mencken, who\u00a0wrote a fictional history of the bathtub\u00a0a 1917\u00a0article in\u00a0the daily <em>New York Evening Mail.<\/em> Mencken recanted his account of the Fillmore tub tale later, saying &#8220;My motive was simply to have some harmless fun in war days. It never occurred to me that it would be taken seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Did Taft really get stuck in the White House tub? There are no official accounts of such an incident. However, courtesy of the website <a href=\"http:\/\/herodotuswept.wordpress.com\/2007\/11\/14\/fun-presidential-facts-william-h-taft-and-his-appetite\/\" target=\"_blank\">HerodotusWept,<\/a> here is an account from Ira Smith, correspondence secretary\u00a0for a number of\u00a0U.S. Presidents &#8212; on the topic of Taft&#8217;s\u00a0weight-loss diet:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of Mr. Taft\u2019s troubles was food. He loved it, and the more food he could get, the more he loved it. The rub was that after he moved into the White House, his doctor and Mrs. Taft were constantly on the alert to enforce a diet that would get rid of some of his surplus poundage. Mrs. Taft might be reasonably described as a strong-minded woman. She took dieting seriously \u2014 for the President \u2014 and this led to a lot of talk that in a less famous household might have been called nagging.<\/p>\n<p>The President dieted, all right, but not when he could escape supervision. I remember once when I accompanied him on a journey to Ohio. When we got on the train, leaving the doctor and Mrs. Taft behind, the President began to perk up. He also apparently began to think about food, although it was ten o\u2019clock in the evening. \u201cAnybody seen the conductor?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>The conductor came a-running.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe dining car\u2026\u201d Mr. Taft began shyly. \u201cCould we get a snack?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The conductor looked surprised. \u201cWhy, Mr. President, there isn\u2019t any dining car on this train.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s the next stop, dammit?\u201d he asked. \u201cThe next stop where there\u2019s a diner?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The conductor believed it would be Harrisburg.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am President of the United States, and I want a diner attached to this train at Harrisburg. I want it well stocked with food, including filet mignon. You will see that we get a diner<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What\u2019s the use of being President,\u201d he demanded, \u201cif you can\u2019t have a train with a diner on it?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another Taft anecdote:<\/p>\n<p>He once found himself stranded at a country railroad station and was told that the express train would not stop for a lone passenger.He wired the conductor: STOP AT HICKSVILLE. LARGE PARTY WAITING TO CATCH TRAIN.When the train stopped, Taft got aboard and told the conductor, \u201cYou can go ahead. I am the large party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Asked by Joy Behar onHeadline News whether America would vote for a &#8220;fat&#8221; candidate for President, controversial film-maker Michael Moore, who has never been accused of being too skinny, responded that most of America is fat and would probably identify with an overweight Commander-in-Chief. Historical note: There have been a number of chunky Presidents. William&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[371,370,381,373,374,372],"class_list":["post-2542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-chris-christie","tag-michael-moore","tag-news","tag-over-weight","tag-weight-loss","tag-william-howard-taft"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Asked by Joy Behar onHeadline News whether America would vote for a &#8220;fat&#8221; candidate for President, controversial film-maker Michael Moore, who has never been accused of being too skinny, responded that most of America is fat and would probably identify with an overweight Commander-in-Chief. Historical note: There have been a number of chunky Presidents. William&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-28T14:27:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-09-28T14:34:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","og_description":"Asked by Joy Behar onHeadline News whether America would vote for a &#8220;fat&#8221; candidate for President, controversial film-maker Michael Moore, who has never been accused of being too skinny, responded that most of America is fat and would probably identify with an overweight Commander-in-Chief. Historical note: There have been a number of chunky Presidents. William&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html","og_site_name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","article_published_time":"2011-09-28T14:27:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-28T14:34:43+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html","name":"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-28T14:27:30+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-28T14:34:43+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/09\/michael-moore-america-would-welcome-a-fat-president-like-chris-christie.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Michael Moore: America would welcome a fat president such as Chris Christie"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/","name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rob Kerby","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2542"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}