The Timely Need to Restore Washington’s Birthday as a Federal and State Holiday

           As I do every year, I call for the restoration of George Washington’s birthday, February 22, as a federal and state holiday.  It is urgent for Americans to recall the example of contributions of Washington to be inspired to help defend the American Republic from grave threat.

The federal holiday is officially called “Washington’s Birthday,” but is never celebrated on his birthday, while States usually refer to the holiday as “Presidents’ Day,” which has become the popular name for the celebration.  The day was intended to honor Washington for his entire life as the General who led the American Revolution, a Founding Father, President and greatest American, not only for his presidency.  The current practice of combining the observation of the holiday with celebrating other Presidents detracts from the contributions of Washington.   Only one other American is currently honored with federal and state holidays for his birthday for his contributions of following the founding principles of America, but not the Father of Our Country who lead them into effect.

            Last year, I noted that including all the Presidents in the observation of Washington’s birthday necessarily includes not only those who were ineffective or those whose policies were controversial of who may have been objectionable, but those who were scoundrels.  Recent events have validated my concern.

            At the time, I was particularly thinking of William Jefferson Clinton, Jr. and Donald J. Trump, Sr.  Although there are differences between them, there are striking similarities and the former, a Democrat, had encouraged the latter, who was a political donor to Clinton’s wife, to get more involved in the Republican Party.  Clinton had, among other things, protested against the United States on foreign soil during war and then in office, had committed perjury and obstruction of justice in a federal lawsuit in which he was being sued for sexual harassment by a state employee during the time he was Governor of Arkansas by lying about his abuse of his office for conducting an adulterous affair with an intern in the Executive Mansion.  Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted by the Senate because of his popularity and because of partisan support for his policies, both reasons that were not consistent with the purpose of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, as lying under oath, for which lesser officials had been impeached and removed from office, is inconsistent with holding any office for which an oath is required.  The election and acquittal of Clinton lowered the standards for the presidency and allowed the election of Trump and his partisan acquittal.  Indeed, it was noticeable that during the Special Counsel investigation of Trump and his impeachment, the exact same arguments were made by Trump supporters and Clinton supporters had made.

Among other things, Trump had as a private citizen a questionable record as a businessman and, like Clinton, was of unfit character, had dodged the wartime draft through fraud, and had made a mysterious trip to the Soviet Union.  Instead of primarily ideological reasons, as in Clinton’s case, Trump had business interests in the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, among other places and an indifference to or even admiration of authoritarians, such as Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, who helped Trump get elected in 2016 in a close contest with a “sweeping and systematic” interference in American politics, which Trump had welcomed and even had coordinated his messaging with the release of information stolen by the Russian military intelligence agency and released through a cut-out.  The Special Counsel found that Trump, once in office, had obstructed justice by interfering with his investigation into the matter.  It is not even necessary to prove my point by citing Trump’s profiting off the presidency and violations of the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution.  Neither Clinton, nor Trump could have passed even the lowest level of federal security clearance before their elections, but were nevertheless elected by the Electoral College, which has been corrupted by partisan laws contrary to its intent as a safeguard, and given access to the most sensitive U.S. secrets.  Both made defense and foreign policy decisions that were contrary to U.S. interests based upon their rejection of standard American foreign policy principles. 

As I explained in a post in more detail earlier late last month, Trump was impeached, for example, for abuse of power and obstruction of justice for extorting an ally, Ukraine, to smear a leading opposition presidential candidate by withholding military aid he had signed into law to defend it against Russian invasion and to announce the opening of an investigation based on a conspiracy theory fabrication by the Kremlin that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.  In addition to pecuniary interests, Trump was motivated to continue his broadly claimed immunity from investigation and prosecution (for himself, his businesses and for his family and associates, from both federal and state prosecutors) while in office.  Trump was impeached with the highest vote totals for any articles of impeachment ever.  One Representative, who had left the Republican Party to become independent because of supporting impeachment of Trump for obstruction of the Russian interference investigation, voted in favor.  One Republican Senator voted to convict and remove Trump from office, the first time there was ever a vote to convict from a member of the same party as the President.  Trump’s subsequent behavior of threats and retaliation of witnesses and calls for lighter punishments for his convicted henchmen represent a worsening of his authoritarian tendencies and contempt for constitutional principles, such as the Separation of Powers, the independence of the judiciary, equality before the law, the freedom of the press and other freedoms, in addition to his compromise of the independence, self-determination and sovereignty of the United States. 

The practice of supplanting Washington’s birthday with “Presidents’ Day” necessarily honors such scoundrels, contrary to liberty, equality and representative government to honor and contrary to Washington’s exemplary example of selfless service who did not use his office for self-aggrandizement, unlike Clinton or Trump.  More than ever, Americans would benefit from recalling and honoring The Father of Our Country’s indispensable service to the United States through a restoration of the observation of Washington’s Birthday.