American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - Knockouts: Group B

Episode Date: July 6, 2024

On to the second of the knockout episodes. Who will it be? We have Obama, JQA, Madison and Teddy R. Only one can go through!

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Group B. Hello and welcome to American President's Totalus Rankium, I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington up until Biden and we did all of the ranking but now we're doing the actual ranking and we're looking in the numbers and we're knocking them out. That needs to be smoother doesn't it? We need a better intro to the knockout mounts. I mean I don't want to be one to blame but...

No. Yeah, could be better. Okay, we'll work on it. We've got a couple more to go. Maybe by the final I'll have got it. Okay, it's group B Jamie. It is. You know what they say about group B. They're the B group. Yeah, the B group. Yeah, comes after the A group before the C group.

Yeah, generally how it works. Who is the B group Jamie? Do you want to tell us who we've got this week? I'm just trying to find my notes then I can tell you do have it Tell you what because you probably haven't seen this I bet you're really fancy with a Excel grid, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah, I've made it look all fancy Yeah, yes, I'll show you that. Oh that of course you have, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I'll show you that. Oh, that is, that is beautiful. Yeah, okay, that's pretty good.

So this, in Group B, we've got the following. We've got Obama, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, and Theodore Roosevelt. That's correct, that is Group B. And just like last time, we are going to decide which one of those goes through to the semi-final, semi-final one, and will be up against Franklin D. Roosevelt because we already have the winner of group A. But just like last time we're not jumping into the

main event like a couple of over eager history nerds. No, we're not gonna do that. Not us. No. It is time, Jamie, to get down and dirty in the political muck as we take a closer look into Disgrace Gate. So unlike the so-called equivalent round in the Roman series, Aprobium Crazium, this, alas, is not a fun-filled round full of fun and insane stories. Do you remember how fun appropriate and crazy it was, Jamie? Do you remember those days? Oh, they were lovely days, yeah.

Caligula fighting seashells on the seashore. Oh, those were the days. Pet bears eating people alive. Oh, that was great, yeah. Remember that. People dividing the palace in two and then murdering each other in front of their own mother. Oh, good, happy, happy days. Those were the days. No none of that. No this this is a pit of despair as we go through why a lot of people who led the United States had some very large skeletons in their closets. And we are going to start right in the mockery. We're going to have a look at the very

worst. Then we'll have a palette cleanser by looking at the best. However, before we do, just a small fact to cheer you up I thought, since we're here in the muck all around us. I was putting this together and I made some assumptions before looking into the stats. Considering we have looked at 44 individuals, roughly how many do you think score above half marks or below half marks in this round? Ooh, now judging by the premise of that question, I think it'd be less than I'm thinking. So I'd be thinking it'd be probably about half the presidents. I'll be honest, I was thinking it was going to be more than half the presidents scored more than half but no it's not too bad 27 scored less than half marks in this round as in they were all right 17 scored disturbingly high so 17 wrong ends and you know what better than i i feared for uh not too bad The average score in this round was 7.8. So apparently that's how

personally bad the average president is. That's not too bad actually. That's less than half. That's less than half. It could have been worse. So who are the bottom five worst humans, according to us? Maybe they were good politicians. Maybe they did a good job, but we just didn't like them because they were just not very nice Well, yeah Who were they? Do you want to just hazard a guess couple who are on this list? I think Andrew Jackson must be on there. Andrew Jackson is on the list. Yeah, I reckon Nixon's on there

Nixon's on the list. You're doing pretty good so far Two for two? Two for two. You're gonna call it it there when you 100% or do you think you can get a third? I'm gonna go for Franklin Pierce. Pierce is not on there. Dammit. Let me just be cannon. Oh, yes. Yes. Buchanan is on there. You're missing a very, very obvious one, by the way. Trump. Yeah. So that's four you've managed to get. I thought about it without saying. Johnson. Just having a look where Pierce was if you were close for Pierce. Oh no, Pierce. Pierce was. Pierce only got five, minus five for

this one. This didn't actually do too bad personally. Sorry, what was that last one just now? Johnson because of not being great. Oh, Andrew Johnson. He's high, but he's not top five. Johnson 123456789. 11th Johnson. Could Bush be on there because he sort of looked into the presidency. It was not Bush. I'll just let you know, shall I? Okay, top five in reverse order. So we have joint fourth place with 17 points a piece or minus 17 is James Buchanan and Harry Truman. Oh, nuclear weapon, yes. We'll talk about Truman more in a little bit. Then in third place solidly in third place, just on his own with minus 19 is Richard Nixon well done for remembering him being there and then in joint first place the most despicable of characters we had Andrew Johnson sorry Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump so as you can see a little bit of tidying up to do but not too much I don't think this is gonna

take too long we need to sort out James Buchanan and Harry Truman and I'm just gonna say immediately I still think we scored Truman too high in this round. Fair enough. Yeah, there's not much on him for this round, apart from a little bit about corruption in a time where corruption was rife. He got almost all of his points for dropping the bomb on Japan, and there's a grey area whether that should have been in this round or statesmanship. Yeah, that's a good point.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still rank him highly for that. I think he deserved the points, most of the points we gave him. But I don't think he's quite up there with the others on this list. Well, I know we've got a lot of pushback from a lot of listeners that we were too harsh on him here, and I can kind of see it. We got a message the other day. Oh, yeah, I think this is one of our most controversial decisions. I personally think if he ended up with a minus 15 rather than a minus 17, I think that's

where he roughly should have been. I wouldn't give him much more leeway, but maybe a tiny bit harsh. But if we're just judging these five or more to point him next to Buchanan, who we talked a bit about last time, I don't think you can compare Buchanan's definitely worse than Truman. Truman was largely a decent guy. Let's say Harry Truman's fifth then. That makes that easy. I think that's fairly easy because remember Buchanan, there's a good chance in his youth he may have driven a young lady to suicide. Don't know if you remember that.

His fiancee Anne overdosed on laudanham after Buchanan just started ignoring her and calling on other women. He was very happy to support slavery, remember? He helped push through a law that stated that black people had no rights. He was corrupt through and through. He used bribes regularly. I mean, it's just no contest in my mind. So yeah. So so Truman maybe slightly hard done too. Buchanan definitely fourth. Then we've got Nixon. We don't need to talk about Nixon. He's in third place for all his lies, his racism and his sexism. He was just not particularly a nice guy. But we do need to decide between Trump and Jackson. I don't think I need to go through Trump again to remind you of all the stuff he's done. We've just done his episode and we see it in the news every single day. But what about Jackson?

