Veeps, the snarktastic look at America’s Vice Presidents, is subtitled “Profiles in Insignificance.”

This isn’t always an accurate description, since such well-known figures as Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George H.W. Bush started off as vice-president. Still, there are many names in here that you’d be forgiven for not knowing, such as George Mifflin Dallas and William Rufus DeVane King.

Whether well-known or lost to history, the veeps are certainly entertaining, whether you’re a history buff or just someone who enjoys a bit of schadenfreude. Rather than detailing the lives of the also-rans of the executive branch, Bill Kelter offers up the best anecdotes about each man, with cartoons and a portrait of each by Wayne Shellabarger.

If history were taught like this, more kids would remember it. There’s the list of titles that John Adams wanted to give the president (“His Mighty Benign Highness”?), and the little detail that Aaron Burr, after being charged with treason, wrote letters to his daughter from exile detailing his escapades with prostitutes. We all know about Dick Cheney’s “hunting accident,” but who knew that Richard Mentor Johnson (vice-president under Martin Van Buren) married not one, but three of his slaves?

Lest you think the book exists solely to make fun, some of the anecdotes actually improved my opinion of the veeps. Apparently Lyndon Johnson told a camel driver to come visit him in the U.S., and when the guy actually showed up, LBJ took him to his ranch in Texas, stopped in to meet President Truman, and then paid for him to go back to Pakistan and stop in Mecca on the way. After reading that story, I wanted to go back in time just so I could hug Johnson.

The collections of facts and color create unique portraits of men familiar and long forgotten, and provide a bit of insight into the character of the executive branch. History was rarely as bland as high school history books make it out to be, after all, and it’s nice, in the age of Blagojevich and Palin, to remember that we’ve survived worse.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.