Despite this, Harding was honored like all deceased influential and great people, even Abraham Lincoln. Before his death, Harding had a presidency riddled with scandal, corruption, and incompetence. Harding's knowledge of the world and his work was sorely lacking and appalling for someone who embodied an iconic figure in American culture. According to Samuel Hopkins Adams, author of "The Timely Death of President Harding," Harding often openly complained about his lack of knowledge. Adams noted, "To any interviewer he would say with disarming humility, 'I don't know anything about this European stuff...'." As for finances: 'I can't do anything about this tax problem'” (Adams 474). Harding did not benefit the United States, and his scandals presented him as a man "weary of war, impatient with problems too big for the street mind, cynically intolerant of the troubles of a half-hearted world destroyed” (Adams 473). Clearly, Harding contributed little to the betterment of the United States, and one would think that his eventual death would be treated with the same apathy. But like all famous people who have died, Harding said goodbye with compliments and statements that would equate him with the American hero. Harding was recognized after his death as "the idol of the man in the street, the apotheosis of the average American, the example of the triumphant commonplace" (Adams 469). In reality, Harding had a mistress, was friends with America's biggest crooks, most of whom ended up in prison, and didn't have the slightest idea how to do his job. This suggests that it is a taboo in society to speak ill of the dead and that people are willing to say anything to glorify the deceased's previous life, whether or not it was.