"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." -- President Kennedy, welcoming forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962.
But in all seriousness, if we ever perfect human cloning, we could really use about 50 clones of Jefferson to send to troublespots like China, North Korea and Iran.
Wouldn't that be in an interesting nature vs. nurture experiment? Imagine: Thirtytwo Jefferson and his brother Thirtyfive Jefferson pledge to carry on the legacy of Kim Jong Il. Forty Jefferson, who has become the Communist Party leader in Manchuria, warns them to tone down their rhetoric about the United States, at the same time as publishing an influential book about how democracy is a fundamentally deficient form of government. Twentytwo Jefferson writes a series of increasingly unhinged tracts about the benefits of LSD, while Twentythree devotes his research career to unearthing relics of the Etruscans in Northern Italy. Eighteen Jefferson moves to San Francisco and becomes notorious for his sexual escapades, one of which involves a group of Costa Rican nuns.
But lucky for us, they were on the same side. When Jefferson was serving as Ambassador to France during the constitutional convention Jefferson and Franklin exchanged brilliant letters.
Did Franklin give Jeffson pointers on French babes? (Franklin went to France before the American Revolution to get French support. Talk about an old coot in a candy store....)
One can make a reasonable argument that the American Revolution was (in part) Franklin's response to being insulted by the English.
North Korea and Iran maybe but China? China may not have the best records for human rights but I wouldn't put it in the same league as North Korea or Saudi Arabia.
