Remembering George Washington in February 2012

As I've mentioned over the past few years, today is not really Presidents Day. It's officially George Washington's Birthday.

A 2/20/12 article in The Christian Science Monitor says...

...look at the US Office of Personnel Management list of 2012 holidays for federal workers. It says nothing about "Presidents' Day". It lists “Washington’s Birthday,” with an explanation. “Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law,” says OPM.

from www.notable-quotes.com

Why should President Washington have his own official holiday? You mean, other than his military leadership and his status as our first President?

In George Washington and the Gift of Silence, Stephen M. Klugewicz, former executive director of Collegiate Network, writes...

...It is well-known that in laying aside his sword after the Revolution, he consciously emulated the legendary Cincinnatus, who returned humbly to the life of the farmer after leading his fellow Romans to victory in a war that threatened his country’s very independence. Washington staged for his troops on dozens of occasions Joseph Addison’s play, Cato, which depicted the great Roman hero who defied the tyranny of Caesar. Scholars have noted how the events of the play mirror actual events in Washington’s career, including Cato’s confrontation with his mutinous soldiers, which in some respects, was replayed when Washington refused at Newburgh to lead a military coup against the Continental Congress...

In The Man Who Would Not Be King, David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, writes...

...In an era of brilliant men, Washington was not the deepest thinker. He never wrote a book or even a long essay, unlike George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams. But Washington made the ideas of the American founding real. He incarnated liberal and republican ideas in his own person, and he gave them effect through the Revolution, the Constitution, his successful presidency, and his departure from office. What’s so great about leaving office? Surely it matters more what a president does in office. But think about other great military commanders and revolutionary leaders before and after Washington - Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Lenin. They all seized the power they had won and held it until death or military defeat...