With all the commercialized hoopla and holiday weekend sales, commentator George Will said it best on Sunday's "This Week," we may as well "drop the patriotic pretense [of Presidents' Day] and call it 'Shop Til You Drop Day.'"
While the third Monday in February is officially set aside to honor just ONE President, not all of them, it is universally known as "Presidents' Day" thanks to a proclamation signed by President Richard Nixon in 1971 and 30 plus years' worth of tradition since then.
Prior to 1971, tradition had long held that the February holiday was specifically set aside for George Washington. When some members in Congress attempted to add Abraham Lincoln to the holiday in the late 1960s, their efforts were rebuffed. It remained officially Washington's Birthday.
However, the slide of our once cherished February holiday into hyped-up worthlessness began at that same time when Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act, moving the official observance of Washington's Birthday to the third Monday in the month, regardless of when February 22 fell on the calendar. This was hailed by federal employees as it gave them a guaranteed three-day weekend (not only with Washington's Birthday, but also with Columbus Day). Many states followed suit, as did America's businesses.
Soon, a holiday once set aside to honor our first President became merely another extended weekend break - an opportunity to pack up the kids and visit Grandma or (thanks to an opportunistic retail community) head to a car dealership or shopping mall.
In 1971, when the Monday Holidays Act went into formal effect, President Richard Nixon sealed Washington's fate by proclaiming the holiday as "Presidents' Day." Nixon's intentions were for Americans to honor all previous Presidents (including presumably himself when he left the White House), not just Washington and Abraham Lincoln (whom many members of Congress still believed deserved a holiday in his own right).
In the years following Nixon's proclamation, the American public has completely and totally embraced the holiday's unofficial name, shoving Washington off his pedestal and recognizing him as merely one of many Presidents. Thus, Washington enjoys no higher accolades on "Presidents' Day" than William Henry Harrison (who served merely 30 days in office) or James Buchanan (who watched helplessly and sheepishly as the Union splintered under his very nose) or Ulysses S. Grant (whose presidency is regarded by virtually all historians as a complete failure) or Richard Nixon (forced from office in disgrace). This is a travesty that needs to be fixed....and fixed now.
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