Just a very brief reminder of what Jackson did. He killed people in several jewels. Like that's not really far off being just a straight up murderer. He beat people on more than one occasion with sticks. He ordered executions illegally. That's a no-no. He systematically lied to the native population, leading to tragic results, including forced death marches. Forced death marches are not good. And he is the most Roman emperor-type president, and that is in no way a compliment. I know we did a whole

180 episodes on emperors and don't get me wrong we love the Roman history but it's not a compliment to say your president acts like a Roman Emperor. No. We should know. So yeah so out of those two what are your thoughts? I this is really tricky because modern lens for Trump, old lens for Jackson, but it's both bad. My gut feeling is Andrew Jackson should be the worst. Yeah. And it almost pains me to say it, but Donald Trump's never killed somebody that we know of. He's never encouraged slavery. Yeah, exactly. I think you've got to be right there. I think Jackson's got to come last year.

I think if you plopped Jackson into the modern times, I think he'd probably, due to his surroundings, be slightly better than Trumpers, although still not a nice guy. I think if you took Trump back in time to Jackson's time, he'd be a lot worse than he is now. I definitely think this is a depending on what time you're coming from kind of issue. If you just look at the cold hard facts, Jackson did a lot worse things than Trump did. Yeah, it's undeniable. It is undeniable. So yeah, like I said, I didn't think this one would take us

too long. So our official listing is Harry Truman comes in fifth to last, James Buchanan, fourth, Richard Nixon, third, Donald Trump, second, and Andrew Jackson, we are saying is the most disgraceful person at a human level to have ever been the President of the United States. Well done, Jackson. We'll make you a little badge. Yes. Okay, top five, or rather top four for reasons you'll see in a moment, but there we go, this is gonna be nicer, isn't it? Yeah.

Who do you think the four nicest you take them home to meet your mom guys were oh I think maybe Washington's in there Washington is not in there oh no hang on oh what's his name the lollipop Hazel be in there yeah Obama I think is in there Obama is in there yeah anyone binge listening to these and has just listened to the last episode will be shouting through the headphones, aren't you? Shall I just tell you? Yeah. Before I do, we are only doing the top four because we have four presidents who scored nothing at all in this round. That makes sense.

Well done. So, nothing at all, obviously, is the highest marks in this round. There were no negatives Well done. So nothing at all obviously is the highest marks in this round. There were no negatives. Zero is the best you could do. And then in joint fifth we have seven good eggs. Okay. What classifies a good egg? I reckon a good egg is someone who scores minus two in disgrace gate. Okay. Yeah. It means all around you are a good guy but hey we all make mistakes. We're all human. Yeah. So we had John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, McKinley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ford and H.W. Bush, Bush Senior. All of them we said, you know what, they lived fairly blameless lives with maybe a blip that we gave him a point for. And rather than try and separate all of those and decide who's fifth, I've decided that we just just do top

four unless there was one of those that just jumped out immediately that you think we should give the fifth place to. No, no, that's what I thought. It's like that's a long deliberation. So let's just say we're doing a top four. And if you're listening, you can choose who was fifth in this round, because we love consistency. It's weird how I get really sort of things have to be in a certain way for some things and other things. I just don't care that much. So that's fine. We just have a top four for this. It just seems easier. Anyway, those top four, they are all on zero. So we need to decide the order. We have Barack Obama, Jimmy order we have Barack Obama Jimmy Carter Dwight Eisenhower Dwight Eisenhower who did last time and Rutherford B Hayes sharp-eared listeners will realize that last week I said there

were only three who scored zero but I forgot to mention I just didn't spot Carter when I was writing my notes so it's actually four. Of course So, very, very brief reminder of why we thought they were so good. And then we will decide who the nicest person was. So Hayes, we'll go through chronologically. Hayes was a lovely chap, most of the time, as we saw. The only criticism we had of him was his treatment of the native population when he was president. Hayes was, however, one of the better people around at the time, and he wanted to push through things that were progressive for the time, but it still wasn't great.

So we did debate about giving him a point there, but in the end we decided he was actually better than pretty much everyone around him, and also arguably that was statesmanship. So we decided zero. That's why he got zero Yeah, next Eisenhower We covered him last week The main thing we could have given him points for in this round is the fact that he had a very obvious and open Affair during World War two with his driver. Yeah. Yeah

However, we decided to keep it a zero because it appears that him and his wife Mamie were in a marriage of convenience really by that point and certainly afterwards it was a marriage of convenience and they only stayed together to help their careers was some suggestion that Mamie had had her own affairs earlier on in the marriage it doesn't seem like it was a marriage where they were both deeply in love and then Eisenhower ran off with another woman to leave her broken hearted wife at home. It seemed like they drifted apart in an age where divorce was messy and tricky. Like a Clinton-esque sort of marriage.

Yeah, exactly. Which is why, although we discussed it, we decided to keep that one at zero. Although we did get a couple of messages to say that maybe we were a bit too lenient there. And maybe just a point would have been worth going on the cards but apart from that we had nothing at all and that's what we ended up giving con zero. Carter next up Carter has entered the public consciousness for being squeaky clean and for good reason the only scandals that broke out were about his brother which we decided were nothing to do with him it's his brother apart from that we had literally nothing to do with him, it's his brother. Apart from that, we had literally nothing.

The only other thing that we talked about was this idea that he gave up his peanut farm because he was so squeaky clean, which makes it seem a whole lot more wholesome than it was. It's a big multi-national billionaire company by that point. Maybe not billion, but still it was a big company. It wasn't like a little raw peanut farm. But still, the fact is he didn't do anything untoward with it. There's just nothing there Carter is definitely a straight-up zero And then Obama tan suit Jamie tan suit. Yeah, I mean that was almost a minus five there It was we did we did get quite not quite a bit We got a couple of messages that were very strong in our

Not quite a bit. We got a couple of messages that were very strong in our score on Obama in this round, saying that we were far too generous and we shouldn't make a joke about the tan suit, because that's covering up all the other terrible stuff that he did. And no one really thought the tan suit thing was bad anyway. Well, to argue against that, I found actual articles written at the time where the tan suit thing was genuinely being held up as something awful. So to pretend that no one cared about it really is not true. People did care about the Tansuit and it was ridiculous. And to say that it's covering up other issues with Obama, I can agree there are some things in statesmanship that you can pick him apart for, definitely.

But not this round. I still maintain on a personal level there's nothing there that I could find you can disagree with his politics you can disagree with the way he ran the country but on a personal level like a really like all slightly perhaps boring guy so the perfect politician yeah exactly so there you go they are the four that's why we gave them zero. I think maybe Carter and Obama have the edge on Eisenhower and Hayes because we did, listening back to the Disgrace Gate rounds which I did, there was a quick discussion on whether to give Hayes and Eisenhower a point which we decided not to. That's true but if we're doing that then Carter needs to be number one. Fine I'm happy with that let's put Carter in number one, Obama number two.'s quite like Hayes but the trouble he wasn't great with native populations

but yeah. Arguably statesmanship and he was going in the right direction. There was no one in government doing the right thing and he was the voice of reason going in the right direction. It just in our modern ears he was still because he was so lovely and his letters and his diary He was He was so lovely. So let's go fourth place is Eisenhower in third place is Obama in Second place is Hayes and our most lovely president was apparently yes, Jimmy Carter Excellent. We've got our top four and if anyone's getting really annoyed at the fact that there's not a fifth you know what let's

just say it was Lincoln. There we go, fifth is Lincoln. Excellent. Right, okay there we go that's our introduction but now we've got the main event Jamie. It's a group similar to last group I'd say where there's stronger and weaker candidates. There's certainly no round of death group, I'd say, where there's stronger and weaker candidates. It's certainly no round of death group C. No. We have got President Number 44, Barack Obama, a Democrat, who ranked 12th overall. We also have John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, a Democratic Republican, who came sixth overall.

