Now that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court has clearly demonstrated it cares not a whit for the voting rights of African Americans, it’s virtually certain that George W. Bush will be our forty-third President. How we ever got to this miserable nadir, I can’t say.What’s on my mind right now is the frightful statistic sometimes referred to as The Zero Factor. Since 1840, every President elected to a term in an election year ending with the number zero has died while in office. The only exception is Ronald Reagan, who just barely survived an assassination attempt.
- 1840: William Henry Harrison
Caught pneumonia after giving the longest inauguration speech in history while standing outside in the bitter cold of January 1841. Passed away a month later. - 1860: Abraham Lincoln
Assassinated by John Wilkes Boothe at Ford’s Theater in 1865. - 1880: James Garfield
Fatally wounded in an assassination attempt by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, but suffered for eleven weeks before passing away. - 1900: William McKinley
Assassinated in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz. - 1920: Warren Harding
Died under mysterious circumstances in 1921. No autopsy of the body was allowed. - 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945. - 1960: John F. Kennedy
Assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. - 1980: Ronald Reagan
Survived an assassination attempt two months after his inauguration by John Hinckley Jr. The exception that might prove the rule.