As Presidents Go, Is He Really That Bad?

If Facebook posts and news media coverage are any indication, there seems to be some level of interest in our newly elected president.  This caused me to reflect and ask the question, is this presidency really that unusual?  I can, after proper reflection, unequivocally answer, yes and no.

Presidents In My Lifetime

At this writing on March 27, 2017, Mr. Trump has been president for a mere 66 days.  In that time:

•        The world did not end.
•        A bill was passed that removed restrictions which would block guns sales to the mentally ill.
•        Coalmines can now dump waste into our waterways.
•        Energy companies can now hide royalties and government payments.
•        Some Dodd-Frank reforms protecting consumers were lifted.
•        Two Executive Orders were issued restricting travel from some Muslim nations (under a court stay).
•        The Affordable Care Act was overhauled on paper but was pulled without a vote.
•        The Keystone XL Pipeline will be finalized using steel pipe from Russia.
•        Construction of the US Mexico border wall was ordered (waiting on the Mexican check to clear).
•        An insurance rate cut was eliminated for new homeowners.
•        I repeat, the world did not end.

President Trump is my 13^th president.  Yes, lucky number 13.  I’ve seen them come and go since the times of Harry S. Truman. 

Harry S. Truman with Lauren Bacall

I don’t remember much about Harry except that he was married to Bess, has a street named after him in Key West, and he was known as “Give ‘em Hell, Harry.”  He ended WWII with the dropping of two atomic bombs.  I was seven when he left office.  He seemed like a nice guy, I think I would have liked him.

Next up was Dwight D Eisenhower in 1953.  He had been a rare five star general and oversaw the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  I had an “I Like Ike” sticker on my little red wagon.  It represents one of the best campaign slogans in my memory.  Ike is credited with the implementation of the Interstate Highway System.  The highways and bridges were made mostly out of concrete and I guess it was assumed they would last forever because presidents in the successive 50 years have largely ignored their upkeep.

Eisenhower Addresses the Troops Before D-Day

JFK came to the presidency in 1961, and is perhaps one of the best known of my generation.  He was charismatic, well liked, and was assassinated in office.  When I was younger, people would question my use of Jack as a nickname for John.  I would use JFK in my explanation.  Back then, I would get a slow nodding acknowledgement that Jack is indeed a nickname for John.  Now, looking across at millennials and Gen-Xer’s I get blank stares and the shocking, “who’s Kennedy”? 

John F Kennedy with Eleanor Roosevelt

During his short presidency, JFK was credited with forming the Peace Corps and avoiding nuclear disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He was also blamed for the Bay of Pigs failure by many Cubans even though this operation was initiated by the CIA during Eisenhower’s administration.  The Bay of Pigs invasion plans were the worst kept secret in Miami.  A Cuban born student in my Spanish class pulled down a map in the front of the room and told us of the upcoming invasion strategy to divide Havana from the rest of the nation and to cut communication lines to begin a guerrilla war for freedom.

Headline During Cuban Missile Crisis

JFK also had reported affairs with several women, some of whom met mysterious ends.  Among his affairs were Judith Exner a mobster’s girlfriend, actress Marilyn Monroe, Mary Meyer the sister-in-law of a Washington Post editor, Mimi Alford a White House intern, Jill Cowan a secretary in the White House Press Office, Pricilla Wear a White House staff member, and Ellen Rometsch an East German spy.  Top that Donald Trump.

During his term in office, President Kennedy also managed to piss off Russian president Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban president Fidel Castro, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and mafia boss Sam Giancana.  Is it any wonder that conspiracy theorists had a field day with the Kennedy assassination?  Lee Harvey Oswald was married to a Russian, visited and had ties with Cuba, was known to the FBI, and was himself killed by a mob figure. 

 

While the movie The Manchurian Candidate has meaning today for the Trump presidency, there are certain parallels with JFK as well.  He was a war hero, had a powerful father, came from a prominent family, and won a close election.  At this point President Trump takes the lead in the movie plot with suspected ties (not proven) to a foreign enemy government.  It should also be noted that President Trump has no military experience.

1962 Movie The Manchurian Candidate

LBJ was the Rodney Dangerfield of recent presidents.  A great quote from Johnson, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."

