As we begin to contemplate the prospect of a second term for President Obama, I think it is important to reflect back on all our post-war presidents. We’ll discover that the presidency isn’t an easy job and most of our presidents have been grotesque failures. In recent years, historians have been trying to rehabilitate Harry Truman’s performance in office, but he didn’t run for a second term in 1952 because he had gotten us mired in an unwinnable war in Korea and the people had turned decisively against him. JFK didn’t live to seek a second term. Lyndon Johnson didn’t seek a second term in 1968 because he had gotten us mired in an unwinnable war in Vietnam and the people had turned decisively against him. Richard Nixon won a second term but was forced to resign in disgrace. Jimmy Carter was pretty much a failure on every level and had to fight to even be renominated by the Democratic Party. Ronald Reagan’s second term was marred by scandal, a collapsed stock market, and senility. He staggered to the end. Poppy Bush involved us in another land war in Asia, which really only began to end this past month. He failed to win reelection mostly because the economy was bad at the wrong time. Bill Clinton won reelection, but his second term was mired in scandal and humiliation, culminating with his impeachment by a deranged House of Representatives. George W. Bush’s second term was the most shameful and disastrous we’ve seen since James Buchanan was in office.
That leaves Dwight Eisenhower as the only president in the post-war era to fill two terms in office without bringing ruinous change to the country and/or personal humiliation to themselves. It’s really a horrible record. We have had dreadful leadership in this country. And, yet, I can’t see Obama having to resign or being impeached or bringing us something like the Iran-Contra scandal. He’s more likely to end our land wars in Asia than to start new ones, although Iran remains a tricky trouble spot with the potential to complicate or even ruin Obama’s second term. As far as I am concerned, Obama brings the reforms of an LBJ without the drama, and the steadiness of Dwight Eisenhower without the cardboard flavor.
It’s easy to forget how good we have it. But I honestly don’t think we’ve had a president who truly deserved reelection since Eisenhower, and I probably would have voted for Stevenson. It’s so rare for us to have a president worthy of a second term that we probably should go out and make sure that he actually gets reelected.
