Presidential Pundit Pabulum

As a matter of routine, I take on the silliness and misinformation of “the chattering class” in print, online and in other forms if I encounter it in my quest to provide something approximating the truth (yes, if you have any familiarity with this site at all, I know you know that already – and by the way, I also posted here).

I’m pointing out that extremely obvious fact as a setup to my comments on this opinion column from Ivan Eland (and I have to admit that Eland is one of the least likely individuals with whom I would take issue due to the fact that he seems to be more grounded in the reality-based community).

However, in his remarks timed for the inauguration today, he tells us…

Presidents cannot take credit or be blamed for what they inherit when they take office. If they at least try to move the country in the right direction – as Jimmy Carter did when he proposed a top-to-bottom review of federal programs and government spending, known as "zero-based budgeting "– they deserve more credit than presidents who go along with things that are wrong.

Indeed, Carter, who is underrated as president, reduced government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) faster than any other modern president, began deregulation of many industries, and nominated Paul Volcker to serve as Federal Reserve chairman. He was the main architect of the "tight money" policies that helped trigger the Reagan and Clinton booms.

Eland, on balance, is a pretty bright guy, and that more or less supports what I’ve already read about Carter. The “stern medicine” from our 39th president hastened his political demise and contributed to some horrendous unemployment numbers early in Reagan’s first term, though happily for The Sainted Ronnie R, he managed to turn that around somewhat before the 1984 election.

However, I believe Eland gets into trouble here…

The late historian Stephen Ambrose, biographer of Dwight D. Eisenhower, argued in his book "Eisenhower: Soldier and President," that an author's partisanship distorts the attempt to rate the effects of presidential decisions. A "more fruitful" way to judge a president, Mr. Ambrose wrote, is to assess "how well he did in achieving the tasks and goals he set for himself at the time he took office."

Such valueless judgments are the opposite of how historians should judge our presidents. By Ambrose's standard, any president with the skill – or the favorable conditions – to get his programs enacted could be labeled a good or great chief executive, even if the programs hurt the country. Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush would all rank high in such a system, because they were all reasonably effective in getting (misguided) policies implemented.

But consider the cost of that effectiveness: Wilson's policies arguably helped foment World War II, and they certainly led to bigger and more aggressive government. Johnson's policies helped create welfare dependency as an American way of life. And Bush's policies both dragged us into an unnecessary war in Iraq and, with the addition of Medicare's prescription drug benefit, provided for the greatest expansion of government in recent history. All three were effective; all three were wrong.

I should add that I’m not sure if I’m taking issue with Eland here or Ambrose, or both, but here I go anyway.

To begin, I’m also unsure how Woodrow Wilson, who was the driving force behind the League of Nations after World War I (a group to which the US never joined; Wilson earned the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts) can be blamed for World War II. The individuals primarily responsible for the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles were David Lloyd George of Great Britain and Georges Clemenceau of France (though Lloyd George was more concerned about the rise of communism than Nazism – all of this and much more is noted here).

And as far as Lyndon Johnson is concerned, if you’re going to dwell on the failures of his “Great Society” programs instead of his successes, then you’re really branding the entire ideological cast of this country as wrongheaded from, say, the New Deal programs until the early 1970s, since, as noted here, the “Great Society” built on the work begun by FDR, as well as the “New Frontier” of Johnson’s predecessor JFK (though I was too young at the time to directly experience what transpired while LBJ was president, I just get tired of all of this negative revisionism of those years, particularly when I read it from people who should know better).

And Eland continues…

Calvin Coolidge lacked charisma, generally avoided government intervention, and served during a time of peace. He is known today as Silent Cal and is all but ignored by historians. I consider him among America's best chief executives.

I thought that was interesting, given that writer David Greenberg compared Coolidge here to Reagan in the former’s use of what would come to later be called “photo ops.”

Greenberg also tells us…

Under Coolidge, the stock market swelled into an enormous bubble, inflated by borrowed money and a belief that the self-proclaimed "New Era" really was new. Coolidge managed to get out of office before the bursting, but that didn't prevent hard feelings. "Nero fiddled," (journalist H.L.) Mencken said, "but Coolidge only snored."

And…

…another parallel springs as readily to mind (besides Coolidge to Reagan). Coolidge made a habit of bestowing nicknames on those around him; his tax cuts particularly benefited the rich; the hottest issue of his presidency was immigration (Coolidge in 1924 signed the most sweeping immigration reform in American history, drastically curtailing legal entry into the United States); flooding in Louisiana and elsewhere along the Mississippi required a major relief effort and prompted angry criticism of Washington's half-hearted response. But unlike George W. Bush, Coolidge left office after a single full term. "I do not choose to run," he said simply, and walked away. Considering how things have been going recently, Bush may wish he had followed Silent Cal's lead!

I honestly don’t see how Eland or anyone else could imagine putting Dubya in the same sentence as Woodrow Wilson (whose chief flaw was racism, as nearly as I can determine) and LBJ. However, since “Number 43” is now OFFICIALLY HISTORY (!), let us take comfort from the fact that the exercise of trying to reconcile such a comparison is now a matter for posterity.