When Presidents Talk Dirty: Statements Never Meant To Leave The White House
The president of the United States of America: Our national avatar of class, decorum and prestige. But even the most powerful man in the world talks a little down and dirty in private, if history is any indication. And sometimes -- rarely, but sometimes -- it gets repeated or, better yet, recorded.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
New Nickname: L-Bunghole-J
While never exactly known as the most elegant of U.S. presidents, most people probably don't realize quite how brusque LBJ was. In a recorded Oval Office phone call from 1964, our 36th president tries to order some Haggar slacks to his liking. Specifically a pair, as he frankly tells Mr. Haggar himself, that have another inch in "the crotch down where your nuts hang" and is "let out" back to his "bunghole." (Also, the burp at 2:28 in the video above isn't something you'd likely hear on "Meet the Press.")
In fact, LBJ loved to publicly talk about his anatomy, specifically his penis, which he was even known to wag around. Uh, what?! Johnson's manhood -- which he nicknamed "Jumbo" -- was a great source of pride for him. So much so, that if anyone ever walked in on him changing, or using the bathroom, he was known to keep his pants down and wave his Jumbo around, often proclaiming, "Have you seen anything bigger than this?"
Warren G. Harding
New Nickname: Warren G. Hard-On
Warren G. Harding is one of the least-regarded presidents of all time. And that's not even including the 106 recently uncovered letters written to his longtime mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips. In these steamy letters, Harding frequently references his penis (which he nicknamed, not Jumbo, but "Jerry"). As in once telling Phillips while she was away, "Wish I could take you to Mountain Jerry."
In an earlier letter, Harding had noted, "I feel that there will never be any relief until I take a long, deep, wild draught on your lips and then bury my face on your pillowing breasts." He eventually got even nastier with these love letters, asking his mistress, "Wouldn’t you like to get sopping wet out on Superior -- not the lake -- for the joy of fevered fondling and melting kisses?"
In other assorted letters, he writes about Phillips's "matchless breasts," "perfect thighs," "pink lips," and how often he came to an "alarming release" simply thinking about her while alone.
That's right, the president basically sexted.
John F. Kennedy
New Nickname: JF**k
Everyone knows about JFK's legendary appetite for women and affairs. The press didn't report on that kind of thing back then, possibly out of respect for the office or possibly because everyone in D.C. was sick of hearing JFK repeat the advice of his father Joe: "Dad told all the boys to get laid as often as possible." (JFK supposedly then added, "I can't get to sleep unless I've had a lay.")
Sleep, apparently, wasn't his only reason for refusing to keep his goods in his own pair of Haggar slacks. Our 35th president reportedly once told Democratic strategist Bobby Baker, "You know, I get a migraine headache if I don't get a strange piece of ass every day."
Richard Nixon
New Old Nickname: Tricky Dick
Nixon was quite famous for his, ahem, colorful language. He was also infamous for recording all of his conversations. As Politico explains, "The number of times '[Expletive deleted]’ appeared in transcripts -- not to mention the actual content on the tapes -- helped turn Congress and the country against Nixon, which led to his resignation."
It's now uploaded for us all to LOL at on YouTube (where "Nixon cursing" should be its own channel), whether he's complaining about "these b--ches who write for the Post and the New York Times" or drunk and railing against "this son-of-a-b--ching thing" Watergate.
Nixon was well aware of his own dirty mouth, but said in those secret tapes that women were too pure to speak like he did: "A man drunk, and a man who swears -- people will tolerate that and say that's a sign of masculinity or something other damn thing. We all do it. We all swear. But you show me a girl who swears and I'll show you an awful unattractive person." Just a little ironic.
Bill Clinton
New Nickname: "First Dude" in 2016, probably?
No, we're not gonna quote all the dirty talk collected in the Starr Report from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. ("I think he made a joke," Monica recounted, "that he hadn't had that in a long time.")
Instead, we'll point to a more recent example of Bill being explicit...
Back in 2012, when the economy was still brutal (as it is now) for millions of Americans, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's considerable wealth -- and his gaffes related to it -- proved to be his Achilles' heel, despite slipping poll numbers for the Obama Administration. This is how Clinton, ever the master pundit, reportedly described President Obama's electoral good fortune to numerous personal friends: "He's luckier than a dog with two d--ks."
