Michelle Obama is 59 years old today, a birthday she shares with a slew of other American originals. The roster includes James Madison Randolph, the namesake of two U.S. presidents and the first baby born at the White House (1860); maverick Oregon congresswoman Edith Green, who became known in the House as "Mrs. Education" (1910); and "Big Sid" Catlett, the drummer in Louis Armstrong's band (also 1910).
Iconic actress Betty White, who came within three weeks of living to be 100, was also born on this date, as was singer, dancer, and activist Eartha Kitt (1927); baseball lifer Don Zimmer (1931); former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder and James Earl Jones (both also 1931); Muhammad Ali, née Cassius Clay (1942); Andy Kaufman (1949); Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1954); musician Steve Earle (1955); actress Zooey Deschanel (1980); and basketball star Dwayne Wade (1982).
Not all of those who share this birthday were heroes, of course. Some were the opposite. Infamous Chicago mobster Al Capone was born in Brooklyn to Italian immigrants on this date in 1899. Arnold Rothstein, the Jewish gangster who fixed the 1919 World Series, was born in New York on Jan. 17, 1882. Rothstein died in the city of his birth, mortally wounded by a pistol shot in the Park Central Hotel. When the cops asked him to name the shooter, he declined. "You stick to your trade," he said, "I'll stick to mine."
I have a soft spot for another hard case born on Jan. 17. He's "Philadelphia Jack" O'Brien, the boxer who defeated Bob Fitzsimmons in a 20-round fight in San Francisco in 1905 and who took on all comers, white or black -- including Jack Johnson -- when other fighters refused.
At the top of the list, though is another man identified with the City of Brotherly love (though he was born and raised in Boston). I mean, of course, Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin was a polymath: a successful newspaper publisher, influential revolutionary, acclaimed diplomat, and pioneering scientist. He was also a proud oenophile.
As a man of science, Franklin held an appreciation for the natural processes that allowed grapes to be made into such a wonderful accompaniment to a meal. Yet like many others who truly love wine, the thought occurred to hm that there is a divine purpose in the perfect table wine.
Perhaps you've passed by beach town T-shirt shops with curious wares quoting Franklin as saying, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Those aren't exactly Franklin's words, but the line isn't made up out of whole cloth either.
In 1779, he penned a waggish and witty letter to Andre Morellet, a Jesuit philosopher and friend whom he addresses as Abbé Morellet (and which he signs Abbé Franklin). Writing in French, Franklin opens his missive by noting that Morellet has often entertained him with "excellent drinking songs," a pleasure Franklin promises to repay with "some Christian, moral, and philosophical reflections upon the same subject."
This edification consists, in Ben Franklin's telling, of warning about the superiority of wine as a beverage -- not over beer, but over water. This is not his opinion alone, Franklin insisted: The source of this advice, he says, is the Bible itself.
"In vino veritas, says the wise man -- Truth is in wine. Before the days of Noah, then, men, having nothing but water to drink, could not discover the truth," Franklin wrote. "Thus they went astray, became abominably wicked, and were justly exterminated by water, which they loved to drink. ...
"We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle," Franklin continued. "But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. The miracle in question was only performed to hasten the operation, under circumstances of present necessity, which required it."
Amen, Abbé Franklin.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
