Don Imus—the I-Man—during a Washington Press Correspondents presidential roast fiasco involving Slick Willy; Imus fell flatter than an angel food cake made with high-altitude flour at sea-level.
Friday, June 11, 2004
Let's Hear It For Old Buck!
At the service academies, the bottom-standing graduate each year is cheered as the goat of the class. In the same vein, among commanders-in-chief, let's hear it for Old Buck—James Buchanan (D-PA)—who had the misfortune to occupy the presidency as the Union was disintegrating in the late 1850s. Rating presidents has been a great parlor game since the end of WWII. One of the preeminent practitioners has been Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.—hagiographer of Old Hickory, FDR, and JFK. Today, we are treated to proposals to replace FDR with Dutch on the dime, to rename the Pentagon for Dutch, or to carve Dutch's profile on Mount Rushmore. If Old Buck is the goat among the Presidents of the United States, he ought to have a proper commemorative. Perhaps the men's room in Union Station in Washington? If this is (fair & balanced) weariness with nostalgia, so be it.
[x Wall Street Journal]
Where Reagan Ranks in a New Poll by Conservative Historians
by
James Taranto
Ronald Reagan has had a hard time getting his due from scholars. In 1996 Arthur Schlesinger Jr. conducted a poll of historians asking them to rank the presidents, and Mr. Reagan came in 25th out of 39, putting him in the "low average" category. The Gipper had done only slightly better in a Siena College survey two years earlier, finishing 20th out of 41--below Bill Clinton (16th), who had been in office less than two years, and well below Lyndon B. Johnson (13th). It's hard to agree that the president who won the Cold War was less successful than the one who escalated the Vietnam War.
The flaw in these studies is obvious. Because academics tend to be far to the left of the general population, conservative presidents, especially recent ones, usually get short shrift. (A C-Span survey in 1999, which included "professional presidential experts" as well as historians, did rank Mr. Reagan 11th.)
Public opinion polls tell a different story. In February 2001 Gallup asked Americans who was the greatest president in history. Mr. Reagan finished first, with 18%....
In 2000 the Federalist Society came up with a way to remedy the flaws in both types of surveys. It asked 78 scholars in history, law and politics to rate the presidents on a five-point scale. "We tried to choose approximately equal numbers of scholars who lean to the left and to the right," explains Northwestern University's James Lindgren, who analyzed the data. "Another way to express this is that we sought to mirror what scholarly opinion might be on the counterfactual assumption that the academy was politically representative of the society in which we live and work."
Mr. Lindgren averaged the ratings for each of the 39 presidents (George W. Bush was not yet elected, and William Henry Harrison and James Garfield were omitted because they died shortly after taking office) and divided them into six categories: great, near great, above average, average, below average and failure. The results appeared in November 2000 on OpinionJournal.com and have just been published as a Wall Street Journal book, "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," which also includes an essay on each president and several thematic chapters on presidential leadership. (For excerpts, click here.) Some highlights:
• Three presidents made the cut as "great": George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They are the top three finishers in most surveys of scholars.
• Eight presidents were judged "near great," including Mr. Reagan, who finished eighth. Among them only James K. Polk (10th) served just one term.
• Among recent presidents, only Mr. Reagan ranked as "near great." JFK (18th) and LBJ (17th) were "above average," George H.W. Bush (21st) and Bill Clinton (24th) "average," and Richard Nixon (33rd), Gerald Ford (28th) and Jimmy Carter (30th) "below average."
• Mr. Clinton was the most controversial president--that is, the scholars' rankings of him diverged more sharply than for anyone else. Woodrow Wilson, who finished 11th overall, was the second most controversial president, but the next three were all among the post-1960 group: Mr. Reagan, Nixon and LBJ.
• Four presidents rated as failures: Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding and James Buchanan. Buchanan finished dead last.
The new survey can be found in James Taranto, co-editor, with Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House.
Copyright © 2004 Wall Street Journal
Everything You Wanted To Know About State Funerals
Dutch is not the first, but the 12th deceased to lie in state in the Capitol. This Kremlin-like practice has reached the height of hypocrisy. If Dutch had breathed his last on Good Friday, a'la Abraham Lincoln, we would be treated to claims that Dutch was the spiritual equivalent of Jesus Christ. Note that FDR's family and Truman's family eschewed this bloated ceremonial posturing. Ah, well. This, too shall pass. If this is (fair & balanced) weariness, so be it.
[x NYTimes]
Who Has Received State Funerals?
by
David Stout and Carl Hulse
...Ronald Reagan's will be the 12th state funeral in which the deceased has lain in the Capitol. Besides Lincoln, Kennedy and Johnson, the presidents whose state funerals included lying in state at the Capitol were James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In addition, Gens. John J. Pershing, in 1948, and Douglas C, MacArthur, in 1964, were given state funerals after lying in the Rotunda. While not automatically eligible, they had the honor of being designated by the president as worthy of one. (Vice presidents, chief justices, cabinet members and other high officials are entitled to "official funerals," which are less elaborate.)
Richard M. Nixon also had a state funeral in 1994, but in Yorba Linda, Calif. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman could have had state funerals, but instead had simpler rites. Roosevelt's body lay briefly in the East Room of the White House before being taken to the family estate at Hyde Park, N.Y., for burial in 1945; Truman was buried in Independence, Mo., in 1972 after services there. ...
The catafalque first used to support Lincoln's coffin has been used to hold the remains of 25 others in the Rotunda, including unknown soldiers from the world wars, Korea and Vietnam; Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey in 1978; and, most recently, Representative Claude Pepper in 1989, according to the office of the Architect of the Capitol.
The catafalque has also been used to support the coffins of senators and representatives elsewhere in the Capitol. It has also been used five times in the Supreme Court building, to bear the remains of Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1974; Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1993; Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in 1995; Justice William J. Brennan Jr. in 1997; and Justice Harry A. Blackmun in 1999. The catafalque was used once in the Department of Commerce Building, to support the remains of Secretary Ronald H. Brown in 1996.
Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company