COMPARING AND CONTRASTING PRESIDENCIES — BOTH ACADEMIC AND GOSSIPY

By Edwin Cooney  

I’ve survived fourteen presidencies from Harry Truman (that feisty little haberdasher) through old man Joe Biden. It's been quite a journey, but it's possible that the next presidency might get a little dangerous!

Since 1962 when presidential ratings were first published, the top ten rated presidencies have been those of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and George Washington. Harry Truman who led us through the 1948 Berlin blockade and the Korean War, and on into the atomic age since the 1970s, has been rated fourth. Occasionally, James Knox Polk, because he kept absolutely all of his 1844 campaign promises, has often been rated the fifth greatest president. (Yes, indeed, he kept all of his promises, but the Civil War was brought about due to some of those promises. They included the settlement of the Mexican border, the acquisition of new territory, and the slavery issue that was exacerbated by the gains of the Mexican war.

As for the current presidential ratings, Lincoln, FDR and Washington. are followed by Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. Feisty Harry has slipped to sixth. He is just ahead of Barack Obama who advanced nine places in just about eight years! The top ten are rounded out by Ike, LBJ and JFK. However, next comes the shocker!

President Joseph Robinette Biden is rated the 14th greatest president and his 2024 opponent, Donald John Trump, is rated number 46 of 46. Ah! But who listens to those "candy assed academicians” who have never held a real man's job — such as steel worker, farmer, cab driver, or plumber. (Remember “Joe the Plumber” turned out to be Samuel Wurzelbacher who apparently turned in his plumber’s tools to become a right wing political commentator!)

  

I'm pleased that Jimmy Carter is rated #22, up four places from the 2018 rating. Another shocker for me is that Nixon has dropped to 35th. About a decade ago, I rated him 16th.

I've always rated presidents as a success or a failure according to their reputations in foreign and domestic policies. As I saw it, Richard Nixon’s breakthroughs in Moscow and Beijing along with the significance of his efforts in the environment and healthcare gave him and his administration substantial credit. His failures were personally disappointing to me, but as his assistant John Ehrlichman pointed out, he was a good administrator. As for President Reagan, it has been said that he mastered the art of the presidency as "the great communicator."

The fate of Woodrow Wilson is similar to that of Ulysses S. Grant. At the close of the 19th Century, Grant was considered a great citizen, soldier and  president. Then along came the Progressive Era. As an economic and international affairs reformer, Thomas Woodrow Wilson came to be considered by many as the greatest example of human morality since Christ and St. Paul. His fall from fourth and sixth in the top ten presidents is due to his racism which limited the rights of Blacks both in and out of the federal government. Today, Wilson is rated 15th of all the presidents.

As I understand it, in this latest survey, presidential scores rather than labels evaluate the presidents. Zeros represent failures while fifties represent average ratings. Each president was rated according to a percentage of accomplishments from zero to one hundred percent. Hence, not even President Trump was a failure. However, his rating of 10.91 was vastly lower than Joe Biden's rating of 62.56.

Oh yah! President Ulysses S. Grant's latest 17th highest rating of 60.93 made my friend “Portola Valley Steve” rub his hands together and grin like the proverbial Cheshire Cat! No longer are presidents rated great, near great, average, below average and failures. Recently I read that President Kennedy once asserted that no one who'd never served as president had any business rating presidents.

Personally, I have no credentials as either a historian or an academician, but it's fun to play the rating game. Some of the most interesting and appealing presidents are Jimmy Carter for his post presidential activities, Cal Coolidge as a “character,” William McKinley for his likability, Millard Fillmore due to Queen Victoria's claim that he was the “handsomest man” she ever saw, James Polk for his hard work and dedicated sense of duty, and Chester A. Arthur for his eloquent style and personal 

respectability which was largely gained while in office.

I’m told that there's information available showing how conservative vs. liberal academicians rated different presidents, but this information is not currently available to me. 

It's unlikely that the above six presidents, with the possible exception of Mr. Polk, will ever again be numbered among the top ten chief executives, but it's always fun for this political and historic dabbler to indulge in such ratings!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FIRST THERE WAS WASHINGTON'S WORLD!

By Edwin Cooney

The approximately 67 plus years that existed between 1732 and late in the year of 1799 that constituted the life of George Washington was a largely agrarian world. Men and women made their living from the soil. Very few were or even thought of being educated. The country was both conceived and established by the most able people of its time. These people came from the countryside and were born the sons and daughters of largely aristocratic English families.    