We then have the fifth president, James Monroe, so only one before. Another Democratic Republican, ninth overall. And then we have Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, a Republican, and he was third. Ooh. So you've got a favorite to win. We do have a favorite, just like we had a favorite last time. I think it's safe to say the two Roosevelt's are the two favorites for group A and B. Yeah. But FDR did not get through comfortably last time just because you might be the favorite. That's true. Depending on what I tell you now Jamie you might form an opinion. Um telling you now I'm more open on this one than I was last last week. Okay. I could be Presidents where modern presidents have struggled to 15 in statesmanship a fairly reasonable score for statesmanship especially in the latter presidents where modern presidents have struggled to score highly in this round. Disgracegate as we have just covered

he does very well he's one of only four presidents to score zero. This is where he suffers. Silver screen less than half marks he only got nine. Yeah yeah his life was not as interesting as I hoped it would be. I'll just put it bluntly. Canvas ability, he took a major hit there. Because I really did not like his official portrait. A lot of people have told me I'm wrong. I just say artists objective and a photo realistic cutout on a plain white background. Looks like you've not finished editing your photo it just did not look good to me so he suffers there he got two terms no one tried to kill him he got one point for election winning but not in a landslide so that's that's his stats but let's do a quick recap so he was born in Hawaii 50th state and second westerly most state after Alaska. Yeah, Alaska actually goes further west.

Yes, weird thing. It's got it's got a little tail. It's right at the top. It's easier to get further west. Yeah, that's true. Less distance to go. It's got a tail. Anyway, he then moved even further west or further east depending on which way you went and moved to Indonesia. Yeah, he did. That was interesting. I didn't know that about him and him moving to Indonesia and seeing lots of different cultures was fascinating. This is definitely the most interesting part of his life. Yeah, it's his early years. That's what I found most interesting because then he was back to Hawaii. He seemed to love living life on the island until he became a teenager and caught the I need to get out of this small town bug that a lot of people in America seem to get. I remember thinking this growing up listening to a lot of post-punk music. I've listened to things like Green Day and Less Than Jake. All the songs are just about getting out of this small town. It's just a teenage thing isn't it? Yeah it's a teenage thing but it's like your towns are all

quite big aren't they? But I didn't understand you big country you can still get small towns in it Anyway, Obama got that bug. He was fed up of living in almost literal paradise where he just got to surf every day and be in the sun and just enjoy life Must have been torture Yeah, absolute torture Oh another day of surfing and barbecues on the beach, why god why? Well he then went to California, and just got more of that. He went to the college that's used in lots of films, so it's the stereotypical American college in California that us Brits would think of.

So I'm guessing he was having a nice time there. But this is also where he becomes very serious. His friend said overly serious. He starts wearing turtlenecks and smoking too much and listening to a lot of jazz. He became a very serious, arty student, really into his politics. He moves over to New York. He wants to get back to his roots. You remember there's a lot of him questioning his own identity.

He didn't feel like he belonged anywhere at all. And again, this is all interesting stuff. He wanted to be in Harlem. He wanted to be seeing what he was reading about. Civil rights movement. He didn't want to be in the nice sunshine. He wanted to go where he was reading about his heroes. So that's what he did.

And this, unfortunately, is why his life stopped being interesting in a kind of, oh, wow, that's interesting in a way. But this is where he starts picking up points in other areas, because he then moves to Chicago and spends a few years genuinely helping the poor Jamie. What? did not really ever ever see anywhere else in this entire series. Yeah, he did not just go off to become a lawyer. He went, No, I'm going to be a community leader. And I'm going to just help people. He got a lot of points for me for that. Then he met Michelle, then he does start his career as a politician and lawyer, where to be honest, not too much silver screen stuff happened. However, he rose through the party. And eventually becomes the first African-American to become President of the United States. That alone is a big deal and gives him some silver screeny kind of points. Anyway, he was president in a tricky time to be in

politics as the GOP had been pulled further and further to the right. It had become increasingly partisan, leading to the right, it had become increasingly partisan, leading to the Democrats to also then become increasingly partisan. So we start to see the United States are very divided, especially in the post-Reagan years, the divide just gets bigger and bigger. Obama struggles to get anything done, but we gave him a lot of credit for two things. One was rightening the economy after the crash at the end of Bush's presidency and the second thing was managing to get through the Affordable Care Act and increasing the

quality and accessibility of millions Americans to have care yeah so he got a couple of big things through but to be honest that that was it there were some other things going on at the same time. We did criticize him for a couple of things. He continued the war on terror. Yeah. Especially the use of drones. But we also understood that they were so deep into this war on terror now that just pulling out would actually lead to more harm. So we could kind of see why it was going on even though it wasn't good. Overall, we thought he was a very competent president with a lot of charisma leading in a tricky time but ultimately is that enough to go through to the semi-finals Jamie? Yeah. We will have to decide. Yeah interesting. Okay on to the next one.

We've had a very recent one now we're going right back to the start only the sixth president of the United States John Quincy Adams Democratic Republican scoring 35.25 as he Is the second highest scoring in Group B and let's break down his stats 14 for statesmanship Pretty good very similar to Obama there Only minus two for disgrace gate. So he officially is a good egg. Silver Screen, this is where he really gets some points. 19 for Silver Screen. Yeah, so this is why he comes out. Yeah, that's why he comes out ahead of Obama. He had a more exciting life. Canvas Ability, 3.25, that was good. Only one term. No one tried to kill him. And nothing

for election because he got in but popular vote yeah what where did he come in the ranking he came sixth in the ranking which is pretty good that's very good i'm fairly sure that is higher than john quincy adams usually gets in rankings but let's not forget that's not how good he was it's more how interesting he is okay so he was born before independence before the united states was even a thing he was. Okay, so he was born before independence, before the United States was even a thing. He was born in 1767. He tried to read Paradise Lost at age 10. Wow. Yeah, if you remember, he was a bit of a pretentious little kid. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, obviously, his dad is John Adams. His dad knows people. Yeah, not yet at this time.

