"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

-- Groucho Marx

So, just who is it we think we're kidding with this whole Presidents' Day nonsense, eh? First of all, the name itself -- Presidents' Day -- is a crock. Despite the lofty appellation, few who take the day off will spend it contemplating the historical development and political intricacies of the executive branch.

Puhleeeze.

Indeed, until advertisers plaster portraits of Millard Fillmore and Chester A. Arthur on their Presidents' Day sale-athon brochures, and until cultural historians wax nostaglic about the glory days of Grover Cleveland and Rutherford B. Hayes, then we must admit that Presidents' Day has very little, if anything, to do with the actual accomplishments of the U. S. presidents.

In theory, of course, the day is supposed to celebrate the achievements of all our nation's chief executives from Adams (both John and J. Quincy) to Zachary (Taylor, that is).

In theory.

But in reality, Presidents' Day is one of those made-up holidays, born out of the economic need to consolidate the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln so employers won't lose too many manhours to patriotic observances. And because of that consolidation, George and Abe still dominate the holiday landscape, with their mugs and caricatures being exploited to hawk everything from overstuffed chairs and ottomans to nonstick cookware and half-price costume jewelry.

Ah, nothing is quite as presidential as a red tag sale on cubic zirconia.

It's not surprising, really. Washington and Lincoln have entered the great American mythos as our ideal presidents, the ones always named at the top of the list of presidential greats, the ones always mentioned with a sort of hushed reverence.

Presidents' Day, then, is not about cheering for the 41 men who have sat in the big chair. It's about celebrating our vision of what a president should be. It is a day where we exalt the president-as-hero and tell stories about Washington and Lincoln to show how heroic they were.

So, the stories that are told of the famous duo -- most of which have no basis in reality whatsoever -- have a mythic quality to them. Washington fessing up after cutting down a cherry tree. Lincoln trekking through inclement weather to return a book he borrowed.

So why these stories?

In other lands and in other times, the stories of mythic leaders often lauded their bravery in the face of overwhelming odds -- David facing Goliath or St. George slaying the Dragon. Or else they have extolled the wisdom of the leader -- Solomon, Confucius and Lao-Tzu come immediately to mind.

But the stories we tell of Washington and Lincoln center neither on their bravery nor on their incredible intellect, but on their truthfulness, their honesty. We even call Lincoln "Honest Abe."

Curious what the stories of the two say about us as a people. If you only had the stories to go by, then you'd have to say that the thing we value most in our president, our leader, is honesty.

Yeah, right.

A recent "George" magazine profile of Arizona senator and executive branch aspirant John McCain asked the question, "Is John McCain too honest to be president?" The implication, of course, is that if you are too honest, you can't make it to the Oval Office.

Face it, we don't think of our presidents as honest men any longer and probably haven't thought of them in those terms for years. It didn't start with Bill Clinton, y'know.

John Kennedy, the man after whom Mr. Clinton liked to model his own rise to power, had his little dalliances about which he was not so candid. Seems Mr. Clinton learned well.

During Vietnam, it was LBJ. Then there was Watergate and Mr. Nixon. Even Ronald Reagan, who many would like to see with George and Abe on Rushmore, was not always completely honest with the American people. Even today, most Americans believe that both he and Mr. Bush were less than truthful about the whole Iran-Contra business.

Furthermore, with Reagan's background in the glitz and greasepaint of Hollywood, many doubt the authenticity of his whole presidency. Was it truth or just the role of a lifetime?

No, Mr. Clinton wasn't the first to be less than honest. He just elevated it into an art form.

Mind you, I'm not saying the president should have been given the boot last week for his little games of slap and tickle and his subsequent fibs to -- well, to everybody. No, what interests me more is the public reaction to the whole sordid affair -- uh, event.

Yes, yes, yes, we all know he lied, but we just don't seem to care. Given the whole parade of Beltway Bozos that has marched by in recent years, we have come to expect our presidents to lie to us on a regular basis, cherry trees and stovepipe hats notwithstanding. And if the economy is good, then we'll let them concoct stories for us all the way to the bank.

In fact, despite the example of George and Abe, we don't seem to have much tolerance for a president who will tell us the truth. Did Jimmy Carter just say amen?

Our presidents are Pinocchios and we don't even need their noses to tell us when they're lying. We have become so cynical that we expect them to lie all the time. And we wash our hands of the whole lot of them even as we ask, "What is truth?"

The difference, of course, between presidents and the little wooden puppet is that Pinocchio learned moral lessons from his adventures and ended up becoming human. I doubt we can expect anything similar from the White House.

~Jeffrey Jackson is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.