>> coming up, examining how u.s. presidents are ranked in the eyes of historians and the populace. the other place is the presidents and groups to better understand their places in history from leaders of destiny to us split decision presidency had a better first term that second and other failures. this is about an hour. [applause] ..

>> i feel a little bit of value to learn that in the 365 day year, there are 475 events at politics and prose. my event began with a phone call in 2010 amount editor from "the new york times" op-ed page. he wanted to know whether i wanted to do a piece on a statement that obama made to diane sawyer shortly before that. in which he was responding to being charged by her on the basis them of some of the apparent unpopularity of some of his policies. and he said i would rather be a one term good president and a

mediocre two-term president. he wanted me to write a piece on some of our really good one-time president since i had just come out with the presidency book about jim caple. generally considered to be the greatest of the one term presidents. i would like to take a little bit of a different path and compared history's judgment whether contemporaneous judgment on electorate. this is something that i have given some thought you come and i thought that i got to the heart of what obama had to say and what could be a remarkable statement for a president to make. what he was saying essentially is that he is willing to accept unpopularity, even to the point of voter rejection in favor of the esteemed history. my question that i wanted to pursue in the op-ed piece was how realistic is this? i look at history's judgment, and if you've heard history's judgment is generally considered

to be the historians, it really began with arthur sledging our senior and a pc that after apple he took. in light mack. it stirred a great deal of interest. he had a real love for the media. there is a general consensus on part of historians and plenty of room for discussion about where so-and-so belongs and john adams, for example, grover cleveland come i will talk about both of them momentarily. then i wanted to compare that with the contemporaneous judgment of the electorate. and how you stress that. well, a president who is a two-term president is obviously has received higher esteem than one term president. a two-term president who have succeeded by his own party, meaning that he had two terms

that were judged by the voters to be worthy, it is another indicator of significance, perhaps. what about midterm elections and the state of the incumbent party in the congressional elections midterm? what we see is a very large correlation and when history checks largely, in most instances, with the assessment of the voters. in other words, seldom has history halo president is rejected by the voters and seldom has history debunked a president who was hailed, based on the voters. the question about obama was can he set himself above the electorate to such an extent that he gets tossed out by the director and can still get high praise from the historians. what i wrote is that there is

almost no chance of this. it just doesn't work that way. generally speaking. but there are some interesting and intriguing exceptions. having written that piece i thought i would like to explore these exceptions. perhaps it might be possible to move this matrix of the historians verdict, the voters heard it, and comparing them to looking at the president in terms of how a president succeeds and fails and how the presidency works. how we assess the presidents throughout history. i was reminded of one of my favorite quotes from mark twain among many. it is different to the opinion that may push the races. i thought that was applicable, except for one significant thing. in horse races, but different opinions and at the finish line. and the white house jane, we can

talk about it endlessly. that is why i want to get through these remarks so we can get through questions and discussions. let me begin with the disparities. presidents that the voters like and historians considered in a negative light. ulysses-esque rant, coolidge, harding, we could also include a not, eisenhower and reagan, but eisenhower came in immediately after his presidency in the first poll afterwards after the arthur's seniors lessened her second hole, with terrible ratings. down there with chet arthur. [laughter] the first johnson, andrew johnson, chet arthur who was a nonentity and andrew johnson who lost control of the government

and the country he was supposed to lead. and i thought that was kind of remarkable that historians would put eisenhower there. almost immediately he began to rise up. he is now consistently in the near great category. reagan was also next-door to chet arthur. and he is moving up. he hasn't reached the level, except in the most recent poll in 2005 by "the wall street journal." so what about the president that the voters didn't care for? well, one that i really have to talk about, maybe stir up some energy in the room, is president wilson. the voters really couldn't wait to get rid of that guy by the end of his second term. cleveland is a case in point. john adams and harry truman. harry truman is a fascinating case in point. to me he sort of personifies a significant element of this

whole thing. in terms of how the voters judge the presidents, and also how the historians judge the presidents. historians will get a presidents full tenure in office, whatever that might be coming to terms, one term, partial terms or whatever, and then look at what they have accomplished and say, good, not so good, terrible or whatever. they rate him accordingly. the voters look at their presidents as they were invited to by the constitution and four year increments. that is why we judge them exclusively by the four year increments. let's look at the presidents that have never been considered

