Too bad your love letter is not from a woman, Franklin might perk up for that. Ole Ben had quite the wondering eye. He is said to have fathered several children out of wedlock. (He reared at least one of them.)

I am also an admirer of this very complex, and yes, flawed, man.

Wow, MD, even your compliments are most accurately described as "damning with faint praise."

With the one word "admirer" you've managed to avoid a complete slam, though. I suppose that's something.

Johno, Franklin's autobiography has the added advantage of being free from copyright prison and therefore very cheap to buy. ;-)

No slam intended. I genuinely like Benjamin Franklin. To realize he had time to do all the significant things he did and keep his beds more than warm simultaneously is amazing. Franklin was a player and a genius.

The Diva certainly does not go about gushing praise all day. On the other hand, it then means more when she does give a compliment.

Indeed, the tone of the first comment made the word "admirer" stick out like a sore thumb, but MD's second comment makes it clear that she really is an admirer of the man.

Sorry, MD, for misreading your comment as insincere. Frankly, I haven't spent much more time with Franklin than the required reading in grade school; I focused on Thomas Edison as the target of a full-scale investigation and found him to be a flawed and complex man as well, but a hero of mine.

I think I shall read the books Johno recommends. Thanks!

Woo! Johno: enlightenating the world, one mind at a time!

Or something to that effect.

I'm kind of glad, albeit amused, that nobody has trolled these comments with anti-Franklin remarks. Although he's not as easy to slam as, say, Jefferson, I do hear of people from time to time who deny his essential cromulence.

Mac Diva, coming from your famously reserved pen, any praise is praise indeed!