"I'm very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words." - Donald J. Trump
"We're going to beat the fucking shit out of them." - Donald J. Trump, a few hours ago
Before the what-aboutism starts, I'll preempt it. Yes, we've had Presidents speaking profanely in moments of great stress.
James Madison - In mid-August 1814 he appeared on Washington Irving's podcast, where the following occurred:
Irving: Mr. President, what shall you do, should the King's soldiers threaten the capital?
Madison: That will never happen, Irv. If they should so much as bivouac on the Potomac shoreline, we shall a commence a bombardment that shall flatten those fornicating limeys and leave them lying in their own shite.
(Two weeks later, after the British set fire to the White House, Madison issued a parchment with a single word: "Fuck.")
James K. Polk - Late in 1846, in the opening phases of the Mexican American War, Polk became the first President to use the steam-powered fax to threaten the Mexican leadership:
"I'm told your name is Santa Anna and that you propose to meet my armies on the field of battle. Well, bend over, Miss Anna, because General Scott shall, on my express order, ram a cactus up your nether trumpet until the spikes come out your ears. Booya, senor."
Abraham Lincoln - In April, 1861, as Fort Sumter was bombarded by Confederate artillery on the shores of Charleston Bay, an enraged Lincoln issued a tweet that was delivered by the Pony Express to Jefferson Davis's efficiency apartment, in Montgomery:
"Open the fucking harbor, you crazy bastard, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch!! All praise to Allah. - A. Lincoln"
Davis was perplexed by the Allah reference, as are Lincoln scholars today.
I assume that the cussing streaks of Woodrow Wilson to the Kaiser ("Up your Heinie arse"), FDR to Hitler ("Eleanor says you can eat her panty girdle") and LBJ to Ho Chi Minh ("Yall fixin to get fucked, ya know that?") are too well known to require separate treatment.
