'Did you know?'

In a most amazing bit of chutzpah, the White House has inserted the incumbent's name into every presidential biography from Calvin Coolidge onward. Want some trivia about Silent Cal? The official White House biography (with an unlikely attribution to a book by Michael Beschloss and Hugh Sidey) helpfully adds this little factoid:

Did you know?
On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).   President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

And so it goes, through FDR, JFK, LBJ, and ten other more or less recent presidents. WSJ blogger James Taranto cuttingly remarks: "[Mr] Obama is under the mistaken impression that America's symbol is the bald ego." Blue skies! -- Dan Ford