But yes, his dad will become the president. At the moment, he's obviously a leading figure in the revolution. So revolution happens. Off to Europe, he goes with his father. The British are trying to capture the boat that they're going on to kidnap John Adams. So there was an exciting scene there that we enjoyed. They get to Europe, and his father's doing all sorts of political things, negotiations about independences going on, but John Quincy Adams is studying. He's a young kid. He's studying, exploring, he's getting experience. He studies in the Netherlands and then

in Paris. He goes off to visit Russia at this time. He's getting on a bit now. He's now in his teens, later teens. So it would appear he got to know some ladies in Denmark because he seemed to like Denmark a lot and the company there. We get the feeling that he enjoyed his trip through Denmark. Essentially he grew up touring the elite of Europe. He had a childhood, his teen years were spent robbing shoulders with the richest of the rich in Europe. But even though that's not his family, his family is certainly wealthy, but they were not like aristocracy class. Anyway, back to America. He goes to Harvard and he then becomes a lawyer. He uses his dad's connections to get a job working as Minister for the Netherlands. So back to Europe

he goes, then Minister for Prussia, and then back home again. So there's a lot of going backwards and forwards between America and Europe. His dad becomes the second president of the United States. Back in Europe again he gets married to his wife Louisa. They stay in Prussia for a few years. If you remember they arrive in Prussia but their paperwork was wrong and they were almost turned away at the door, which we found very amusing. After staying in Prussia for a while they go to Russia and they love Russia. It's full of palaces and they are there with the very richest. They're almost personal friends with the Tsar kind of thing. Just opulence and debauchery.

Yeah. Nothing can ruin how wonderful and brilliant and oh dear Napoleon's invading. Napoleon is invading. So the family trek through war-torn Europe, basically going the opposite direction as Napoleon, which is fascinating stuff. Adams then rises through politics back home. Things like the Louisiana Purchase takes place, so he was dealing with that. He spends his time politically fighting. He becomes the Secretary of State under

Monroe. And then in 1824 he wins a very close election where he is accused of making a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay to keep Andrew Jackson out. I mean, that's probably a good idea. He does not want Jackson to be in charge, so he makes a deal with Henry Clay, who, if you remember, they had history, but they decided to do a deal anyway, and it works. John Quincy Adams is president, Jackson stays out. He was a mediocre president to put it bluntly, but we were impressed with how forward thinking he was. Compared

to the founding fathers, he seemed modern. John Quincy Adams is the first president who was not a founding father. So it seemed like, oh, there's a new generation now. Perhaps he was too modern for the country. They did not like all of his new crazy newfangled ideas, which essentially came from the fact that he knew how the European countries were doing it. Yeah. And he had seen how much better the European countries were doing everything compared to this fledgling young country. And he kept saying things like, why don't we do it like they do in Russia?

Or they do this thing in Prussia and oh in England they do this and there's a lot of people in America understandably at this point go no we're nothing like Europe yeah go away with your crazy ideas. We're new, we're the innovators, leave us alone. Let our crops die John. Yeah he just came across as a bit pretentious and he kept talking about the things he did when he was friends with the Tsar. He came across as a bit pretentious and he kept talking about the things he did when he was friends with the Tsar. He came across as out of touch with the every man. So he only lasted one term and then he was voted out.

He is one of the handful of presidents who go on to do important stuff post presidency, however. Now, no, generally we don't talk about post presidency, but John Quincy Adams post presidency was actually very important. I was tempted to include it in the episode, but we didn't really, we just very briefly mentioned that, but he spent the next 20 years almost in the House of Representatives, pushing through anti slavery reform. He was at the forefront of that for the next 20 years. He dies on the floor of the house. Wow. Yeah. The reason why he gets American and why his score is

so high is, like I said, mostly a silver screen score. You can start his story with the revolution and you can end it where you've got a young Lincoln and he's talking about getting rid of slavery and we're starting to get into the pre-war pre-civil war era yeah it's it's all very very interesting multinational story yeah but is that enough to go through? It's interesting. Okay next. Okay we have to go back only one president here we've got two presidents right next to each other because James Monroe was the fifth president, also a Democratic Republican. He's got 31.5, which puts him ninth a good egg. He's not a good egg. No, but a lot of these early presidents what with like owning people quite often Scored quite a bit in disgrace gate. Remember John Quincy Adams was really the only

true anti-slavery voice for quite some time in our podcast Anyway, silver screen a very respectable 18 canvas ability half marks 2.5 terms to no one tried to kill him landslide election means two Points there. So yeah, we go now to the last of the founding fathers James Monroe He was born in the 1750s during the seven-year war to a well-off family But we're not talking like super rich like the Washington's or Jefferson. It was just a Alright family. Yeah. The Revolutionary War breaks out. He's old enough to sign up, so he does. And he happens to serve under Washington's cousin. And then the luckiest thing that ever happens in his life happens when he is shot

and he almost dies. And because of this, and because he happened to be serving under Washington's cousin, he happened to meet the real Washington, as they used to call him. They used to call Washington's cousin the fake Washington, much to his annoyance. So he met George Washington, who promotes this Monroe, this brave young soldier, to captain and learns his name. Now, this chance happening would change the course of Monroe's life. After the war, he could use these connections and he did, so he studied law under none other than Jefferson in Virginia.

He then gets into politics, he runs for the Virginian General Assembly, easily getting in due to the connections he made during the war. Monroe seemed to have a good time for a while. He was a war hero, he had famous friends, he enjoyed everything you would imagine that would bring. In particular he has made friends would imagine that would bring. In particular, he has made friends with Jefferson by this point. Friend and mentor figure. He gets married to his wife Eliza around this time, and then he goes to the Continental Convention, where men around the

country try to do the Etchish sketch reset of the country, where they went, oh dear, okay, we're independent, we tried it for 10 years, this is awful. Let's pretend that didn't happen. Let's start again. So they did. Washington becomes the first president and Aspen Road go to France as the United States Minister there. France, or very nice in France, usually. But oh dear, oh dear, they're in the middle of a revolution. Not the most fun place to be. However, they kind of got lucky. They arrived just as one faction of the revolution had overturned another faction. And despite the fact this was in the peak of the revolution and there was literally blood running in the streets, it was actually relatively calm for a while because there

had just been a big overhaul and a lot of head chopping. So everyone went, right, and now we're done. Now we're done. Promise? No more head chopping. We're finished. Last one. Last purge, we promise. We only needed that one and now we can have a stable society. Anyway, Monroe made a very good impression on those now in charge of France. Remember this point? You had America and France were the two countries who had revolted against the oppressive monarchies and they were best friends. So yeah, everyone very happy with Monroe. They make him a hero. They enjoy themselves. And then he goes back home to be the governor of Virginia. After this, he's back to Europe

again. He works in Britain, France and and Spain helping iron out political difficulties, all again linked to independence that's still going on. Back home he's made Secretary of State by his friend slash rival slash political opponent, depending on what time in his life it was, Madison. And then in 1817 he is elected President, the fifth President. He is known for presiding over the era of good feelings, Jamie. Oh, that sounds nice. Do you remember the era of good feelings? This was where political parties were eradicated, just like Washington wanted, and everyone worked together towards a common good.

