We don’t care about his presidency.  We just want to know about his sex life.  Well, we really don’t.  We’re just doing it so Clinton won’t feel picked on.

Let’s face it.  The guy was flaming.  Buchanan was the only president who never married.  I don’t know how much more proof you’d need than that.  The man across the street when I was growing up never married, and we all had him pegged for gay, too.

But then, if he’s a fruit, why was he ever engaged, to be married, to a woman?  Could’ve been a cover.  I’ve heard of people doing that.  But then apparently, after what one historian calls “an unspecified indiscretion,” she left him, and then she promptly died.  I’ve heard of people doing that, too.

Thankfully, Buchanan, in his time of bereavement, had the company of friends.  In particular, there was William Rufus King.  King, who was also known as “Aunt Fancy” by folks in Washington (DC, that is) was Buchanan’s long time live-in companion.  In all fairyness… I mean, fairness, I’ve known of guys living together before.  Of course, they were all gay, but that doesn’t mean Buchanan was, does it?

And really, truly, who gives a damn?  Nobody’s being anointed the first heterosexual president.  Why should we care who the first gay president is?  Even if it is Buchanan.  And it probably is.

Back before any of this gay nonsense was ever brought up, Buchanan was born somewhere in Pennsylvania on April 23, 1791, the second of eleven children.  You know what they always say about the middle child.   Well… they go to law school.

After graduating from Emily Dickinson College for the Performing Arts with a degree in law, he was elected as a State Representative in 1814 and served two terms before moving on to the House of Representatives in 1820.  Pay attention.  There may be a quiz.

For no apparent reason, Buchanan was appointed minister to Russia by President Andy Jackson.  When they finally let him come back, he was elected to the Senate, and shortly thereafter, well, 12 years, he was appointed Secretary of State under James Polk.  And then he became President Franklin Hawkeye Pierce’s Minister to Great Britain.  Traveling has it’s advantages.  If nobody really remembers you, it’s a lot harder to dig up dirt, so Buchanan became the Democratic nominee in 1856 – back when being a Democrat meant everything it doesn’t today, and nobody apparently cared about your sex life, either.  Rumor has it before he was a Democrat he was a Federalist, but nobody seemed to care about that, either.  Talk about an apathetic lot!

With the Civil War making its way up the road, in his inaugural address, which was reputably written by Argnard Harnish, the same person who wrote the inaugural address for the Titanic, Buchanan reassured the good people that they had nothing to worry about.  After all, it was just a legal question that the Supreme Court would take care of, right?  And we all know how well the Supreme Court handled the entire question of keeping another human being against her or his will as your own personal property.  And take care of it they did!  They came up with the Dred Scott Act.  Surprise!  They said that slaves were property.  Reportedly, there was dancing in the streets of Savannah, but that has never been confirmed.  To calm the North and forever settle the question of his sanity, Buchanan thought the best thing to do was make Kansas a slave state.  Kansas had other ideas, and so did half of his party.

The result was that the Democratic party split into Northern and Southern factions.  Just ask Sarah Palin:  A party that splits in two has no hope of winning.  It was a foregone conclusion that little known Abraham Lincoln, running as the Republican, would win the presidency even though his name didn’t even appear on any Southern ballets.  That beats hanging chad by a long shot.  It was also a foregone conclusion that once Lincoln was elected, the South would secede.

Buchanan tried to avoid the South’s secession by appointing Northerners to the Cabinet seats vacated by Southerners who resigned.  When that didn’t work, he took a more direct approach and hid out in the game room until his presidency was over and he could go back home where he was reasonably sure that no one would ever bother him again.

It was seven years later in 1868 that he died.  Reportedly, he commented to his biographer shortly before his death, “See.  I told you that whole Civil War thing would blow over.”

James Polk… James Madison… James Monroe… James Carter… James Garfield… and now, James Buchanan… It seems a bit more than just a coincidence, don’t you think?