the near greats by historians. lincoln, fdr, jefferson, jackson, holt, roosevelt, truman. what is interesting here is all were to charmers except for president polk. he is really the exception to the rule. he is the only president ever ran on one term promise that since he got the nomination. he told the american people if i'm elected, i will only serve one term and he kept that promise. no one else has done that. all soppy election, got reelected, and all but two of those were succeeded by their own party, as i believe is the highest electoral assessment. the exceptions being wilson and truman. the history and the electorate are insane. now let's look at what is judged

to be presidential failures. there is a pretty strong consensus to the bottom. there is buchanan, my least favorite president, i think he was a man of very low character. president hears drink too much. [laughter] and he was not much better than buchanan. andrew johnson, as i say, he lost control of the government. you can govern if you can't control the government for whatever reason. president fillmore, i'm not sure i would think too much about him. and orangey harding and of course, since his departure from the white house, richard nixon who raises a very interesting question, which i am not going to get into here, but maybe in the q&a about what are we going to do about a president who is so immediately humiliated. and yet accomplished some very significant things before all that happened. another guy in that category but

to a lesser extent, but to a significant extent as lyndon johnson who had massive accomplishments. he basically brought himself down to his vietnam. let's talk about grant. >> all of these guys that are the so-called failures are one charmers except for nixon. and except for the one outlier, and that is ulysses-esque ranford grant is considered a failure, although he is rising in the estimation of history. he was succeeded by his own party and now it gets a little bit complicated. he was succeeded by his own party in 1876. if only as a result of corrupt

manipulation of the electoral college by the republicans were unable to do that because of the occupation. ulysses-esque rant full-term was a success, not a huge one, but indicative we a success. it was characterized by a frothy economic boom or the voters had no particular reason to toss him out of office based on the economy. the second term however was characterized by financial scandals involving white house and cabinet officials. he didn't take it as seriously as perhaps he should have. there is a significant economic downturn that he did not seek to attack because it was not his philosophy. his second term was much less successful and republicans should've should have lost, as i say, they would've lost had it not been for those manipulations. but if you take them two together, my personal life -- i

don't quite see how you can judge president grant is a failure. let's get back to have a differential of how the voters assess presidents and the historians assess presidents. you have to love harry truman. such a simple guy and he made such a simple and strong decision. he cut away all the chaff. history regarded him almost from the very beginning. the first poll after his presidency. he was in the near great category and he has never faltered from there. but the voters grew tired of him.

he had in the last four years in office, in 1948, a gallup approval rating of 22%. i don't think any presidents come near, but maybe george w. bush at one point came close. how do we square this how do we immediately put this in the category, where as the voters who were essentially saying that he is ineligible for rehire. well, history is looking into it and the overall record, which is highly successful. i would describe it as heroic if you look at his first term. because he had maybe agonizing decisions to drop the atomic bomb, saving a million american lives. he resided over america's role in fostering the united nations he was the president under containment, which saved western europe from soviet congressional botulism that was poisoning 1.3 million troops.

he fostered the marshall plan, he brought about the national security act and created the defense department and other things. he made the momentous decision to read about how he made that decision. all the advisers say you can't say berlin. you made the decision for the berlin airlift. absolutely heroic. all but described happened in his first term. his second term was really quite mediocre. he didn't manage to maintain what i call longevity of success. which was a frothy performance to eight full years or whatever time you have. he had a couple of notable achievements. nato and the korean war under macarthur. but he had a sputtering economy, on-again off-again prepping her for years.

there were a skier series of scandals involving cronies that he brought to washington from kansas city who he put in significant significant positions around the government that they were really not qualified for and that they abused. and one could argue that he brought about. by letting the nations military guard down. the democratic party basically signaled to him that there wasn't any point in trying to get the nomination. the democrats were tossed out. in 1952 when eisenhower came in. history and the voters both how to write even though they are looking at this president from two totally different perspectives. let me give a couple of examples from history, perhaps where it is too generous. this is subject to mark twain's

quote about difference of opinion. john adams, grover cleveland. in the first academic poll, cleveland was ranked eighth. john adams was ranked ninth. grover cleveland, we don't know much about him. i do not before i started this, and to be honest i don't really. [laughter] but i know enough to be able to talk about it a little bit. what we know about him is that he is the only president who served two nonconsecutive terms. after each of his terms, his body was tossed out of the white house. the first time was after he was on the ticket in the second time was basically after they said we don't want you on the ticket, but the voters tossed out the democrats under william jennings bryan and william mckinley.