No more political parties. We're all in this together. Wow. However, this is far too simplistic and idealistic a view of what actually happened. The reality was that the Federalist Party fell apart and the Democratic-Republican Party became so successful it became a uniparty. The government became the Democratic-Republicans. However, there was so much infightinging in the Democratic Republicans, it starts to split apart. We see the rise of the Democrats. So we ended up dubbing this the afternoon of good feelings,

because it really was not an error at all. It was just a political shift. But if you just look at what happened to parties, you can point at a brief window and go, oh look, everyone was in the same party for a while. How nice. So yeah, Runro gets a lot of credit for being a president in the era of good feelings. I think it's a bit overhyped myself. Anyway, Florida is gamed from Spain during his presidency. Arguably more importantly, the Missouri Compromise is put in place to try and stop the spread of slavery.

There's a lot to be said about the Missouri Compromise. We talked about it in the episode. It's good. It's also very bad. They're trying to stop the spread of slavery, but they're doing it by drawing lines on a map. And if the British ever taught anyone anything, drawing lines on a map is never going to end well, is it? So you can kind of see the very starts of the Civil War here. But at the same time, it's being done to try and stop the spread of slavery. And that's a good thing. The Monroe Doctrine is established, the United States is not going to get involved in the old world. We're going to be self sufficient. We're going to stay over here in the Americas and the rest of the world, you're

going to leave us alone. None of you are allowed to come and interfere with us or South America. Only we're allowed to interfere with South America. Thank you very much, they said. So yeah, a lot of people claimed that this was a good decision at the time, and it seemed to work well enough. Generally, we thought Monroe was a good president. Most people seemed happy under him. There was an economic boom for a while. It then crashed as these things happened, but that's economies generally pretty good pretty good fairly interesting story yeah but is it good enough because now we go to Theodore Roosevelt the 26th president a Republican with a score of 38.50 putting him third place in the

total rankings breaking down his score statesmanship 16 or 4 much of a muchness in that round yeah today uh disgrace gate minus six so not terrible but there's a little bit there silver screen uh 20 um is has only two presidents who scored 20 jayme and we'll discuss next week which one has got the best but 20 puts him at the moment joint top for this round so he's got lots there canvas ability knocked it out the park with a 4.50 wow only one term believe it or not because he was an accidental president he didn't serve two full terms he served almost two full terms right It was very close. Assassination, yes, someone tried to kill him. Of course they did, it's Teddy Roosevelt.

Woke up, he was batting assassins off his doorstep as he left the house in the morning. Anyway, election two, landslide victory. Teddy Roosevelt, well, let's be honest, he's the favorite to win this one. But after I give you a recap, maybe I'll think otherwise. Born to a stupidly rich family. Like, stupidly rich. Arguably the most rich that we had come across by this point. But it wasn't all good for him because he was born very weak and

very ill. He was traveling all around the old world with his family doing things like taking cruises up the Nile when he was a small kid he went and climbed on the pyramids that kind of thing he was struggling to breathe however so his father would ride him around on the carriage with him on top as fast as he could to try and get the air in the boy right that's ideal that's my that is just absolutely perfect I had a tight chest this morning and it's just unpleasant. Restricted movement. It's not good. Did you consider getting on top of your Carrier Drop? Well, I did think about it because I've written these notes up. I thought about this. It's like,

oh, the last thing I want to do right now is jump on top of my car and have someone drive me to work. That would be awful. Yeah. Anyway, due to his weakness, he starts to work out a lot on doctor's orders and attempt to get stronger. And this works. It does. So off to Harvard he goes he does very well at Harvard, he becomes obsessed with a young woman called Alice. If you remember, obsessed is the word. St stalker also could arguably be the word. He went in hard, right? But as romcoms have taught us, it's not stalking if they eventually say yes, that's just romantic, Jamie. So eventually, Alice agrees to marry him. And it's all very romantic. She's crying down the aisle. So they get married. How lovely.

And it would appear that this is just going to be a nice story about a man, an eccentric man who gets married. But no. Shortly afterwards, Alice dies on the same day as Teddy's mother. Oh yes. Yeah. All tragic. Is that the diary entry? The famous diary entry?

Was him the writer? Yeah, did I write? Did I quite a diary entry for this bit? Today is the day the light of my life is gone or something. It's quite sad. That rings a bell, that does, yeah. Yeah, just just let's in line. It's February, Thursday, 14th, 1884. There's a black cross at the top and it says the light has gone out of my life. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember if I quote that in the episode I think you did, that's what, you're moaning me It's all very, very tragic. He starts to get into politics around this time because that was always his plan But he's all over the place. Like you just said the lights gone out of his life. So Everyone knows you're suffering from depression. What do you do? Go for president?

No, you run away to become a cowboy Oh I forgot about that! Yeah, that's what you do. So he run away to become a cowboy. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, that's what you do. So he runs away to become a cowboy. He goes off. He works on a ranch, he gets his own ranch. He goes to Deadwood, Jamie, where he met the actual Seth Bullock. Oh, my goodness. That's amazing. And all the other characters from Deadwood. Quite why Deadwood didn't have Teddy Roosevelt just popping in at one point for a cameo I don't know really should have done but the fact we had a president visiting Deadwood is just absolutely amazing. I want to watch Deadwood now. I've not watched Deadwood for ages. Maybe we should do a

re-watch of Deadwood. I haven't seen the new one either. The new film. I haven't seen that. Oh no I watched the film. Yeah I haven't done that. It's fine. It's okay. It's worth watching if you've seen the series. Okay. But I just I think the series ended so well and considering it was just abandoned I you'd think it would just stop and it would be rubbish but no it ended well. Anyway we're talking about Deadwood we should be talking about Teddy Roosevelt. Anyway things settle for Teddy for a bit. And then he marries his childhood friend, Edith. He tries to become the mayor of New York. It doesn't work, but he's very involved in New York politics.

He is pushing for reform in a corrupt system that does not want to be reformed. He becomes the police commissioner. He implements many reforms to help fight the corruption in the city. McKinley is president at this time and appoints him as the assistant secretary of the Navy. Okay. And then he resigns his post almost immediately because the Spanish-American War starts up and he wants to go and fight. Oh.

Yeah. Now he's got friends high up so obviously he's going to be leading, leading men. That's what he's going to do. And he goes and he leads the Rough Riders. Off he goes to fight we covered all of this in the episode not gonna cover it now but there's lots of war stories the kind you're told as a kid and he comes back as a national hero after the tales of his daring do in the war are reported back. He's then elected New York Governor, where

he pushes through even more reforms. Then he is elected as the Vice President nominee under McKinley. Now, if you remember, Teddy didn't want this. Vice President job was a useless job. No one ever wants to be Vice President. But a faction of Republicans in New York were so fed up of Teddy, they to promote him up and out of the way. Just get rid of him. Get him out of the state. Make him vice president. We don't have to deal with him anymore because he keeps trying to reform things to make things better. And we're making money right now. So not really wanting the job but the pressure was put on him a lot by the party. He decides fine I'll have to do it then and he becomes vice president.

