The Misanthrope’s Corner

FINDING my inner First Lady is easy: Mrs. Warren Harding’s maiden name was Florence Kling. When Carl S. Anthony’s biography of her came out this year I vowed to read it purely for pleasure so as not to be distracted by the underlining and note-taking of reviewing, but I found so many parallels between the Hardings and the Clintons that my four-color pencil ran out of lead.

Flossie Kling’s strident Midwestern accent was never more pronounced than when she barked “Wurrn!,” though later on when he was President she carefully purred “my husband.” Five years his senior, she was a frumpy girl with the strongest jaw in Marion, Ohio, and, said the daughter of her beautician, “she was self-conscious about her piano legs.” Thirty when she wed the philandering 25-year-old Harding, she hid what at first were imaginary throat wrinkles and later real ones with a black-velvet neck band. It would become her trademark.

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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FINDING my inner First Lady is easy: Mrs. Warren Harding’s maiden name was Florence Kling. When Carl S. Anthony’s biography of her came out this year I vowed to read it purely for pleasure so as not to be distracted by the underlining and note-taking of reviewing, but I found so many parallels between the Hardings and the Clintons that my four-color pencil ran out of lead.

Flossie Kling’s strident Midwestern accent was never more pronounced than when she barked “Wurrn!,” though later on when he was President she carefully purred “my husband.” Five years his senior, she was a frumpy girl with the strongest jaw in Marion, Ohio, and, said the daughter of her beautician, “she was self-conscious about her piano legs.” Thirty when she wed the philandering 25-year-old Harding, she hid what at first were imaginary throat wrinkles and later real ones with a black-velvet neck band. It would become her trademark.