he really is the only two-time one term president in our history. my question is how in the world, if you think that the voters are not totally stupid, how in the world can he be considered number eight? i don't think he should be down there at 27. but he seems a little rich. for me. his first defeat was a near thing. but he lost the electoral college. his first term was a defense, though probably not exemplars. the interstate commerce act was passed. it was an important piece of legislation that cleveland did not identify himself with it.

he considered the civil war a disability pension program that he had become very serious about. but he presided over expensive labor unrest during his time just like they were the president to get out of, it is a political poison for a sitting president. he also promised to reduce terror, which he promised to sort through. it was written in that record. the second term with a clear failure. characterized by persistent economic downturn, extensive bank failures, corporate bankruptcy, demonstration of the farm sector in the kind of in her inner response on the part of the president. so overall, his record is minimal at best and the voters probably had it right, i think

maybe the historians were a little bit off the mark on that one. why was he eighth? i don't even know. but historians can be influenced by various things, a few years before that first poll in 1948, alan evans, one of the premier historians of his time, wrote a two volume book of grover cleveland called grover cleveland, a study encouraged. two volumes, more than you really want to read abou the guy. [laughter] my next project is actually the 1890s and william mckinley. i will have to read both of these volumes and i'm not sure that i'm looking forward to it. but alan evans is a beautiful writer. i'm sure i am sure it is going to be a wonderful book. a wonderful biography. i think that probably the influence of alan on his colleagues influenced that

rating. and cleveland has trickled down and he is still rather high as 12, 13, 14. john adams, obviously a great man and patriot. a great contributor to our nation's birth, as we all know from david mccullough and the wonderful hbo miniseries. but he is not a great president. and i don't think he was even a near great president. he presided over french abuse of u.s. commercial shipping there got to be problematical. he signed, and fostered the alien and sedition acts, which criminalize public criticism of the government and used the sedition act to root out french immigrants that he considered potentially hostile to federalist and sensibilities. there is a story of one bookstore owner who immigrated here. he quietly was running a bookstore in philadelphia. in the end, he ended up being

singled out for deportation. he had a friend who had some connections in washington. he asked why me? why am i being singled out. this guy made some inquiries and reported back that the president was quoted as saying that nothing in particular, but he is too french. [laughter] he presided over massive tax increases, which led the economy to sputter. the voters in the 1800s basically sent him packing. and i think the voters pretty much had it right. but historians are on the mark. i think that there is a collective judgment, maybe even a collective vision in the electorate. not all of them get it right, but they have for years. they can stew over it and watch it. and then take another action, and that is what they do. so both cleveland and adams let their rankings look a bit since 1940, but they are still rather

high. i'm on a roll. let's see if i can toss in a few more before we get to the questions. let's talk about warranty hardened. considered a total failure by historians, rank dead last. we all recall in the 1920s come he died in office. he was a passive chief executive. do you generally as a vacuous suit of clothes whose career was fueled primarily by the staff that he looked precisely at what people thought the president should look like. people would of course admit and shake their heads about him, the 15 year affair he had with jerry phillips who happened to be his closest friend to his wife. and they would snicker at the vision of the sexual tryst he had with a starry art young woman, who was 30 years his junior, he was dismissed as weak and inert to have congress all

through. and finally there was the scandal that rocked it after he died in office. but nevertheless, he really harmed his reputation because there are all those trials of the century and the next trial of the century. so it really just eroded his standing. but arthur schlesinger junior once said that he was more careless than villainous. he was overly protected. longworth always knew how to capture these things said that harding was not a bad man. he is just a slob. [laughter] >> but consider this, he was never implicated in any general himself. he was a smalltime newspaper owner. he never used the government at any point in his career to enhance his new newspaper business, unlike lyndon johnson who used his rich friends to get

into the television business that was very lucrative, which he did under on his wife's name and became very rich in the process. harding never did anything like that. nothing happened during that time in office, he never got us into any wars where he got the country through an economic depression, and then he presided over an extremely robust economy, including 1922, 14% gdp growth rate, which president obama could use right now. and also social unrest, which had been brewing and percolating under wilson for many reasons that i believe are attributable to some of wilson's decision making, this declining rather significantly. you could say that this guy, harding, notwithstanding his weaknesses and liabilities, was elected to nullify wilson is an. he fulfill that mandate. maybe you could argue that that is not such a terrible record.

