110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

"Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave."

By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly. It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find...Read more on this and all these rules here.

I thought it would be fun to take our founding father's rule book and apply it to modern behavior. Today's rule is Number 19: "Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave." I think President Obama forgot the first part of this lesson in his handling of CNN's Ed Henry's query in the March 24, '09 press conference when, about 35 minutes into the press conference, Mr. Henry asked the President why he didn't spew outrage as soon as he learned about the AIG bonuses.

Why, Mr. Henry asked, did the president wait several days before speaking out? The president, with an icy stare, responded that he "likes to know what he's talking about" before he speaks. It was a pretty testy exchange that brought about nervous laughter from the other reporters and snarky responses from Twitterers. Boom! Next question.

What you think?