George's father Augustine (Gus to his friends) was both a planter and a businessman, the grandson of mid-level English aristocrats. He ran an iron foundry and spent much time away doing business in England. George knew little of his father who died in 1743 when George was 11 years old.

Physically, George Washington stood 6 feet 2 and was muscular from his shoulders through his ankles. He had blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones, heavy eyebrows and a determined chin.  He was dark-haired which he powdered and tied into a ponytail on formal occasions.

Personally, he was very serious. Life to Washington was about business. He had quiet strength. He spoke softly. He preferred to express himself in writing although he could be eloquent. He was a good listener. Washington had a high capacity to evaluate and utilize the talents of others.

Militarily, he knew when to challenge and when to retreat. General Washington forced the British army to chase his armies all over the North American continent taking advantage of Britain’s limited capacity once lured away from the coast. Once Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson maneuvered France into the war providing essential sea cover, the war was won as Lord Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown on Friday, October 19th, 1781.

George Washington's skill riding a horse had a profound effect on men and women whose daily existence depended on their horsemanship.

Above all else, it was Washington’s character and the dependence of others on that character that made Washington "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" as expressed by Richard Henry Lee at Washington's passing on Saturday, December 14th 1799.

There's an irony here. Throughout the revolution, a number of people  suggested that after the war Washington might become our first king. However, he made it clear in several letters that he would return home once the war was done. He did exactly that until called upon to chair the 1787 Constitutional Convention as a delegate whereupon the delegates unanimously asked Washington to serve as their chairman with full powers to set the rules of conduct.

George Washington would twice receive unanimous support in the electoral college. In 1792, he wanted to return to Mount Vernon but decided there was too much to accomplish economically, militarily and strategically. He simply couldn't leave things as they were.

As for Washington, the slave holder? It can't be denied as a sin of the times. However, it deserves some perspective. Neither you nor I choose the time in which we're born into. Our vices and our virtues encompass and rule us throughout our lives. If we're to grasp and thus understand our history (and not everyone chooses to do so), the first reality we must come to grips with is the realization that each generation lives in its own world. We're the victims of our contemporaries until such time as we try to master them and that can be dangerous! 

    

In closing, I invite you to participate in a minor mind game. Before you read the last part of what's here, ask yourself what was unique about General George Washington's leadership? What did General Washington insist upon that no other war-winning general ever did?

My friend whom I'll call “Portola Valley, California Steve” notes that George Washington who both won a war and helped establish a government was very reluctant to serve as head of that government. George Washington would not be King George. All George Washington wanted to do after the war was to return to Mount Vernon! (Ah! here’s still another irony: George Washington, through a paternal grandmother, Mildred Warner Washington, was a descendant of  King Edward III 1329-1377, one of England’s finest medieval kings.).  

Ultimately, he could not. Men who helped form this country, who also were men of ambition, named Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, John Adams, Henry Knox, Patrick Henry, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Livingston, and — I dare say — even Aaron Burr insisted on George Washington's service!

That service in Washington's world made our world possible!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FEBRUARY: SHORT BUT MIGHTY

By Edwin Cooney

While every month can be decorated for its politically, socially, and historic progeny, February appears especially significant considering it never has 30 days within its domain.

First there's Punxsutawney Phil, everyone's favorite and only known groundhog or woodchuck. Then there's the birth of Henry Aaron which took place on February 5th, 1934 and Babe Ruth who was born on February 6th, 1895. Four presidents were born in February: Ronald Reagan on February 6th, 1911, William Henry Harrison on February 9th, 1773, Abraham Lincoln on February 12th, 1809, and, of course, George Washington on February 11th or 22nd, 1732 — take your pick.(George Washington was deprived of his 19th birthday, because by the time he reached his 19th birthday, February 1731 had become February 1732, moving from the last month of the Julian calendar to the second month of the new Gregorian calendar.)

All four February presidents left a significant mark on American history. Harrison did so by becoming the first president to die in office thereby allowing Vice President John Tyler to successfully declare himself president. President Washington, in addition to being our first president, personally established the Executive department of the new Federal Government with little or no direction from the Constitution.

President Lincoln saved the Union by never recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederacy, thereby making the Civil War a mere civil rebellion rather than a declared war.

President Reagan is regarded by many (although not by this author) to have won the Cold War by refusing to back down on Premier Gorbachev's insistence that the National Space Defense program, otherwise known as "Star Wars,” be rejected. Realizing they couldn't match American defense expenditures, the Russian government under Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C. in December of 1987.