so what is a terrible record? right now we come to what i really am hoping i might stir things up a bit with here is woodrow wilson, his first term was a clear success. i would say of moderate proportions. he enacted terror productions and created the federal reserve. very significant. he brought about the clinton antitrust act, anti-monopoly legislation, which was needed, and he overcame economic difficulties emerging in his presidency but overcame them before his reelection. most significantly, his slogan for reelection, he kept us out of war. reelected he promptly maneuvered the country into war by manipulating new penalty issues in ways that favor great britain

overthrew germany. he was warned that if you continue this, you will get yourself sucked into the war. and wilson did not listen and william jennings bryan resigned over it. i think he wanted to get into the war for various reasons, which we don't need to go into, but it has to do with the sort of overarching visionary view about how to work should be transformed through his particular really in view of the world. >> he also very unwisely allowed himself to transform american domestic society overnight. telegraph, telephone and railroad were nationalized, military draft, obviously, taxes search very significantly, which happens but not necessarily to the same extent. the economy slipped out of

control. the gdp dropped 5% in one year during that time, the next year and 6%. significant dissent under attorney general palmer became infamous. there were urban riots that rocked it and the war never yielded. by 1920 from the american people were saying that we have to get rid of this guy. i will just say on the side, he was a sanctimonious man. you know, we just don't like sanctimonious people, do we? >> the sanctimonious president have been john quincy adams, james capel, quincy adams was a one term or, james pulled brought it upon himself much more difficult, political difficulties during his one term in office than was needed. jimmy carter, in my view, and george w. bush, i don't think that helped any of those presidents. but the historians consistently

have rated wilson as consistently in the great war near great category. voters come as i say, they had a totally different view of him. let's talk about when the voters converged and they converge on the greatest of the great. the man i call leaders of destiny. and i have three criteria for those presidents that we have put into the category of leaders of destiny. i believe that these assessments are valid and in and of themselves, not necessarily complete, however. consistently high ranking in the polls, and consistently high ranking in terms of voters, and then a third test, presidency transformed the country's political landscape and sent the country on a new course. this is very difficult to do.

it is difficult enough to be a two-term president succeeded by your own party. only a presidents who have been elected twice if we count partial terms, there are 12. so who are these greatest of the great? there are six of them, according to this criteria. well, and the suspense is killing me, so let's get to it here. washington, in order of service, jefferson, jackson, lincoln, and fdr. washington set it in motion and he did it brilliantly with judicious decision-making. and his power at appropriate times, this was a marvelous contribution to his nation. jefferson obliterated the effort to craft an american aristocracy and established small government egos as a significant clinical sensibility in america.

jackson fostered the mass electorate. there was something percolating in american politics, as he was emerging. the western states, new states were in the property requirements for voting and electing the electors have been elected the president. so voters were sort of inviting into the presidential election process in a way that they have a before and in a way that hamilton didn't want them to be. jackson fostered this and created this and galvanized it with what i call populism. it was dominant, as a result, dominant for 25 years. we all know that link. we can turn the party into an agency of industrialization. it had to be done and controlled and monitored and directed. and the republican party do that. but then over time, the abuses of that system emerged.