And then McKinley is shot and dies. Ah yes. Teddy Roosevelt becomes President at age 42, Jamie. He's very young. 42. The youngest President at the time. Anyway, nothing major happened under Teddy Roosevelt. Might surprise you because he's such a bombastic man, but world events were quite calm at the

time. There is some stuff to do with the Panama Canal, but not much else But saying that everything was quite frantic Roosevelt was a frantic man We did see a push against corruption. We saw a rise in the power of the executive branch Remember joined the guild at age the executive branch and the power of president and whittled down to almost nothing But almost entirely due to the force of personality of Tedding as well, he makes the president important again. He battled against the monopolies and promoted conservation, he promoted workers' rights, and the square deal, that was all him, which is basically what the New Deal was eventually

based upon. And on this platform he was elected in his own right, so he was no longer an accidental president. We thought he was a decent, if not amazing, president, but he had a fascinating life and he was very interesting. We criticized him for allowing a coup to develop in Colombia, which gained the United States land, which was a foreshadowing of what the United States would be doing for the next hundred years.

We also criticized his racism. We had seen worse, but it is definitely there. He is no denying it. He thought that some races were better than others. Yeah, no prizes for guessing which race he thought was the best. His redeeming feature in this area is that he also just as firmly believed that all civilizations should be treated equally. It was that kind of condescending racism where it's like, yes, obviously the white man is better, but can't we pretend that's not the case and all just get along and treat each other well. So okay, that's a slight redeeming feature. It's a shame that the racism is just so embedded there. You can't see past that man of his times. So we criticized him for that. And we also, let's not forget, he shot his neighbor's dog because he was angry he got dumped. Oh, looks like he's barking or something at night. Well, no, apparently it was loud, but it's mainly because him and Edith, remember they were childhood friends way before getting married, it would appear him and Edith had a bit of a fling going on when they were very young, let's say very young, like teenagers, and it would appear that they had a falling out.

So Roosevelt just went and shot the neighbor's dog. Okay. So he did that. He shot a dog. If you're listening in the future, by the way, the Kirsty Gnome story came out not long ago. And if you're not sure what this is, Kirsty Noem was a possible vice president pick for Trump in the upcoming election. So she was potentially going to be his vice president pick until she admitted to shooting a puppy because it was misbehaving. It turns out that there were three things that can unite America. That is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the flying of planes into the Twin Towers, and the shooting of a puppy at a quarry. Because everyone turned on this.

Yeah. No, no, no. There's some things you don't do. You don't shoot a dog. This has ruined her career. There's no way she's going to be the vice president pick anymore. Well, never say never. I didn't see her try and use the Teddy Roosevelt defense, but Teddy Roosevelt did it Yeah, that's what she should have done. Yeah Yeah, I want less Yeah, just thought it interesting. It's just this one horrible story about Teddy Roosevelt and it never gets mentioned Anyway, so we've got our four, but now we need to go into

What does sound guy call it last time the deliberation? Proclamation. Yes, fantastic. Yeah. Okay, let's do it Well, I I've got a feeling you shouldn't be first I've got we just potentially fourth place Okay, I've got a potential fourth place as well Should we say at the same time? I'm now debating it Yeah, oh time. I'm now debating it. Yeah. Oh yeah okay I've chosen. You might shout at me but I'll go for it. One. If I do I'll edit it out like normal. Go three then say it. One two three say okay. One two three Monroe. Oh yeah we both think Monroe needs to go he's not the lowest scoring no um

but I don't think he I it didn't spark happiness in me it doesn't does it it's fine everything's fine and I see why he got it and it's yeah it's fine yeah I agree. But there's nothing I'm going, oh, did you hear about Monroe? It's the most interesting bit is that he goes off to France to run the revolution for a bit, but it's not. That's not good enough, really, is it? No. Make a great TV series for me. Yeah. Okay, Monroe's out. So now we've only got three left. I think this is gonna be trickier now. So I think there's two that we could talk about. Two talk about going through? No. Ah yeah I think, I don't think we are going to be deliberating as much as last week. No. But let's not jump ahead. No, no of course not. We'll reserve who we think has won until the very end. Yeah. But let's talk about the two

that have them and anyone listening will just pretend to have forgotten the name of Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. Who? Yeah. Who? Yeah. So it's close between John Quincy Adams and Barack Obama, isn't it? Yeah. I agree. I think John Quincy Adams had a great story. Yeah.

He had a political father, obviously ex-president, or became president when he was a child. Barack Obama, more modern, slightly dull life really, but did a lot for civil rights, tried to do that. He was the first black president. Oh, and the bloody tan suit as well. I think they are very different and they're different ends of the American timeline which makes it quite hard yeah to judge the the history-loving part of me gets very excited about John Quincy Adams touring around Europe yeah that that is exciting if you take that away there's not much there and I like the anti-slavery stuff.

Yes, that's a really good point. That's good. And I like him living a matter of time, which means there's just a lot of big important moments of American history that you cover when you look into his life. But it is mostly the fact that I like him trekking around Europe. Obama was nowhere near as interesting as I hoped he would be. No, and that's that's the yeah, but It was interesting after doing

43 white American guys, it was nice to do a black American guy. Yeah You got a sense that he was actually a bit different. The closest we ever get to that is arguably Van Buren, who was Dutch speaking. He just seemed to have come from a different culture than anyone else we'd covered so far. So it's just a bit different. We saw things we hadn't seen and it made it interesting. It's unique. But a lot of it was boring. But this isn't how interesting. This is American. Yeah.

This isn't silver screen. This is overall big picture. How does it make you feel? What's your gut instinct? I really like the fact that one of the very few times we see an American president who earlier on in life was actually just trying to help people. Yeah, genuinely. Yeah, not I mean you see lots of the early guys trying to help in a big idealistic way. This is how humanity should be and this is what democracy could be. It's the great American experiment. We're going to it's but it's all big big picture stuff none of them are actually helping Jim put beans on the table yeah just only him and Jimmy Carter really like done that sort of thing yeah and Jimmy Carter arguably only really post presidency yes good point yeah not as a not as a kid Obama was there in his

early 20s spending years just pounding the streets of Chicago and the winter just helping people fill out forms and like fill in potholes and get to job interviews and stuff. I really like that and I think that should be celebrated more. And it's not like his life was boring, it just I was hoping for more. I don't know, it's close. I don't know. Do you have a preference on these? I don't think I do. I think because I'm more closely linked to Barack Obama through time, that draws me slightly closer towards him.

But a bit like you, history's interesting. And John Quincy Adams, he had his own TV series, didn't he? No, that's his dad. Damn it! Okay, well I'm gonna call it then, and if you disagree with me, say so and we'll debate it more. I'm going to say, Monroe's in last place, then John Quincy Adams, then Obama.

