Timothy Egan says teetotalers make for shitty presidents

Which makes intuitive sense to me …

I’ve always thought the beer buddy threshold was nonsense. Still, it’s worth considering what a White House without a tippling tenant would be like. Sobriety, laudable in many respects, does imply rigidity of thought. The best presidents were open-minded, and generally open to a drink. The nondrinkers, at least over the last century or so, were terrible presidents.

The Wrath of Grapes | NYTimes.com

April 23, 2012