The Broccoli Did It, Bush Says of Taylor

President Bush offered his own tongue-in-cheek theory Thursday for what really killed Zachary Taylor.

Speaking at an Independence Day celebration here in the Ozarks, Bush noted that it was on that same day back in 1850 when the 12th President took ill after attending a Fourth of July celebration in scorching weather.

“Back in Washington that was the fateful day that Zachary Taylor gobbled down those cherries with buttermilk,” Bush related.

“It’s a little-known fact, not disproven by when they dug the poor guy up the other day and put him back, that his last words were, ‘Please pass the broccoli,’ ” quipped Bush, the nation’s chief broccoli hater.

The crowd broke into applause and laughter.

Taylor’s body was exhumed last month to check a historian’s theory that he might have been poisoned with arsenic. A Kentucky medical examiner found no evidence to support the theory.