Is anyone watching the HBO miniseries John Adams?  Historical pieces like this are always fascinating, even if only to make tangible the oftentimes turgid and dry history found in the pages of high school textbooks.  Based on the biography of same title by of David McCullough, the miniseries stars Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail Adams.  Perhaps as a miscarriage of history, more Americans seem to be familiar with Abigail Adams as the Second First Lady and a documentarian of the Revolutionary War than know her husband as our nation's first Vice President and second President.



My feelings on the man have always been ambivalent.  He was brilliant, ambitious, and principled -- living up to our grandiose notions of our Founding Fathers.  But he also suffered from the very mortal shortcomings of pettiness, pomposity, and envy.   He made few friends, and many enemies.  Without him and his "corraling of cats" during the first and second Continental Congresses (something that must be done with liberal thinkers from time to time), it is doubtful that a formal Declaration of Independence would have been drafted, much less unanimously adopted by the colonies.  But he is also infamous for his bellicose conflation of the XYZ Affair, his fanning of war fever and manipulation of public opinion for political gain (sound familiar?), and the subsequent passage of the much declaimed Alien and Sedition Acts.  It should be noted that Adams neither crafted nor advocated for the Alien and Sedition Acts, but he did sign them into law.



Adams, a Federalist, lost the election of 1800 to his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party.  Bitter and defeated, Adams left political life and returned to his lifelong home in Quincey, Massachusetts.  He did not even attend his rival's inauguration.  Much later, the two men reconciled and became friends until their death on the same day, on Independence Day, July 4, 1826.  The correspondence between Adams and Jefferson during their post-presidency days is celebrated today as a window into the hearts and minds of two of our most famous patiots, and an invaluable reference for constitutional scholars.

So far only three of the seven miniseries episodes have aired, and it seems that artistic license may have overridden historical fact, either during the writing of the book, or its translation to the screenplay.  Benjamin Franklin is presented as a scene-stealing coarse-mannered dilettante, and Thomas Jefferson is portrayed as aloof and arrogant.  Nonetheless, it's about time that a historical figure as important as John Adams got some exposure in the limelight.  At least name a beer after him for heaven's sake, like the honor bestowed upon his more affable cousin.