Hail to the Chiefs

Happy Presidents Day! It's the holiday that takes the birthdays of two great men, consolidates them into one easy-to-schedule event, and then doesn't give you a day off work anyway.

Come to think of it, disappointment and half-hearted efforts actually are fairly appropriate way to celebrate a lot of our fearless leaders. Maybe a little too appropriate...

Anyway, Yahoo Movies is celebrating with a list of their top 10 cinematic presidents. How do these fictional presidents stack up against the real things? Let's try a little head-to-head comparison...

NICEST PERSON:

Real - Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite being a five-star general (and having the thoroughly awesome title of Supreme Allied Commander), Ike was known for his winning smile and exceptional golf game. He famously once said that Adolf Hitler was the only person he'd ever met that he didn't like. Even his campaign slogan, "I Like Ike" was relentlessly friendly, and his political ads looked like Disney cartoons.

Fictional - Merkin Muffley (played by the great Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove). He had all of Eisenhower's charm and courtesy. Come to think of it, he even kinda looked like Eisenhower. Muffley's faults were many and varied, but niceness was not one of them. He was endlessly polite to Dmitri (and his wife) when trying to explain that a deranged American general had launched a nuclear strike against Russia. And he uttered the greatest line in the history of fictional American presidents: "You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

Winner - Eisenhower. Sorry Muffley, but Armageddon is just not very nice, is it? And Ike did try to warn us about this sort of thing. Besides, he may have been a heck of a nice guy, but Ike was a general too, and I can't imagine him getting upstaged by George C. Scott like Muffley. (He used to be Patton's boss, after all...)

ABOVE: You just want do give him a hug, don't you?

BEST LEADER IN COMBAT:

Real - James Madison. The first (and far as I know, only) president to personally supervise American forces on a major battlefield, Madison helped direct the defense of Washington D.C. when the British attacked it in August 1814. Only two things kept him from being known as a great warrior: (a) he was 5'4", 100lb. lawyer with absolutely no military training, and (b) the Brits kicked the crap out of us and then torched the city.

Fictional - Thomas Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) Whitmore was a former fighter pilot, so when aliens conveniently invade on 4th of July weekend, does he sit back in the Oval Office and watch the action on CNN like the rest of us? Hell no, he saddles up and leads the charge on the alien mothership. So what if the battle was actually won by Cousin Eddie? Whitmore at least gets the assist. He also wins 5 bonus points for his rhetorical skills.

Winner - You're kidding, right?

ABOVE: OK, so I loved this movie
when I was in high school. Back off.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: What other half-assed honors can we give out to dead and/or imaginary Presidents? Stay tuned to find out...)