City Desk: The Name Game

EXPERIENCE has been an issue in this presidential election, but it didn’t have to be. We have a number of former presidents right here, in the New York phone book.

There are, for example, three George Washingtons, one listed as George J. (there is also a G. Washington, who may be hiding his light under a bushel). Now since His Excellency served two full terms, there might be questions about re-re-electing him, given the 22nd Amendment. Yet that amendment had a Truman waiver, exempting “any person” holding the office “when this Article was proposed by the Congress,” or when it “becomes operative.” Surely Truman’s predecessors would be exempt as well. Herbert Hoover was still alive when the 22nd Amendment became the law of the land-he would have had to win a second term, of course, before he could think of a third-and it would not be beyond the powers of the Supreme Court to give a pass to dead presidents, who nevertheless seem to be alive and well in Manhattan.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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EXPERIENCE has been an issue in this presidential election, but it didn’t have to be. We have a number of former presidents right here, in the New York phone book.

There are, for example, three George Washingtons, one listed as George J. (there is also a G. Washington, who may be hiding his light under a bushel). Now since His Excellency served two full terms, there might be questions about re-re-electing him, given the 22nd Amendment. Yet that amendment had a Truman waiver, exempting “any person” holding the office “when this Article was proposed by the Congress,” or when it “becomes operative.” Surely Truman’s predecessors would be exempt as well. Herbert Hoover was still alive when the 22nd Amendment became the law of the land-he would have had to win a second term, of course, before he could think of a third-and it would not be beyond the powers of the Supreme Court to give a pass to dead presidents, who nevertheless seem to be alive and well in Manhattan.