  An 1868 engraving labels George Washington (Photo by Library
of Congress) Your Letters By Your Letters on February 18, 2013
at 6:35 AM  By Stephen Bowman  If the United States can justly
be accused of being a country that dismisses history and
relishes the gratifying present, what better example than
Presidents Day? We honor Washington as president, yet he is
remembered largely as a victorious general, though he had only
one clear victory in seven years. And Lincoln, who we honor for
freeing the slaves, would be surprised to learn we remember him
as an icon of abolitionism though it was precisely because he
was not an abolitionist that he was elected president.  Yet we
persist in revering them. Why? Or rather, why should we? Indeed,
if we look deeper, one learns much is lost in our childlike
memory of these great men.  Our collective memory of both
Washington and Lincoln have been drowned in half-truths and
cartoons. Washington did not have wooden teeth, never wore a
wig, and never chopped down his cherry t