By the Maui Curmudgeon (38th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

GERALD R. FORD: 1973-1976 ~ 38th U.S. President

He served for fewer than three years and was the only president never elected to national office, but Gerald Ford nonetheless holds a pivotal role in American presidential politics. He spent more than 26 years in the House, rising in rank to the Minority Leader, which would have made him the Speaker of the House had his party ever won the majority during his tenure.

During this time, he was adept at balancing being a party loyalist with being honest. He engaged in several important duties, including being a member of the Warren Commission investigating JFK’s assassination (some believe Ford was FBI Head Edgar Hoover’s spy on the commission). He never wavered publicly from the commission findings that Oswald was a lone assassin.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (37th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

RICHARD NIXON: 1969-1973 ~ 37th U.S. President

Shakespearean tragedy writ large for the American political stage, Richard M. Nixon could have been a near-great president. Born of humble origins, Nixon fought nobly in World War II, and returned a small town hero, who won election to the House in 1946 and the Senate in 1950.

It took exactly those four short years to move him from a politically ambitious young man, to a political jackal, Supported by powerful special interests, he became a rapid anti-communist, and in what is perhaps the most cartoonish event of those times, he found a list of government secrets in a pumpkin patch, and pursued Alger Hiss.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (36th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: 1963-1969 ~ 36th U.S. President

Imagine, finally getting exactly what you want – the presidency – in the worst way possible, an assassination. Lyndon B. Johnson was a towering figure in many respects. After 12 years in the House, he spent 12 years in the Senate, the last five as Senate majority leader. His vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, call LBJ a tidal wave. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says that “some men want power to strut around the world…LBJ wanted power to give things to people,” rights to  blacks, a help up to the poor.

LBJ was shaped mightily by the Great Depression when he worked for FDR, running youth programs to engage young students and give them a little money. He saw poverty first hand at home in Texas and committed himself to the liberal agenda. In his 22 years in Congress, he worked for Social Security, minimum wages, civil rights, and low-cost housing. Today many still consider him the greatest, most effective Senate majority leader in our nation’s history.

However, the two plus years he spent as vice-president were painful to him. “I detested every minute of it,” he wrote.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (35th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JOHN F. KENNEDY: 1961-1963 ~ 35th U.S. President

Martyrdom obscures the truth for this president. Leader for just 1,000 days, and assassinated in front of thousands, John F. Kennedy may or may not have become a near great president. We’ll never know. Interestingly, Murrary-Blessing ranks him at 13, a very high ranking indeed.

Born into privilege, a hero of World War II, JFK easily won a seat in congress in 1946, and a seat in the senate in 1952. He was put forth as a candidate for vice-president in 1956, with candidate Adlai Stevenson, but JFK would have none of it. He knew he wanted to run for the big office in 1960. He did, and in one of the closest elections in American history, he won.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (34th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: 1953-1961 ~ 34th U.S. President

A military man for 41 years, Dwight Eisenhower’s West Point years held nothing to suggest his very important role in history. Nonetheless, through decades of positions, he served under many men - Colonel George S. Patton in the states and, in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur – who, in the end, he would end up commanding. How?

Ike returned from the Philippines in 1939, more than tired of MacArthur. Quite by chance, he was working at a staff position under the army chief of staff (George C. Marshall) at the time of Pearl Harbor. Marshall recognized the administrative abilities Ike had and promoted him quickly – in three years he went from Colonel to Lieutenant General. In June of 1942, Marshall appointed Ike commander of U.S. Forces in Europe. There, Ike showed his mastery of administrative command, and was soon accepted by all Allies as their commanding general. Ike balanced Churchill, Montgomery, deGaulle, and Patton brilliantly. His decision – and it was his – to invade Europe in 1944 at the time and place of his choosing effectively made him a hero in the world.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (33rd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

HARRY TRUMAN: 1944-1952 ~ 33rd U.S. President

Image at left: Harry Truman playing piano for Lauren Bacall. If you have to ask who Lauren Bacall is, you haven’t lived. I can’t find a digital photo of my favorite shot of Truman - putting money into a parking meter in downtown Independence, just a month after he left office, not a soul around him

