American Presidents in Review

Posted on 01 July 2008 by Michael Callaway

Last night I was watching the very first “Saturday Night Live”, it was the 1970’s so of course Ford was being made fun of.  One of the slogans that they said that he would have is, “Hey, if I am so dumb, why am I the President?”
 
Looking back I think we can say that Jerry Ford really was not that bad as a President and given the situation at the time made some good decisions.   We tend to say a President was great or terrible without looking at all factors.  Two Presidents in particular that get generalized are Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.
 
In many polls and in most American’s mind Franklin Roosevelt is the second or third best President we have ever had behind Lincoln and Washington.  Nixon as you might guess ranks near the bottom, and while I understand why both men are ranked where they are, it is unfair to say that FDR was all great and Nixon was all bad.
 
If Franklin Roosevelt is really the second or third best President we have ever had then based on his mistakes I would say we have had some awful Presidents.  If Nixon is one of the worst Presidents then based on his accomplishments we must have had years of enlightened leadership.
 
In 1940 FDR ran for his third term on the premise that he would be the best candidate to keep America out of the war, something he knew that he could not deliver.  FDR also did not stand up to Southern Democrats and make tough choices to integrate the military or pass anti-lynching legislation.  
 
FDR was far too trusting of Joseph Stalin in thinking that if the Soviets could just learn to trust us all would be well.  FDR did not consult with his allies the British before he made the declaration that we had to have complete German surrender as a condition to end the war and most damningly, he authorized the interment of millions of Japanese because of war hysteria.
 
Nixon on the other hand did many things that most Americans do not give him credit for.  The big one of course is normalizing relations with the Communist government of China, up until that point the USA had its head in the sand when it came to the world’s largest country.  It was Richard Nixon who set up the Environmental Protection Agency and passed affirmative action.  Richard Nixon was the only President in office to send men to the moon and during his Presidency the US ended its involvement in the longest war we ever fought, Vietnam.
 
While FDR deserves the praise that he gets for dealing with two of the greatest threats to our nation, the Great Depression and WWII and Nixon deserves to be vilified because of Watergate, in the end all a President is, is a person trying to make the best decisions for our country that they can.

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