“Washington, D.C., is 12 square miles bordered by reality.” — President Andrew Johnson

I thought I’d take a little break today and let some other guys provide the material for this column – namely several former presidents of the United States.

Also I thought it would be a good idea to do this piece now, before everybody’s so sick of political ads they skip reading it altogether.

That said, here’s a look at how several presidents have described their jobs, each other and even themselves (and sometimes their spouses and other women).

Regarding his position as president of the United States, Harry Truman recalled, “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician.”

Ronald Reagan opined, “Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”

President Jimmy Carter tried to look at the bright side of the job after some lower-level political stints, saying, “My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”

Some presidents seemingly couldn’t wait to be done with the job. For example, William Howard Taft commented, “Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.”

Martin Van Buren recalled that “The two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.”

Before his demise, Richard Nixon found the whole presidential gig to be pleasant enough, musing, “I like the job I have now. But if I had my life to live over again, I’d like to have ended up as a sportswriter.”

How presidents viewed some of their colleagues may have been why some were dissatisfied with the job. “Being president is like running a cemetery,” explained Bill Clinton. “You’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.”

Clinton’s assessment of the people he worked with was one of the kinder ones. “In my many years,” claimed John Adams, “I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”

Theodore Roosevelt joked that “When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’”

Other times, presidential wives or other women have been the target. (Don’t shoot the messenger.) For instance, one day when his wife was visiting a nearby prison, FDR asked where she was. When he was told that she was in the penitentiary, he replied, “I’m not surprised. But what for?”

“I have often wanted to drown my troubles,” Carter once commented, “but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.”

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” Nixon told Ms. magazine while talking about the women’s liberation movement in 1971, “I wouldn’t want to wake up next to a lady pipefitter.”

President John Kennedy let it be known that “If I don’t have a woman every three days or so I get a headache.”

And then there are the presidential one-liners, such as Lyndon Johnson’s assessment of Gerald Ford being “so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.”

Ford’s self-deprecating determination of his own abilities was a little kinder when he pointed out that “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”

“I only know two tunes,” admitted Ulysses S. Grant, “one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ the other isn’t.”

And when a reporter told Calvin Coolidge, “I bet I can get more than two words out of you,” Coolidge replied, “You lose.”

Pondering his decision-making capability, George H. W. Bush once explained, “People say that I’m indecisive, but I don’t know about that.”

But most of the family’s presidential humor came to us by way of his son, George W., who liked attending the White House correspondents dinner (which is basically a roast) because, “I look forward to these dinners where I’m supposed to be funny . . . intentionally.”

He also admitted, “These stories about my intellectual capacity really get under my skin. You know, for a while I even thought my staff believed it. There on my schedule first thing every morning it said ‘Intelligence Briefing.’”

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.