Mugwump. M-U-G-W-U-M-P. Mugwump.

Brave Astronaut is just going to tell me yet again that this proves I should be an archivist, but here goes. . . . 


One of our new U.S. history units has a lesson on the Korean War that includes excerpts from about a dozen White House memos, reports, meeting minutes, etc. 


I'm tracking down copies of these documents on the Web site of Truman's presidential library, and I got completely sidetracked because I found this portion of the minutes of a meeting with congressional leaders on December 1, 1950, to be completely hi-larious. (Click to embiggen.)  








 




I think it's partly because of the way mugwump is spaced out, with some comment pencilled in and then erased above it, as if the typist was unsure of the term, and partly because of the . . . well, it's hard to explain, but I suppose that it's essentially my schadenfreude about someone talking shit about someone else and then immediately being reprimanded for it by his boss (who, you know, happens to be the president!) and then being described for posterity as "somewhat embarrassed at this point" about said shit-talking. Heh. 


2 comments:

  1. Um, yeah. So what are we going to do about that, huh?

    You can start here:
    http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/soa/images/1/1d/Membership_Brochure2010.pdf

    The Fall MARAC meeting is in Harrisburg PA in November.

    Better see you soon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've been thinking about going to the fall meeting, actually.

    ReplyDelete