Oh, dear. There sat Ben Franklin in the bathtub, playing chess with a heavily made-up French woman of a certain age. HBO's continuing series on "John Adams" and the founding of the republic leaves out little, not even an affair of the intellect (chess is a mind game, after all) by the man regarded by historians as a fondling father as indulgent in his time as certain politicians who would follow him.

We're in the midst of a resurgence of interest in the Founding Fathers. We s ...

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