Greg's Reviews > To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents

A great companion for anyone interested in American presidential history, this book covers the presidencies from Washington through Clinton featuring interesting short historical essays, an appendix with short summations of each presidential election, and transcripts of every inaugural address, few of which are memorable. The Dorling Kindersley volume is also peppered with their trademark attention to photographs, art work, and brief vignettes of historical information in the margins.

Two recurring theme’s struck me. Most vice presidents who were elevated to the presidency were deemed woefully inadequate before taking office. Often this was proven to correct, with Arthur and Truman being distinct exceptions. Also, many who were considered eminently qualified because of their experience turned out to be quite miserable (Van Buren, Buchanan, Grant, and Hoover).

Since the book concludes with Bill Clinton’s presidency, here’s what I think future historians might write of the two who came after him:

“In his last years, George W. Bush himself admitted that he was never up to the task of being president and allowed himself to be manipulated and misled by those he most trusted.”
“Despite the symbolism of being the first black American elected president and taking in his signature accomplishment, the expansion of health care, Barack Obama's years were marked by incremental, minor changes that were more caretaker than transformational.”

What the hell, let’s speculate:

“Washington’s moneyed lobbies looked back upon the Hillary Clinton administration as their Golden Age while the constituencies that supported her are still scratching their heads and asking what happened.”
“After an intransigent Congress blocked every one of Bernie Sanders's initiatives in the first two years of his administration, he rallied the nation in a 21st century reprise of Truman’s Whistle Stop Tour to elect strong progressive majorities in Washington and numerous state legislatures.”
“Historians assessing the Donald Trump presidency agreed that they might have been a bit harsh on James Buchanan.”
“Public and congressional opposition to the Ted Cruz administration unified the American people more than any time since World War II.”
John Kasich: (see Hillary Clinton and replace references to Clinton with Kasich)

Key excerpts from each of the presidential essays:

“[George Washington] was an extraordinary man who made it possible for ordinary men to rule.”
“…[John] Adams’s sensitivity to criticism led him to confuse uniformity with unity and to seek consequences through legal force—errors committed by later presidents and politicians as well.”
“The making of policy throughout [Thomas] Jefferson’s presidency was essentially an editorial process.”
“[James Madison] had been convinced that unbridled executive power, especially in time of war, posed a great threat to the cause of republican government.”
“The [Monroe] doctrine far outlasted [James] Monroe’s tenure and indeed became more significant in the twentieth century than it was in the nineteenth.”
“[John Quincy Adams] favored conviction over compromise and preferred discipline to convenience. A rare president.”
“By the skillful used of his veto power, [Andrew] Jackson gained enormous advantages over Congress and won for himself a significant role in the legislative process.”
“[I]n his handling of the slave issue, [Martin] Van Buren established the practice of northern Democratic leaders abetting southern interests.”
“[William Henry Harrison’s] tragic death robbed the American people of their chosen leader and the Whig party of the fruits of its triumph.”
“[John Tyler’s] penchant for strong unilateral action quickly established the pattern for his presidency.”
“If there is a Valhalla where great presidents gather, it’s not hard to imagine Andrew Jackson standing at the gates, welcoming James Knox Polk to the select company.”
“During the campaign, [Zachary] Taylor pledged not to veto congressional legislation concerning slavery in the territories, thereby mollifying proslavery and antislavery elements.”
“[T]he Fugitive Slave Law…had been accepted as constitutional, and [Millard] Fillmore was as stalwart a defender of the Constitution as anyone.”
“[Franklin] Pierce’s ideology of limited government together with his personal traits of accommodation and deference to the powerful southern wing of his party made for an inept president who piloted the ship of state to the shoals of secession and civil war.”
“[James] Buchanan’s presidency demonstrated that harm that can result when great talent and experience are shackled to a personality ill suited to the pressures of the office.”
“Washington’s legacy was one nation, perhaps divisible, with liberty for some; [Abraham] Lincoln’s was one nation, indivisible, with liberty for all.”
“[Andrew] Johnson’s blunders contributed to the defeat of congressional candidates who would have supported him, greatly strengthening the radicals.”
“[Ulysses S. Grant’s animosity toward reformers] blinded him to the corruption that did exist, and his resentment undermined what had been his greatest asset—his ability to identify able subordinates who could be trusted to carry out his wishes.”
“Inheriting a weakened presidency, sectional bitterness, and widespread corruption, [Rutherford B. Hayes] dexterously handled the emergence of an industrial America divided by class, ethnicity, and extreme partisanship.”
“For reformers, it turned out, a dead [James A. ] Garfield proved much more valuable than a living one.”
“[Chester A.] Arthur’s reserve, so unexpected in a graduate of machine politics, restored to the presidency some dignity lost during the tenures of Johnson and Grant.”
“A largely negative president, [Grover Cleveland] firmly believed it was his duty to prevent hurtful things from happening, rather than to make beneficial things take place.”
“[Benjamin Harrison] was also the regular object of public jesting, in much the same way Gerald Ford was a century later.”
“It was with sure instinct that [William] McKinley became the leading exponent of the most powerful theme of the late-nineteenth-century Republican party: American nationalism.”
“[Theodore Roosevelt] tested and extended the limits of the American presidency—emphatically.”
“Though an effective lieutenant under Roosevelt, [William Howard] Taft had little sense of what he wanted to accomplish as president.”
“What [Woodrow] Wilson wanted was not an equilibrium based on a balance of power but a universalistic peace rooted in American moral values.”
“To [a friend Warren G.] Harding declared, ‘I am not fit for this office and should never have been elected.’”
“[Calvin Coolidge] regarded government, unlike business and industry, as being nonproductive: His task, therefore, was not to innovate but to improve what already worked.”
“[Herbert Hoover’s] presidency is perhaps best described as a series of disasters that left the nation immobilized both at home and abroad.”
“As a result of [Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies], for the first time, people began to experience the federal government as a concrete part of their daily lives.”
“[Harry S. Truman] correctly believed that the National Security Act greatly strengthened his ability (and that of future presidents) to undertake America’s apparently permanent role of world leadership.”
“[Dwight D. Eisenhower’s] single greatest achievement, George Gallup’s pollsters heard over and over again as the president prepared to leave office, was that had ‘kept the peace.’”
“Unfortunately, [John F.] Kennedy knew more about becoming president than being president.”
“[Lyndon B. Johnson] turned his difficulties into advantages that helped him become one of the two greatest domestic reform presidents in U.S. history (the other being Franklin Roosevelt).”
“In his relentless pursuit of the White House, [Richard M.] Nixon had accumulated hatreds and insecurities that seemed to grip him even more tightly when he at last achieved the long-sought power.”
“[Gerald R. Ford] had the misfortune of becoming president as the mood of his party shifted right.”
“[A]fter voters booted [him] from office, [Jimmy] Carter has become…renowned the world over as the epitome of the caring, compassionate, best sort of American statesman.”
“Yet questions linger as to which [Ronald] Reagan was the ‘real’ one: the ideologue or pragmatist? the great man or the dunce?”
“[George Bush’s] foreign policy successes and the respect he had won from America’s allies seemed to count for little during the months that followed the Gulf War.”
“More likely, [Bill] Clinton will be recalled as a president who might have been great, had he not squandered his talents.”