Johnson Sworn in on Air Force One after Kennedy Assassination

LBJ became president after the assassination of his predecessor.  Not that Johnson had anything to do with that.  There are theories out there to the contrary however, since Oswald visited an area of Texas before going to Dallas in which LBJ had ties.  LBJ launched his senatorial career in a tight primary election where 202 voters in Jim Wells County came to the polls in alphabetical order and signed in using the same handwriting.  Johnson’s campaign manager just happened to be John Connally.  Johnson won his senate party primary by just 87 votes, which won him the title of, “Landslide Johnson.”  You have to love politics.  John Connally went on to become governor of Texas and was later wounded in the presidential limo during the JFK assassination.  Things that make you scratch your head and go hmmmm.

Johnson did make his mark in the White House in the areas of Civil Rights, Immigration Reform, increased spending on education, and he championed the formation of Medicare and Medicaid.  That was all in the plus column.  On the other side, the Vietnam war continued to escalate.

In 1969, enter Richard Nixon, aka, “tricky dicky.”  While people will remember him for making the Watergate complex famous, he did a few good things.  He ended the Vietnam War, eliminated the draft, and opened diplomatic relations with China.  The ending of the Vietnam war happened on Nixon’s watch but was the end result of negotiations started under Johnson.  Nixon perhaps delayed the end of the war at the end of Johnson’s administration by promising South Vietnamese president Thieu a better deal when he took over as president.  Johnson knew this because he had been wiretapping (yes there is that nasty presidential word) the ambassador’s office.

Can You Spot Nixon In This Photo?

Nixon, during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 (Egypt and Syria, supported by USSR, attacked Israel), airlifted arms to support Israel.  Brezhnev threatened military action and Nixon took the US to DEFCON3.  If you are a movie buff and remember your DEFCON levels, you know they are related to defecation and to how deep the shit happens to be.  DEFCON 3 is the Air Force is ready to mobilize in 15 minutes, DEFCON 2 we are ready to launch, and DEFCON 1 “I won’t be home for dinner.” 

Brezhnev backed down but, as a result of Israel’s victory, the Arab OPEC nations halted oil sales to the US resulting in the 1973 oil crisis, aka, go wait in long lines for gas and prepare to be disappointed.  I will however, be forever thankful to OPEC, because I was working for General Motors at the time.  Large car sales plummeted and GM was forced into layoffs.  If I hadn’t been laid off at GM, I might now be the proud possessor of a worthless retirement fund.

Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew resigned.  He was then convicted of bribery, tax evasion, and money laundering for activities during his time as governor of Maryland.  Gerald Ford was picked as his replacement.  Watergate happened and Nixon had to go on TV to tell his fellow Americans, “I’m not a crook.”  Nixon was forced out and Ford became president.  Are we beginning to remember that the presidency has not always been a bastion of honest and thoughtful government?

Watergate Cast

Gerald Ford served as vice president and president without having been elected to either office.  As president, Ford held that office for only 895 days, the shortest on record for someone who did not die in office.  He also lived longer than any other president did, as he was 93 when he died.  He famously fell down the gangway departing from Air Force One while visiting Austria in 1975.

He was Commander in Chief during the Mayaguez incident where a merchant ship was seized by Cambodians and our Marines were dispatched to rescue the crew.  They landed on the wrong island and suffered heavy losses.  We, the US, didn’t know that the Cambodians had already released the captured sailors.  The raid was viewed as a US victory and Ford enjoyed an 11-point boost in approval ratings.  The 41 servicemen killed were the last official casualties of the Vietnam war.

Gerald Ford Teaches Pele How to Really Play Football

 

Ford pardoned Nixon and gave amnesty to Vietmam draft-dodgers.  He supported the Equal Rights Amendment.  This made all women equal under the law.  He survived two assassination attempts; both shots were fired by women.  He lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter is a distant descendant of Thomas Cornell, as is Bill Gates, Richard Nixon, Amelia Earhart, and ax murder Lizzie Borden.  Top that family tree Donald Trump!  

Carter is famous for bailing out Chrysler Corporation, giving away the Panama Canal, managing the 444 days of the Iran hostage crisis, deregulation of the airline industry, and deregulation of the beer industry (making microbrew and homebrew OK).  Speaking of beer, Jimmy's brother Billy went into the beer business promoting Billy Beer.  By most standards it was awful stuff and Billy cited it for why he stopped drinking. 

