Obama To Govern - And Sign - From the Left

When Barack Obama entered the Capitol on Inauguration Day to enact his first piece of legislation, he let his liberal mind guide his body as he signed his name.

In other words, he used his left hand...

"That's right. I'm a lefty. Get used to it," the southpaw president joked at the time.

Obama isn't alone in this distinction. Five of the past seven presidents have been left-handed: Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and now Obama. (Even recent runners-up, like Ross Perot, Bob Dole, Al Gore and John McCain, were also lefties.)

Meanwhile, the four most recent right-handed presidents - Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Bush - left office with the lowest approval ratings in presidential history. Coincidence?

The Washington Post posits that being left-handed might actually be an attribute to presidents, because mastery of language is so integral to their public perception.

For nearly all right-handers, language abilities reside exclusively on one side of the brain -- usually the left, which controls the right hand. But one in seven lefties process language on both sides of the brain, possibly because using their left hands during childhood stimulated the development of the right half. So Reagan, Bill Clinton and Obama may have left-handedness to thank for their legendary speaking abilities.

And it goes beyond presidents. Some of the most legendary figures in history have been left-handed, including Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Beethoven, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin.

Then again, so are/were Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, Fidel Castro and Osama bin Laden.

Conclusion: The next U.S. President will be either Michaelangelo's corpse or Osama bin Laden. Given the nature of criticisms leveled at both McCain and Obama this past cycle, some would say it's more of the same.