Yep, I'll go with that. So now we need to debate who's first. Should it be Theodore Roosevelt? Yep. Yes, it should. Okay, so... Theodore Roosevelt. Yeah. Yes it should. Okay so it just obviously is him just going through a quick summary of the story. He's got a very interesting story. He does all sorts of different things but he's also trying to make the

country better. He's fighting corruption, he's going against the monopolies, he was a decent president, nothing too crazy happened. And he had an interesting life. And yeah, there are some dodgy things he did shoot a dog. But again, it's not who this isn't just a Skracegate. It's not just statesmanship. It's not a silver screen. It's an overall. So yeah, it's Teddy, isn't it? Yes, Teddy. Well, I'll be honest. Now we've done them. Let's just be all open here. Group A and Group B definitely had their favorites,

and the two Roosevelts were the favorites. Yeah. They're just, it's hard to get past that. However, from now on, oh, it's wide open. Group C and Group D, I genuinely haven't got a clue who we're going to put through. I've got my two picks. I'm regretting my pick for the next round.

Oh, do you think it might change? I think so, but I'm adamant for the final round and I will fight that one. My choice. OK, interesting. So just in case you don't have a list in front of you, because why would you and you're listening? Group C is the group of death. And we'll be doing this one next time. Sorry, Jefferson. Goodness me. This is why seeding is a thing usually.

And we didn't think to seed. That sounds so wrong. I think we did seed in the Roman series. No, I did. I did. I got the top. Because there were six groups. Well, eight groups. There were six groups. And I got the top six and I put them in different things.

I'm fairly sure we seeded in the Roman one, it just didn't occur to me. So, but hey, it makes it more exciting because it means we've got a group of death which is Lincoln, Washington, Reagan and Jefferson. Yeah, I think it'll rhyme as well, it's quite nice. I mean you've got three of the four Mount Rushmore presidents in one round. Good point, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, oh gosh. Yeah, it's a group of death. It really is.

Absolute group of death. That means whatever happens, guarantee that the final cannot be Lincoln v. Washington, or Washington v. Jefferson, or Reagan v. Lincoln. It just can't happen. So some big names are going out next week and I genuinely don't know which one I'm going to go for. I think I'm just going to say things at you and then you can argue your point and we'll see where we go from

there. Group D, it's interesting you're saying you've got a definite person because I've not at all. I think I've got one definite no and the other three I could see why you would go through. We have Hayes, Jackson, JFK, and Madison. So... I think the one you're saying definitely no to is probably my choice, which would be interesting. Oh no, no, I don't think it is. Oh, isn't it? Okay. No, but hey, we're getting way ahead of ourselves, Jamie.

That is for two episodes time. Let's not discuss that now. Right, well done to Roosevelt. Semi-final one is now decided. It is a Roosevelt v. Roosevelt semi-final. But that's not next time. Next time is Group C. So tune in for that one. If you own a podcasting device that needs tuning. Thank you for downloading us wherever it is you download us from. It could be from wherever. And just a general thank you very much.

Yeah. load us from it could be from wherever and just a general thank you very much yeah oh and next time you hear us yes will be post-election election season in Britain we'll have a Labour government should be Jamie stop prejudging the election anything could happen Jamie anything could happen anyway yeah so yeah okay well until next time then goodbye. Goodbye And this is BBC America with the American sport Hello, my name is Winston Featheraway. I'm Cuthbert Manpatton and here we are in the Americas bringing you the American sport. And what do we have this week? Well today we have a game that was clearly invented in Britain.

It's called, well we call it Rounders. The Americans call it Baseball. The Baseball. How is the base... It looks quite similar but slightly different to Rounders, there, Wilson. Oh, sorry, just to say, dear listener, if you joined us for the NASCAR, unfortunately we were not invited back. There's something to do with them going in a different direction. Not us, but them, hope you understand. Something like that. So we're not on the NASCAR this week unfortunately, which is a shame, I did love the NASCAR. The NASCAR was fun, especially the Flames. Yes exactly, but no it's fine,

we've secured ourselves all season here, we will be commentating on the baseball. And as we look out onto the field it looks like the stadium is a triangular shape with a pointy bit and the other side is sort of curved and in the center there's little white squares that some of the players are standing on. Yes. In the middle of those squares there is somebody with a ball in his hand that he's throwing it at a man with a stick and his aim is to hit the ball as far as he can. I can only assume so. I caught a little bit of this yesterday Winston Winston, just to be prepared. Oh?

Yes, I did get everything, but I'm fairly sure when they hit the ball, they've got to run as fast as they can around the big square. Like a diamond shape? Well, there's no such shape as a diamond, obviously. Yes, so anyway, they're going to run around the square and they get points, and I think that's how they get points. Very similar to rounders old chap if you remember that. Yes. Yes but apparently this is not how they usually play. Apparently it's usually two teams face off against each other but obviously in this special presidential

round it's actually four individuals will be coming up to bat one at a time and they're going to see how they fare. That sounds very exciting. Okay so who do we have here today? So we can see up to bat first is Barack Obama. He was one of the presidents, one of the later presidents. He's looking very confident. He's doing some star jumps at the moment and shaking hands with a large proportion of the audience and asking what they do. He's very fit is that Barack Obama. Look at him jogging on the spot there. He's jogging on the spot. He's throwing fit, is that Barack Obama. Look, he's jogging on the spot there. He's jogging on the spot.

He's throwing his bat up in the air and catching it again, not even looking. Oh, fine figure of a man. And he is stepping up to the lumpy bit at the front. Yes, yes. And the man behind him has his big, big leather glove on. I'm not sure what his job is. Oh, I assume that was a supporter. Oh, the foam fingers the foam fingers yes no he's wearing a

white stripy suit as well so I think he's part of the game right okay thank you thank you right okay and we have the thrower the thrower is standing up in the middle of the square and I believe we're about to get our first throw I'm sorry what picture apparently it's for a what? Oh, a picture. Apparently it's called a picture. A picture? Yes, a picture. A picture.

Right, okay. So, the picture is standing there and... Oh, that was quite a throw! Did you see the speed of that, Wilson? Yes! Well, no, I didn't even see the ball. Nor did Barack Obama, because it went straight past him, straight into the mitten. The big kinky leather mitten, yes.

Well, Barack Obama looks a little bit disgruntled at this, and he looks like, oh, he gets another go, which is splendid. Oh, I assume that will be him out. No, he gets another go. What a polite game. How lovely. I like it, yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, if that happened in cricket, well, he'd be off, wouldn't he? Yes, and beat him to death with his own bat. Yes, harsh game, cricket. Yeah, if that happened in cricket, well he'd be off, wouldn't he? Yes, and beaten to death with his own bat. Yes, harsh game cricket. Game for men. Yes, a three day long game for men.

