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The Men in Black (Hats)


A brief reflection on America's Great Orators.

I might be on historically thin ice here, but it seems to me that men with head wear are significantly more likely to be statesman of high rhetorical caliber. Consider...

  • The authors of the Mayflower Compact were Pilgrims with over-large black hats (lovingly, but most peculiarly adorned with belt buckles).

  • Ben Franklin enjoyed his coon skin cap.

  • Thomas Jefferson was partial to the more fashionable colonial triangle, a hat vaguely resembling a wedge of cheddar.

  • George Washington did not wear a hat per say, but seems to have been fond of the powdered wig.

  • Abe Lincoln is famous for his black high top hat.

  • Ronald Reagan liked to wear his cowboy stetson anytime he could get away to his ranch.

  • Willie Nelson, American orator of another sort, is iconic for the sweatband (which at least qualifies as fashionable headgear).

A clear pattern emerges with an important lesson to be learned: the degree to which one's rhetoric will be immortalized by History is directly proportional to the intensity of one's cranial adornment.

A gross example of the fallacy of selected instance? I think not.

Blerkins
 
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