Three presidential elections were decided in February. George Washington was elected as our first president on February 4, 1789. Thomas Jefferson was elected president in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, February 17th, 1801. John Quincy Adams was elected president on Monday, February 9th, 1825.

February 3rd, 1870 marks the ratification of the 15th Amendment asserting that all citizens have the right to vote. That amendment was ignored by the Jim Crow South until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. However, it is ironic that February 3rd 1913's ratification of the 16th Amendment empowering the Congress to "lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived” remains on the books when it is as unpopular as it surely is!

Thursday, February 14, 1929 saw the St. Valentine’s Day gang massacre in Chicago. On Wednesday, February 15th, 1933, a large Miami crowd witnessed  the near assassination of President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara. The shooting  resulted in the death of Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago on Monday, March 6th, two weeks and six painful days later. Zangara was executed for the shooting on March 20th, 1933.

Other February events include the February 22nd, 1932 birth of Edward M. Kennedy, the release by the Soviets of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers on February 10th, 1962 and, most dramatically, the launching of John Glenn into orbit on Tuesday, February 20th, 1962. Also notable is the February 9th, 1964 appearance by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

During the month of February, however, good things do come to an end as occurred on February 26th, 1935 when the New York Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the Boston Braves following 14 years of baseball glory. (Note: Babe Ruth would retire on June 2nd 1935 and his great Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig, would die on June 2nd, 1941.)  

Following Mighty February, of course there comes Miraculous March! Perhaps I'll tell you about that sometime sooner or later!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

INDIFFERENCE: THAT'S THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!

By Edwin Cooney

For as far back as I can remember, some have insisted that FDR's New Deal was the root of all American evil. However, since political outlook does not exist without cause, it seems to me that no idea or political stand can exist without cause and effect. Thus, in 2024, neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump lies at the center of our national sins.

This being the case, what “we the people” seek or are indifferent to reflects both our saintliness and sinfulness.

If we look to the past for affirmation of our greatness or strictly to the left for our salvation, we're seeking ideology rather than reason to guide our destiny. So, let's go to the absolute root of our dilemma.

Most people when asked what the opposite of "love" is will invariably respond "hatred." However, both love and hate have passion as the root of their existence.

Indifference has boredom, a lack of a sense of good or evil, self-centeredness and fear at its core.

Unity, prosperity and freedom have always been our national goal as stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. However, despite these national goals, we have been too indifferent to the misfortunes of peoples whom we ought to have treated differently than we ultimately did.

When unity, freedom, and prosperity are absent from how we practice or what we do, we're inviting discord to be a part of our future. We need the inclusion of the creative and conscientious to energize us beyond our indifferences.

Of course, no one can be responsible for all of the legitimate causes that exist in 21st Century America. I once read an amusing article written by the late great Art Buchwald in which he tried to get his Aunt Goldie to stop worrying about everything in New York and to let Mayor John Lindsay worry about things over which Aunt Goldie had no control.

What enhances today's sense of indifference is the realization that neither the politicians nor the scientific and social scientists can reach a reliable response to either the nature or solutions of public causes.

Here are five problems and their root causes that aren't being addressed:

1) We won't get to the immigration solution until we realize that its existence arises from conditions in Central and South America. After all, people don't move without being frightened.

2) America’s quarrel with their LGBTQ neighbors may at least lessen considerably once “straights” understand that they are who they are for biological reasons rather than out of socio/religious defiance.          

3) Racial prejudice has been a part of our behavior going back to the labor challenges of seventeen century Virginia and we are guilty of it. We fear that one day soon, racial minorities may seek revenge on the once Anglo-Saxon white majority.That's why the old Southern Confederacy continuously seeks to minimize its guilt and maximize its patriotism since the Spanish-American War of the 1890s.

4) Rather than follow the dictates of our religious heritages, we've had a tendency to politically use and  promote them against causes and peoples we fear.

5) Our treatment of native citizens was as cruel as the Holocaust. Yet we hope and even expect Native Americans to forgive us because, after all, it was in the past!

Ultimately, we've been more wonderful than we've been inhumane! However, there are several conditions we remain indifferent to at our own peril. These include the national and worldwide environment and the danger of encouraging international conflict due to our own understandings and prejudices. We must promote inclusion rather than political and social indifference to others.

Yes, indeed, our indifferences are potentially far more destructive than even our prejudices. After all, our indifferences lie at the root of our prejudices!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY