League Of Nations

Inflexible, Rigid Presidencies: Major Problems For Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson, And Richard Nixon

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One of the most important personality characteristics needed for a successful Presidency, and to avoid a tragic end to a leader’s time in power, is his ability to be flexible and open minded to new ideas other than his own, and not to be outraged by criticism.

This does not mean, however, that a President should not have courage, guts, and decisiveness, but still flexibility and openness to others and their ideas is essential.

Going by this standard, America has had three Presidents in the past hundred years, who, despite some of their great accomplishments, were ultimately tragedies in office.

These three Presidents would include the following:

Woodrow Wilson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard Nixon

Woodrow Wilson was never good at negotiating with his critics in Congress, and his moment of great failure was when he lost the battle for ratification of the Versailles Treaty and American membership in the League of Nations in 1919-1920. While things were going well for him in domestic affairs, he was very effective, but lost it all once there was strong opposition. He never fully recovered from a stroke, which incapacitated him in his last 18 months, and only had three short years of retirement in bad health before his death in 1924.

Lyndon B. Johnson had brilliance as a legislative strategist, with his Great Society programs, but again, as with Wilson, he fell apart and became defensive and stubborn when opposition developed over the escalation of the Vietnam War, and he left office beaten, and only had four unhappy years of retirement before his death in 1973.

Richard Nixon, on the other hand, had great foreign policy ability, but despite his great foreign policy and some domestic policy accomplishments, he reacted defensively, and with a sense of being persecuted and mistreated, brought about by his own psychological demons. So he ended up pursuing his “enemies”, who criticized his Vietnam War policies and his use of his executive authority in an illegal and unethical manner, and he became saddled with the Watergate scandal, which brought him down by resignation in 1974, with his mission being to rehabilitate himself during the last 20 years of his life, but never quite accomplishing that goal.

All three men were brilliant and talented, but each had an inflexible and rigid personality that trapped them in tragedy they could not escape!

Rare Popularity Of Former “Living” Presidents In Past Century: TR, Ike, Reagan, Clinton

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The Presidency tends to cause the decline of popularity of those who hold that office, because they have to make controversial and difficult decisions which undermine their image after four or eight years in office.

In the past century, in the time of modern media exposure, which makes the Presidency a national concern on a daily basis, most Presidents, upon leaving office, have seen their public opinion rating collapse, and usually, only after they die, does their image, and respect for the difficult decisions they made, revive their popularity among both scholarly experts and the general public.

This discussion, of course, must eliminate those Presidents who did not survive the office, including Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. However, FDR and JFK would remain highly popular in death on a regular basis since their deaths, while Harding’s brief popularity after his tragic death collapsed upon learning of the sex and other scandals during his Presidency, and he has not recovered in ratings by any group.

The only Presidents who remained generally popular after leaving office were Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush left office after defeat, and none of them were well regarded after their time in office. Carter and Bush had the bad luck of being followed by popular Presidents Reagan and Clinton, and Bush has had the bad luck of having both his predecessor and successor well regarded, making his time in office look quite unimpressive by comparison.

Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Lyndon B. Johnson left office, with each under a cloud of disrepute, with Wilson seeing the defeat of the Versailles Treaty ratification and membership in the League of Nations; Coolidge seeing the coming of the Great Depression crash on Wall Street within months of his retirement; and Johnson having to bear the burden of the Vietnam War: and all three died within four years of retirement, highly unpopular.

Taft regained respect for his service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Richard Nixon gained respect for his foreign policy expertise in his long 20 years of retirement, but did not gain popularity for the rest of his lifetime; Harry Truman also had 20 years of retirement, but only gained popularity and respect after his death; Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter started to be regarded better as the years went by, with Carter about to surpass Herbert Hoover in longevity after the Presidency, but still condemned by many experts and the general public; and George W. Bush remains unpopular and seems resigned to the fact that he may not gain popularity or respect until he has passed from the scene.

Eisenhower and Reagan retained their public popularity in their post Presidency despite scholarly criticism of their time in office, and both are now regarded more highly, even by scholars, than they were when they were retired and alive.

TR and Clinton share a special bond, as both were young when leaving office; both were highly verbal and opinionated and constantly made news; both had charisma and were loved by the general public in their post retirement years; and TR actually ran for President on a third party line, while Bill Clinton would love to run again, as many Americans wish he could be President again, but of course, the 22nd Amendment prevents that, so instead, the push for his wife, Hillary Clinton, to try for the Presidency again in 2016 is growing!

Woodrow Wilson Coming Back Into Notice On The 155th Anniversary Of His Birth

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Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, was born on this day in 1856.

So on this 155th Anniversary, and as we enter 2012, there is a lot to say and comment about Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson has been under constant attack by conservatives and Republicans and by conservative talk radio show hosts. George Will of ABC’s This Week and Glenn Beck, formerly of Fox News Channel and still on talk radio, have led the attack, but there are many followers.

The attack is based on the fact that Wilson was a promoter of Progressive reform, including the Federal Reserve Banking system, the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Anti Trust Act, and the Underwood Simmons Tariff, which promoted free trade.

Wilson also promoted labor reforms and agricultural credits, so his administration became the most activist, interventionist national government we had yet seen.

This was followed up by the creation of massive government agencies to promote our efforts in World War i. And Wilson also advocated internationalism through the League of Nations, after having formed the first foreign military alliances in American history to fight the war.

Wilson, of course, also had controversial views, including opposition to women’s suffrage, and advocacy of a hard line racial segregation in unison with the Old South. He also advocated restrictions on civil liberties during wartime, and showed no tolerance for dissent, all very disturbing trends that he has rightfully been condemned for by anyone who has belief in basic values of fairness and tolerance.

Wilson was a very complicated person, and is being analyzed more now by all sides of the political spectrum, due to his relevance to present discussions and debates over the role of national government, and American involvement in world affairs after our tragic interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, of course, we are coming up to the centennial of the Presidential Election of 1912, when Woodrow Wilson won over President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt, in what became a four way race including Socialist Eugene Debs, an election often referred to as the “Triumph of Progressivism”!

So we will be hearing a lot about Woodrow Wilson over the next year!