So did Donald Trump have a nickname for his penis? Warren Harding did
Presidential peccadilos go waaaaay back.
So here we are watching Donald Trump’s embarrassment pour out in a New York City court room. If you don’t know the story by now, you have been living in a news vacuum or under a special rock of silence, where broadcasting can’t reach you.
The charges are simple and complex at the same time.
The former president, it was alleged, had a deal with the publisher of the National Enquirer, which would serve as the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears” on anything embarrassing that popped up.
That led Trump, the prosecution says, to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 to bury her story about her tryst with Trump. He used money from his corporate empire to do that and then juggled the books and made a big payment to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to hide it.
The prosecutors say that was bad enough, but worse was the fact he tried to hide the affair because he wanted to avoid any True Confessions thing that might affect his chances at winning the presidency.
That is election interference.
I’m watching all of this closely.
Well, actually, I am not.
I have kind of had it with Trump. I had a glorious morning in my yard cutting up pruned branches from my apple trees, then had a nice lunch and now here I am, pondering an important question.
Did Trump have a name for his penis, and will Stormy Daniels tell us what it was?
Warren G. Harding named his.
It was “Jerry.”
As in like, “Let’s take Jerry for a little ride” or “Let’s climb Mount Jerry.”
You didn’t know that did you?
Most likely you didn’t know he had two mistresses in the White House, either. One of them was Nan Britten, 31 years younger than he, and she had his baby, Elizabeth Ann, perhaps conceived on the sofa in his office when he was a U.S. Senator
The Harding family denied and denied this for a long time. DNA ultimately proved them wrong. He was for sure the daddy.
Of course, that was so far back in time, 1920 to be specific, that it’s not the kind of history you would have kept in your head.
It’s not the kind of history that was taught, either. Media didn’t write about tawdry presidential things until long after the subject was dead in those days. In fact, there’s a long history of presidential shenanigans that were never revealed, but significant in their own ways.
Harding, for example, had his favorite White House closet for having sex. I don’t think there is a plaque there.
But enough about him.
There are lots of others to visit. The default example on the question of sexual behavior is, of course, Bill Clinton and his relationship with an attractive young woman named Monica Lewinsky, who gave him oral sex.
He swore he did “not have sex with that woman” which was one of those responses that raised debates and questions about whether oral sex is actually sex.
At some point, somehow semen from him got on her blue dress and that became evidence of the thing. All of this was so untoward that newspaper editors had arguments about whether it was okay to say “semen” on the front page.
In the story I wrote about for the Chicago Tribune, the editors insisted on “genetic material.” I thought that made it sound like a science project.
What about other presidents?
Yes, sex aplenty, not that you have read much about it. Alison Dagnes, a Political Science professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania (And you thought these kinds of things only came from Harvard!) covers it all in her book “Sex Scandals in American Politics.
Grover Cleveland was the father of a baby boy., Grover Folsom Cleveland, born to Maria Halpin, a beautiful woman who was very popular among the men in the circles he travelled in. Some said the baby was his, but others say he simply took responsibility for the child so the real father, who was married, could stay with his family.
The woman, Maria Halpin, left no doubt. It was his baby, she said, and he had forced himself on her. Widely spread, the story did not stop the popular Cleveland from reaching the White House. Twice. The allegation was that he was “Grover the Good,” although in time some viewed his treatment of Halpin as horrid.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had a long-time mistress named Lucy Mercer, who was Eleanor Roosevelt’s social secretary. That happened long before his presidency, but Eleanor was so angry about it they discussed divorce, but decided that would damage his political career.
She had a number of relationships with women, too.
Lyndon Johnson had a long-term affair with a woman named Alice Glass. He apparently didn’t care how that might have affected Lady Bird Johnson. Glass broke the relationship off over the Vietnam War. Johnson would occasionally expose his genitalsto people and claim he had had more sex than President John F. Kennedy, who pursued his appetites with great vigor, as he might have said.
Kennedy and his wife Jackie presented the perfect marriage image for the public. The Secret Service helped keep most of those things secret, and media in that era simply did not pursue those kinds of rumors.
The Senate investigation in 1975 of the question of whether Kennedy tried to use the Mafia to unseat Fidel Castro revealed that Kennedy had had an affair with Judith Campbell Exner, who was Frank Sinatra’s girlfriend and who later had an affair with Mafia thug Sam Giancana.
These situations stretch all the way back to the beginning. Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings.
And then there are the things we simply don’t know about. Maybe lots of them.
All of this is intriguing in connection with Donald Trump. The suspicion has always been that if many of these presidential behaviors had been exposed, no one would have thought much about them anyhow. Lots of these men were beloved by the American public.
Trump is not, so it might be a bigger burden for him, except among the true believers, who will simply not care.
Charlie Madigan was a reporter and editor for 40 years at United Press International and The Chicago Tribune. He lives in Evanston.
"Jerry"! That's the best he could do?