French market town / MON 2-16-15 / Nobles above viscounts / Lip-puckering as kraut / Fudd of cartoondom

Constructor: David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Presidents Day — Note: "The last names of eight U.S. presidents are hidden in this puzzle's completed grid, reading across, back, up, down and diagonally, word-search style"

Theme answers (sort of):

• TIRE TRACK (17A: Imprint on a dirt road)
• OUT OF ORDER (29D: Not working)
• DREAM ABOUT (11D: Have fantasies about)
• TEMPT FATE (54A: Flirt with disaster)

Word of the Day: BOURG (31A: French market town) —

noun
historical

1. 
   a town or village under the shadow of a castle.
   
   • 
     a French market town. (what is a non-market town?) (wikipedia)
     
   
   

• • •

Poor Bob Dole—it's like this puzzle is taunting him... I still have a hard time accepting that "Presidents Day" is a thing. In my day … we had Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday and sometimes we combined them for holiday purposes but no one was ever forced to think of TAFT. And we liked it that way. But sure, why not, as a "holiday"- (so-called) themed puzzle goes, this is fine. Certainly Monday easy (took me roughly four times as long to find all the presidents as it did to solve the thing), and the yuck stuff (BOURG? ODORED!?) wasn't exactly obstructive, so fine. This works. I don't enjoy word searches, but some do, and if I didn't want to do it, I sure didn't have to, so … "Happy" "Presidents Day"!

Bullets:

• 38A: N.F.L.'s Manti ___ (TEO) — I'd already started to forget him. In college, he was the subject of a very weird fake-girlfriend story. And then I stopped paying attention. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention to begin with.
• 39D: New ___, site of the 1988 Republican convention (ORLEANS) — I only just this second got why there was a convention site twofer in today's puzzle (see 6A: CHI). Me: "That's weird … wait, no it isn't."
• 52A: Six-time Tony winner McDonald (AUDRA) — she's from Fresno, CA. As am I. As was Philip Levine (R.I.P.). He didn't grow up there, but he lived there for the last 30 years. My mom said earlier today: "I loved seeing him at the farmers market in Fresno. He always had such a wonderful smile." I have many of his books. I was sad to hear of his death yesterday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld