RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR PRESIDENT'S DAY

"The Republican Club" by Andy Thomas.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Juneteenth become a Federal holiday, wasn't President's Day one suggested to be eliminated in its place? Really?

 

Not me. I'll admit that when I grew up, both Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays were observed; I was surprised and even as a Junior-Higher disappointed when they combined the two for "Presidents' Day". 

"The Democrat Club" by Andy Thomas

I've read biographies on Taft, McKinley, Garfield, Hayes, Arthur, Filmore, LBJ, and Madison, as well as reading the auto-biographies of George W. Bush, watching a four hour PBS program on Theodore Roosevelt, and watching PBS' 10 hour The American President in '00 and reading the print version. On my list include Tyler, Cleveland, Carter, Benjamin Harrison, Polk, and Coolidge. (I've also read bios on three time candidate William Jennings Bryan, former Vic President John Calhoun, and former speaker of the house "Uncle Joe" Canon, with Patrick Henry on the to read list.)

I have mentioned in a previous blog that I also read Presidential ranking books. I especially enjoyed Ivan Eland's Recarving Rushmore, which took a different approach to ranking Presidents.

Allow me to mention some random thoughts about Presidential history. 

• You can divide Presidents into three eras: 1) No facial hair (Washington to Buchanan), 2) Facial hair (Lincoln to Taft, with Andrew Johnson and McKinley being exceptions) and 3) No facial hair II (Wilson on).
• Five of the first seven Presidents served two full consecutive terms; the next one was Grant (#18), and the following one was  Wilson (#28).
• The first four Vice Presidents who ascended into the Presidency (Tyler, Filmore, Andrew Johnson, and Arthur) were not elected to a term of their own; the following four were (Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, LBJ), and the ninth was not (Ford).
• We have had multiple two-term Presidents only twice: Jefferson/Madison/Monroe and Clinton/George W. Bush/Obama. (You might make an argument of Franklin Roosevelt/Truman as being a technicality.)
• The longest streak of one-or-less term presidents was eight, from Van Buren to Buchanan in a 24 year period. 
• Whigs won two elections, but neither winner survived his term.
• I read in a book about a Presidential candidate riding a train to a conference, stopping to pick up his running mate and introducing him to a governor of a neighboring state and a young Congressman from his home state. That quartet were then-future Presidents James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. (The book, which I highly recommend, was Dark Horse: The Surprise Nomination and Political Murder of James Garfield by Kenneth Ackerman.)
• Three Presidents have had direct descendants become president (John and John Quincy Adams, William and Benjamin Harrison, George H. W. and George W. Bush). Only one of the set was re-elected.
• Since I started being aware of Major League Baseball in the '70's, the Yankees have been to the World Series eleven times. Their seven victories ('77, '78, '96, '98, '99, '00, '09) all occurred when a Democrat was in the oval house; their four losses ('76, '81, '01 and '03) were during Republican presidencies. 

Let me close with some thoughts of Andy Johnson's excellent paintings above. It makes me smile seeing certain comparisons of who sat in each spot between the two pictures: Lincoln and FDR, Nixon and Clinton, Ford and Carter, Teddy and Wilson. But I'm looking forward to seeing his "Libertarian Club" painting. He can do it of the LP nominees for President - it will probably be a while before he has enough LP Presidents to be called a club.

BOOK REVIEWS - FIXING THIS COUNTRY

 

Normally I would review a book or a series. This week, I'll be giving a batch of short reviews on books with a related subject: dealing with this mess. For the record, I would recommend reading the book unless I say otherwise.

1. Christian Theology of Public Policy: Highlighting the American Experience by John Cobin. This book considers four methods of looking at the government - the active and passive ways of seeing the Government as a God ordained institution (respectively Theonomy and Divine Right As Kings), and active and passive ways of seeing Government as a competing kingdom (Liberty of Conscience and Anabaptist). He then develops the Liberty of Conscience view.

 

2. The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher. If it sounds familiar, I've already reviewed and recommended it. Short summary - Dreher sees a slow drift away from God in the past seven centuries and calls the church to form communities to battle the coming storm.

 

3. Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb by Keith Giles. This is one book I don't recommend as much. Like Dreher above, Giles believes we need to take a step back from politics. But he traces the problem to Constantine and the church uniting at all with the state. This book reflects an anabaptist view, with the church completely separate from state.

4.  Turn Neither to the Right nor to the Left: A Thinking Christian's Guide to Politics and Public Policy by D. Eric Schansberg. Out of all these books, this one and The Benedict Option would be towards the top of the list. This volume encourages us not to legislate morality and to legislate justice. Very useful material, and he does an excellent job with abortion.

 

5. Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America? by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson. This volume is right behind the other two, making us wonder again about how Christians should handle politics. Thomas also interviews ten individuals from Jerry Falwell to Norman Lear to John Ashcroft to George McGovern.  

6. The Divided States of America? by Richard Land. It's been a while since I've read it, but it is a good call not to let politics divide the church.

 

7. The American President (PBS boxed set). I looked for the book rendition, but only found the video which came out in 2000. It's natural to look at the role of the President, and while this doesn't identify a problem, it took an interesting track of putting our first 41 Presidents in groups of ten. For example, Washington is compared to other generals like William Harrison, Grant, and Eisenhower. True, many Presidents could fit into one of the categories (for example, Andrew Jackson was a general, but he was placed in another category. 

8. Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians by Robert W. Merry. This author ranks the president in several categories and compares the rankings of the scholars with the reaction of the voters - did the President get re-elected? If he didn't run for re-election, was a member of his party elected? 

9. Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty by Ivan Eland. Here, we see a different system
of selecting the order of presidents based on peace, prosperity and liberty, placing them as great (4), good (6), fair (4), poor (10), and bad (17). As a result, you see John Tyler and Grover Cleveland topping the list, while Washington is in the good category, and the Roosevelts were in the bad division. The second edition includes President Obama.

10. 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: and Four Who Tried To Save Her by Brion McClanahan. This is similar to the above one, only concentrating on those considered the best and worst. The nine were Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, and Obama, though he made it clear that both Bushes and Clintons were worthy of being included. The four good ones were Jefferson (1st term only), Tyler, Cleveland, and Coolidge. Unlike the other books, though, this one starts giving ideas of changing our constitution to improve things. His thoughts include giving the President a single six year term without re-election.

11. Two Presidents Are Better Than One: the Case for a Bi-Partisan Executive Branch by David Orentlicher. In other words, let's have Trump and Biden serve as our nation's two presidents. The suggestion is to elect the two highest vote-getters as co-presidents. While I doubt it works, the author has some interesting points. 

12. Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to Bush II by. Another idea - in this case, the problem is that the President is too independent of his party in Congress. There needs to be more team work. He also suggests changes to the lengths of elected officials - he thinks the President and both houses of Congress should all have concurrent four year terms, and that when you vote for a Presidential candidate, your automatically voting for that party's Senators and Representatives (like the VP currently is). I think the book is interesting, but I disagree with his solution.

13. The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters by Karl Rove. If you're a liberal, don't be put off by the author. Primarily, this is more of a biography, with the focus being on the 1896 Presidential election between Kennedy and William Jennings Bryan. But the best part is the end, where he gives eight lessons from McKinley. One of the best is to realize a political enemy is not a personal enemy. 

Any other books on the subject you find interesting?