And... Oh, and Barack Obama clatters that one! Look at that! Look, oh, the ball has gone all the way out into the stands and... Oh, he is running, he is running... He's run around the whole square and now he's celebrating oh that's fantastic excellent I believe that he scored a point I'm guessing yes one point one point to Barack Obama fantastic okay who do we have next next up is John Quincy Adams he has never played this game in his life no having of course being born and dying before the game was invented, but he looks very happy to be here.

He looks very happy, being led on by his father, John Adams. Farberson Chat here, can't quite make out the words, but John Quincy Adams does not look happy. Maybe a bit too much fatherly advice there, Winston, if you know what I mean. As you can see, he's gently trying to guide his father off. He's always giving him a shove. Okay, I'm a shove. And John Adams is shoving back. This has turned into a brawl. It's turned into a brawl. The two Adams are now punching each other.

Or as our American friends could say, a family feud. Apparently that's a game show. Oh, right. I don't know. Okay, very good. They're being separated and it's fine. John Adams is being led off by the man in the stripy pajamas and John Quincy Adams is going up to the bumpy bit and he is going to be hitting the ball next.

And we can see the picture, he's raising the ball in the air, over his shoulder and he throws it! Oh, he hits the ball but it's not good, it's not good at all, it's not gone very far and I'm not really sure what happened there but John Quincy Adams has now just stopped, he's just stopped. He didn't run round the whole square, he stopped halfway. No, he stopped at the second base. Oh, I see. And apparently a second base in America is quite a good thing to achieve, I wouldn't know.

Right, okay, well second base it is, so I'm guessing halfway round the square, half a point, yes? Yes, why not? Excellent, so that's half a point for John Quincy Adams, one point for Barack Obama, but who do we have here? And the next one is James Monroe. James Monroe, confident, confident stride from Monroe there, very confident. Very confident. Oh, it's a big, big grin on his face, and there's a lot of supporters here, a lot of supporters holding up their Democratic Republican flags. Yes a lot of good feelings you could say. Yes that's what the banner says over there we all have good feelings with Monroe it says which is lovely absolutely lovely. Absolutely splendid. And the picture is throwing the ball and oh straight pass so quick straight past him such speed

they throw these balls such speeds and it's it's back with the picture and he gets his go again yes the picture is throwing the ball and oh missed again straight past him and we're looking furious with himself in the crowd they're not happy they were cheering it seems the era of good feelings was around for that long it would appear so but it's okay apparently you get another go guessing you just get to go until you hit it so he gets his next go oh it's another miss it's another mess but not to worry he's always leaving the field I'm not sure what happened there maybe he gave up he's going to sit in that trench yes off the

side with the with the roof. Yes. Why is he going? Did he get bored? Sorry. Oh, apparently you only get three goes. You get three goes. That makes sense. Oh. Yes, we're learning on the job. It's fine. Three goes and you're out. That's what they say. Three goes and you're out. Right. So that is Monroe gone. He is out. But, oh, I didn't even spot it did you spot it? spot what? John Quincy Adams ran all the way round oh well he's waiting he was a so cheeky chap oh I liked it, he was quite splendid there you go so he's edged himself another point I don't know do you get another half point for that? because he didn't do it all in one that's three quarters of a point

let's say that for John Quincy Adams three goes the points and now we have Teddy Roosevelt strutting strutting on with his mustache and oh someone's just shot him but he's fine he's absolutely fine he's just pulled out a cigar case and the bullet hit the cigar case so he's fine he's gonna carry on he says not to worry oh I didn't think you noticed someone Just shot him again no, that's all good Bible this time small pocket Bible what a guy That's very helpful what a guy and as he's making his way to the lumpy bit to hit so I can see he's inspecting some of The local wildlife always picked up a little butterfly. Oh That's a large penance for such a small butterfly a shitty re really using a mallet

It's like he's trying to kill a vampire cut but I know, it's really quite graphic. Oh, not as graphic as that! He also spotted a rabbit on the way, and he used the bat. So, that goes in the pocket, apparently. Anyway, he's now on the bumpy bit, and he is ready. He is ready to hit the ball. Oh, which he does first time, and again that ball goes right into the crowd. Everyone is cheering, everyone's loving it. He's running around the square. Oh, he's taken one, two, three stray birds as he goes. He's taken them out as well. The birds are in the pocket. He is quite the ornithologist. And yes, he gets a whole point for getting round first go. Well done. So that is Obama getting all the way around and Teddy going all the way around which I believe is a tie. Yes. So they're gonna go again. They're gonna go again to try and discover who

it is but it's quick fire this time I'm guessing. So Barack Obama is walking up to the lumpy bit. His bat is still being tossed into the air and he's catching it. Behind his back in his left hand that is very very cool. Very cool. He's put out his cigarette at the end of his bat. And oh he hits it and he's running he's running he's running oh wow we've not seen that before they know that the ball the ball was picked up by one of the other players on the pitch and then thrown to one of the little squares go around the big square and he got there before him and just like in rounders it would appear that knocks you out but he did get to the third one so I'm guessing three

quarters of a point yes so one or three quarter points for Barack Obama okay but now our final hit of the game it is it is Roosevelt of course and he steps up the crowd hushed silence all we can hear in the distance is the dog barking a lonely dog barking. Lonely dog. Oh, Ted, Ted, Ted, Ted, he's walking off. He's walking off. Oh no.

Well, dear listener, I'm not sure what's happened, but just, just to be clear, we heard a loud bang and we can no longer hear the dog. Let's hope a balloon burst and the dog ran away. Let's say that shall we? Let's say that. Oh and Roosevelt's back in the stadium and he steps up. And as he reads his blood-soaked bat into the air he's ready to take his final shot. Oh and he clatters it again and again. It's out the stadium. It's almost out the stadium. It hit a seagull. It hit a seagull. The seagull's now dead. Roosevelt catches the seagull whilst

running, gets round the whole square. That's another full point. So Roosevelt is the winner with two points. Obama gets one and three quarters. It's not good enough. That is quite impressive. Very impressive. Well I don't know about Winston, but I've had a lovely time watching the baseball I think the baseball has been absolutely amazing. Yes And if we could just also give a round of applause to our picture in the middle, he did a very good job Yes, this is a picture of good sportsmanship. That's what he was Just my little joke. Well, it's been a pleasure. Do you know what? I'm quite glad we got kicked off I mean we were reassigned from the NASCAR. I'm enjoying this. It's been a pleasure. Do you know what? I'm quite glad we got kicked off. I mean, we were reassigned from the NASCAR.

I'm enjoying this. It's a bit more, uh, lower pace, but that's fine. A bit like, a bit like cricket. A bit like cricket. I can, I can cope with this. Yes, so join us next time, dear listeners, and we will be watching more of the baseball. Yes, well, thank you for your attention. And this, I have been Winston Featheringway.

I am Cuthbert Manbatton. And this is the BBC. Goodbye. Good evening.