How would George Washington act today?

• Position: Founding Fathers - Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency by Logan Beirne - Interview

Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency by Logan Beirne attempts to answer the question, "What would Washington do if he were here today?." based on what he and his fellow Founders actually did 225 years ago. The book provides details on how the nation's first commander in chief dealt with the issues still facing us in the present: including military tribunals, torture, traitors, treason. enemy combatants, political partisanship, congressional meddling, government debt crisis, and those ageless sex scandals.

Drawing directly from the papers of Washington and his contemporaries. Beirne. an attorney who is an Olin Searle Scholar at Yale Law School, has sought to create a living history that dispels common misperceptions about our Founding Fathers and tells readers how they would handle our present crises and forge the U.S.'s future.

Below are questions posed to Beirne, who is descended from the "Father of the Constitution" and the nation's fourth president. James Madison. Some of Washington's papers were discovered in his ancestor's storage chest.

Q: How does history impact the present?

A: Many judges, politicians, and academics believe that the Founders' intent governs what our Constitution means today. So. when our Founding Fathers created the presidency based on Washington's precedents that history directly impacts [Pres. Barack] Obama's powers.

Q: Do the Founders have any advice for our current debt crisis?

A: The country was nearly bankrupted by a debt crisis after the Revolution. Washington and our Founders made debt re payment their top priority, both raising taxes and watching spending while staying out of costly battles overseas.

Q: Times were different then. Is it fair to compare us to the Founders?

A: We tend to place the Founders on a pedestal and forget that they were real men grappling with some of the same issues we face today. People are people and, when you hear about how Washington's second in command was caught sleeping with a "dirty hussy" in Martha [Washington's] sitting room, you will see how little has changed.

Q: Were there other scandals back then?

A: Plenty. The British generals were all sleeping with their officers' wives instead of paying attention to the war--it is part of the reason we won. Even Washington was accused of nightly visits to a Jersey girl named Mary, but that was likely just a smear campaign.

Q: How would Washington have handled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of...