Billy Carter Promoting His Beer

Billy Carter became the center of a Senate investigation, known as Billygate, for his ties to Libya.  It seems Billy registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and was "loaned" $220,000 for his efforts.  An article published by The New Republic stated Billy had been paid $2 million by Libya.  It was later determined that this was "fake news" and the author had been paid $120,000 to disseminate disinformation in order to influence the upcoming presidential election.  Sound familiar?

Carter supported the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.  This support of Afghanistan forced Russia to withdraw which also contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Carter was defeated in 1981 by Ronald Reagan and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Jimmy Carter

The actor Reagan, beat out the peanut farmer Carter, and served as president from 1981 to 1989 with George HW Bush as his VP.  Reagan, like Trump, was formerly a Democrat and switched parties in 1962.  He left office with a 68% approval rating matching FDR and Bill Clinton.  As an actor, one of his memorable titles is Bedtime for Bonzo, where a psychology professor (Reagan) tries to teach human morals to a chimpanzee.  Boy, could we use his help today at the White House.

Bedtime for Bonzo

Reagan was the oldest president elected, at age 69, until Trump came in at age 70.  On the jobs front, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers.  His so-called Reaganomics plan reduced inflation, created jobs, but also almost tripled the national debt.

Ronald Reagan and Nancy

Reagan was shot in 1981 by a nut-job named Hinckley who was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster.

The Iran-Contra affair also happened on Reagan’s watch.  If you remember, we covertly sold arms to Iran (which was against the law), the sale was brokered through Israel, and we used the sale proceeds to fund the Contras fighting the government in Nicaragua (also illegal).  The cover story was that the arms sale was to help free 7 hostages  taken by Hezbollah.   Reagan claimed he didn’t know what his staff was doing and appointed the Tower Commission to investigate.  A great many documents were withheld from the commission or destroyed and the final report found that it couldn’t be proven that Reagan knew the full extent of the program.  At one point however, Reagan took “full responsibility” for the arms for hostages’ portion of the deal.  Eventually, fourteen administration officials were indicted which resulted in eleven convictions.  All were eventually pardoned by our next president, George H.W. Bush.

Bush the First, inherited $220 billion of national debt from the Reagan administration so his promise of, “Read my lips, No new taxes,” didn’t quite hold water.  In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we got into the Gulf War.  We won that war and Bush’s ratings skyrocketed.  Bush promoted NAFTA eliminating tariffs on products traded between the US, Canada, and Mexico.  It should also be noted here that President Bush is the first elected official to personally retaliate for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by puking on the Prime Minister of Japan.  This happened in 1992 during a visit to Tokyo.  It was blamed on the flu or maybe some bad sushi.  Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton.

Bush Pukes on Japanese Prime Minister

President Clinton was the first of “my people” to be elected.  By that, I mean he was the first Baby Boomer to make it to the White House.  He was also the first to be impeached for his libidinous behavior even though he was a piker compared to the dalliances of JFK or the current Mr. Trump.  He was technically impeached for perjury by the House of Representatives and later acquitted by the Senate.  On a positive note, the affair boosted the GNP as Monica Lewinsky used her new pop culture status to start up a handbag line.

Clinton is the first president in this review to have not served in the military.  Several used money and influence to avoid personal risk but Clinton was the first to avoid any form of military service.  Bush the Second (“W”), Obama, and Donald Trump also share the distinction of not having served in the military.  It should be noted that “W” did serve in the Texas Air National Guard.

Clinton and his VP Al Gore launched whitehouse.gov and moved other federal agencies to the Internet.  During Clinton’s presidency, the 1996 US campaign finance controversy involved an effort by the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to influence US domestic policy.  It almost sounds like something ripped out of a 2017 headline.  

Bill Clinton

During a 1996 trip to the Philippines, several assassination attempts were thwarted by the Secret Service.  There was a massive IED scheduled to blow up a bridge to be travelled by the presidential motorcade, several hand grenades were discovered in a travel bag at the airport, and another bomb was found at a US naval base where Clinton visits were scheduled.  The bridge bomb was traced to a Saudi terrorist group called al-Qaeda then headed by Osama bin Laden.  Until recently, these assassination attempts were withheld from the public.

