Though rarely honored these days exactly on Feb. 22, his actual birth date, “Presidents Day” is actually still Washington’s birthday officially.
And that’s entirely right and proper, as every American should happily honor our first chief executive.
What was most remarkable about Washington was (to riff off a fellow whose birthday we celebrated last month) the content of his character.
Richard Brookhiser rescued this view of our first president in his landmark 1997 book, “Founding Father.”
Hidden behind myth, written off by revisionists as just another dead, white, male slave-owner, Washington was in fact a man for the ages.
Born a Virginia aristocrat, he carefully cultivated his virtues — self-control, moderation, civility; his strengths physical and moral — to become the most widely admired presence first in the 13 colonies, then in the new nation.
He created two American institutions.
First was the army, which he commanded from 1775 to 1783, shaping a collection of untrained and undisciplined ragtag soldiers into a fighting force that defeated the world’s superpower, Great Britain.
He also set the future course of the US government itself.
Presiding over its first years from 1789 to 1797, he understood he was setting precedents that had to last — even as many disagreed on what precise form that government should take.
Yet his importance goes far beyond his résumé: It was Washington who emphasized that America was a republic when he rebuked those who wanted a monarchy or an exalted president.
Likewise, he set the precedent for presidential limits by refusing entreaties that he accept a third term.
“Washington’s last service to his country was to stop serving,” writes Brookhiser.
He was also the only slaveholding founder to free his slaves, albeit in his will.
For all these reasons and more, there was no dissent when Henry Lee famously described Washington in death as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
America this November likely faces a choice between two polar opposites of Washington: Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
Two candidates who lack precisely those qualities of civility, moderation, restraint and moral and physical strength that Washington embodied.
Both have a casual habit of lying and embellishing, grown more and more dire with age: a moral weakness if ever there was one.
Neither can criticize ideas he opposes without stooping to ad hominem attacks.
Witness Biden with his tarring of all conservatives as fascists and opponents of democracy or Trump’s endless stream of invective and nicknames.
The very definition of incivility.
As for moderation and restraint, it’s utterly missing from both.
Both show a total willingness to put crass, material self-interest above national interest, in Biden’s case quite literally selling his good name as a politician for money.
And both are eager to abandon our deepest constitutional principles (and oldest allies) in a quest to obtain and retain power, with Biden using the might of the federal government to go after critics.
Both, moreover, lack the wisdom necessary to know when to step aside.
Yes, Biden’s been a disaster for the country in a way that Trump simply wasn’t.
But that can’t mask the flaws Trump shares with Biden.
No wonder Americans want neither of them to be president; they both come last in the hearts of their countrymen, with good reason.
Indeed, their candidacies as such are the embodiment of our hyperpartisan political culture, which Washington and the other founders dreaded.
Unlike other notable presidents — Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, JFK, Reagan — Washington left no memorable lines that we continue to quote today.
But, as Brookhiser tells us, “His life still has the power to inspire anyone who studies it.” Give it a try.
If the two men all but certain to be their party’s nominees cannot learn from Washington, it’s all the more incumbent on us to do so.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