Historian David McCullough’s Pulitzer prize-winning “Truman” is among the finest books I have ever read, fiction or nonfiction, about anything. It is an enormous, 1000+ page picture of a great man, and a near-great president. McCullough could find no better summary of Harry S. Truman than political writer Mary McGrory’s tribute, which he quotes, and I reprint, in full:

He was not a hero or a magician or a chess player, or an obsession. He was a certifiable member of the human race, direct, fallible, and unexpectedly wise when it counted.

He did not require to be loved. He did not expect to be followed blindly. Congressional opposition never struck him as subversive, nor did he regard his critics as traitors. He never whined.

He walked around Washington every morning – it was safe then. He met reporters frequently as a matter of course, and did not blame them for his failures. He did not use the office as a club or a shield, or a hiding place. He worked at it. He said he lived by his Bible and history. So armed, he proved that the ordinary American is capable of grandeur.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (32nd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: 1933-1944 ~ 32nd U.S. President

The offspring of the fabulously wealthy patrician families Delano and Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems to have been molded for his time and the position of presidency from the very start. A graduate of Groton, FDR was strongly influenced by its president, Reverend Endicott Peabody, who called FDR to a life of social responsibility through public service.

He graduated from Columbia Law School, but law bored him, and in 1910 FDR gained a state senate seat in New York in the party of his father (not his great cousin Teddy), the Democratic Party, which, beginning with Grover Cleveland, had made its way through education and hard work to realize the values embodied in the likes of Abraham Lincoln were the ones who had to guide the country for it to thrive, values which the Republican party, beginning with Warren G. Harding, rebuked.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (31st in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

HERBERT HOOVER: 1929-1933 ~ 31st U.S. President

Herbert Hoover is the very embodiment of an important lesson in American public life: intelligence and experience does not necessarily make a leader. How smart was he? Well, at the end of World War I, he accompanied President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference.

Attending was John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant British economist. When the conference was over, Keynes said, “Hoover was the only man who emerged from the ordeal of Paris with an enhanced reputation.”

Hoover came into the presidency as the heir apparent. Though President Calvin Coolidge despised Hoover (he called him “wonder boy” out of jealousy), Hoover, who had been Secretary of Commerce under the false “boom years” of the early 1920’s, took the reins supremely confident in American business and conservative rights. Was anyone more wrong? In less than seven months, people really were jumping out of windows to their deaths.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (30th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

CALVIN COOLIDGE: 1923-1929 ~ 30th U.S. President

If Warren G. Harding did nothing, Calvin Coolidge was inert. When Dorothy Parker was told of Coolidge’s death in 1933, she asked, “How can they tell?” Steeped in politics, Coolidge climbed the political pole as city councilman, state representative, mayor, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, and vice-president (most of those in Massachusetts). The litany of his administration’s crimes against humanity reads like Harding’s, amplified.

THE BAD (It would take books - don’t read them. Here’s some highlights):
The Ku Klux Klan claimed 5 million members in 1925, and marched to Washington, where it was received favorably. With abandon, it was murdering blacks, jews, catholics, and women who refused to be subordinate. Coolidge shared many of those views, particularly those on women.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (29th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WARREN G. HARDING: 1921-1923 ~ 29th U.S. President

Genial and easygoing, the Republican poker player from Ohio had just four years experience in the Senate during which he did nothing. He won election with 404 electoral votes, an unprecedented landslide, and more than 60% of the popular vote. Wilson oversaw a Democratic majority in Congress, but Harding brought in outrageous majorities of Republicans in 1920 (a 24-person majority in the Senate).

He was a pig.

As historian Paula Fass has written, “The presidency of Warren G. Harding began in mediocrity and ended in corruption.” Whereas Ulysses S. Grant chose men for his administration because he thought them able, and they turned out corrupt, Harding chose men because they were corrupt, and they could enrich him.

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