George W Bush, aka Bush the Second, or just “W,” won a close election over Al Gore that was ultimately decided by the Florida Supreme Court.  He won Florida by 537 votes out of six million cast.  This was the “hanging chad” fiasco.  I had a front row seat to the recount in Miami as my office was on a floor adjoining the recount area.  Bush also had the dubious distinction of being the Commander in Chief during the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Looking For Chads (picture taken just feet from my office)

After the 9/11 attack, Bush signed the executive order that implemented the President’s Surveillance Program that allowed the NSA to, without even a FISA warrant, surveille terrorists outside the US who contact people in the US.  This executive order was later replaced by PRISM that did require a FISA warrant.  Does any of this sound as if it’s had an impact in current events? 

There was only one assassination attempt involving president Bush and that took place in Georgia.  That’s Georgia the country not Georgia the state north of Florida.  The attempt was in the form of a hand grenade tossed toward the podium where Bush was speaking.  The Armenian “tosser” (that’s British slang for something) didn’t have much of an arm as the grenade fell 65 feet from Bush and didn’t detonate.  Bush wanted to invade Armenia but couldn’t find it on a map.  (Just kidding)

Bush Quote

Two other periods of the Bush presidency where the country could have ended up in deep shit, so to speak, happened in 2002 and again in 2007.  For brief periods during those years, Dick Cheney became the acting president when Bush underwent colonoscopies.  Both Bush and the country survived those near catastrophes.

President Bush Gives Encouragement to American Team at Beijing Olympics

When Bush took office, the DOW was over 10,000, but when he left office, it was under 8,000.  The US also endured the longest recession since the end of WWII.  The Dot-com bubble coupled with the 9/11 attacks contributed to the recession.  His term in office also saw the subprime mortgage crisis, a housing market correction, and rising oil prices.  Bush also pushed major tax cuts that didn’t help matters.  On a more positive note, he signed the Medicare drug benefit program.

Invasion of Iraq

The biggest blunder of the Bush presidency however, was his 2003 invasion of Iraq to find Weapons of Mass Destruction.  The eventual toppling of the Hussein regime created a power vacuum that was filled by al-Qaeda and Isis.  As presidential screw-ups go, this one topped the charts.  Speaking of charts, Bush had the highest and lowest approval ratings for an American president ever recorded.  It was highest after 9/11 and the lowest at the 2008 end of his presidency, partly because of the 2008 financial crisis.

Putin and Bush Argue About Fashion

This brings us almost up to date with the election of Barack Obama in 2008.  President Obama inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an economy in the worst shape since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.  During his presidency, the Dow Jones average went from around 8,000 to almost 20,000, the S&P 500 was up 181%, and NASDAQ tripled in value.  Corporate profits rose 166%, wages increased by 3.4%, 15 million people got health insurance, but the national debt went up 116%.  Also of note, on May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed and buried at sea hours later.

His crowning achievement was the ACA, which is commonly called Obamacare.  It certainly has room for improvement and will need to be changed but, as we have seen in recent weeks, it’s complicated.

Obama Family Portrait

The unemployment rate was 7.8% when Obama took office and quickly rose to 10%.  At the end of his second term, unemployment was around 4.7%.  Could Obama have done better?  Of course, he could have done more.  In his defense, he did not have an advantage in Congress for much of his tenure, but did have a majority early on.  He inherited a mess, made some improvements, and he will be more properly judged in the years that come.  He also won the Nobel Peace Prize.

  

Now we are up to date.  It is far too early in the Trump presidency to draw many comparisons but, as we have seen, every president has had his problems.  Not one was without his flaws.  We have seen that, as philanderers go, president Trump doesn’t hold a candle to JFK.  Give him time though, and we shall see what the future brings.  President Trump has a lot of wiggle room if history is allowed some light.  His predecessors in my lifetime:

• ·       dropped two atomic bombs
• ·       launched a failed covert invasion of Cuba
• ·       brought us to the brink of mutually assured destruction
• ·       been assassinated in office
• ·       taken us twice to DEFCON 3
• ·       were suspected of rigging and/or interfering with elections
• ·       been forced to resign
• ·       launched an attack that landed on the wrong island
• ·       survived numerous assassination attacks
• ·       puked on a Japanese Prime Minister
• ·       “did not have sex with that woman”
• ·       illegally sold arms to an enemy
• ·       initiated wars based on poor intelligence

This list is far from complete.  Let’s allow President Trump to go about the business of being the leader of the free world, as we shamelessly refer to the position.  He will surely provide us with ample material for a follow-up article.

 

Trump