and teddy roosevelt was the first president who brought forth the political idiom concentrated on curbing those abuses of the industrial age. so he said the country on a new course. finally, fdr, who seemed democratic capitalism from the ravages unleashed upon them by the agonies of the great depression, and in so doing, he transformed america, having done that, he transformed the world. so that is quite a remarkable record. so what we are calling the attributes of these men of destiny, let me do a little bit of an assignment here. what can we say about these people. some might consider them liberal and some might call them conservative. these men of destiny, if american people have hired and fired conservative and liberal presidents -- they are not really ideologically formulated in their thinking. but they are formulated on

performance. and that is why i believe that the presidential elections, even ours today are largely due to referendums. so they are not happy with the incumbent, let's just say jimmy carter, who was not particularly liberal as a democrat, but it democrat nonetheless and far more liberal than any republican at that time. they returned to the other guy, even though he was considered by many to be far more conservative than the american people. but there is one thing that has to work, and for years that you're actually succeeded. and if you don't make it, that is the end of you. the end of your presidency, that is to say. so common attributes are that they understood their time. it was once said that his

statement, they all understood what was happening, as i mentioned about jackson. link inside a house divided against itself cannot stand. what he was saying is that everyone else was trying to prop up his divided house. lincoln cut through that with this idiom that showed that the country had to move in a new direction. and they all understood the character of the time. they all had a vision and ability to envision new country and new direction that they wanted to move the nation toward. and they all had this vague complex quality which i call political [inaudible name], which is to get your hands on power and our system is not that easy or designed to be easy. if you get your hands on the leaders are power in such a way to move the country towards that vision. all six of them had it. now we come to ronald reagan.

i think that he did, in fact, transform the principal landscape and put them on a new course. he certainly meets needs the voter test because he was a jerk and 10 two-term president succeeded by his own party. he is not consistently elevated in the polls, although as i know, he is going up rather significantly, and i think that he is probably going to get there. by my standards and criteria, he probably will be there. what is the underlying theme of all of this? if the presidency is an amazing institution, its power emanates from the people who own the office. and that is why they take it so seriously. this invests the office with considerable force. it also will have multiple curtailments. they speak for those constituencies very forcefully.

unless the president can force that agency and something that they have to listen to. the result is that it's very difficult to be successful. leaders of destiny only emerge when the country really needs them in the country really is hungry for new direction. i believe the country is in that kind of a situation right now. so i will end with two quotes from two presidents to sum this up. wilson said, it i think this is absolutely right. if the president boldly insists upon us, he is irresistible. that is true. it is not that easy to do. considering another quote from our friend harry as truman. when he was drinking with his pals in the hills one afternoon. he stared into his bourbon glass

and said we talk about the power of the presidency and how i can just push a button and get things done. instead of kissing somebody's [bleep]. those two quotes really represent how it works and i think that it is a marvelous institution, as i say, it's a pleasure being here to talk about that marvelous institution with all of you. with that, i am happy to take any questions. as you noted, please go to the microphone. >> thank you for your talk and i finished your book this morning. i can verify that everything you said is pretty much in there. my name is the price and i am a retiree. i have two questions. one is about the book and the others about the future. first about the book, very limited mention of john kennedy. more so, in some of the others.

was that deliberate on your part or why? second question would be, given a new media, which we have now, do you think that will have any impact, for example, when you think about the alien and sedition acts and what rachel matta would do that now, lincoln may not have even become president because of his wiki voice and looks. it is kind of an unfair question. first would be would we go from here and where the ucs being affected? >> on kennedy, i made a judgment, and i say in the book that it is really hard to assess what he could've accomplished because he didn't have enough time. by one reviewer noted some of his accomplishments. i actually think that i'm probably i am probably right, although i felt somewhat chastised by that. he is a prominent historian who suggested that. i think kennedy might've been a great president. he had to get himself reelected.

he was not in great political shape when he was killed. but we simply can't know. i just basically put aside as kind of an unknowable. the nature of new media, social media and its impact on politics, it is clearly having a huge impact on politics. will it a go the paradigm that i'm talking about? the historical paradigm of how politics work and how presidential elections are referendums? i don't know. i worry about that a little bit. but i would like to think not. i would like to think the american people will continue to sift through and cut out the chaff and get to the heart of things. but as i see what is happening in the media, i am not absolutely sanguine about that. >> my name is dick smith. i will take your bait on woodrow

wilson. i know you must know a lot about him than i do. >> mark twain said it takes different horses for courses. so let's have a horse race. >> despite his isolationist kind of campaign, and then getting us into world war i, was there not some positive outcome, quote content globally speaking for the u.s. in world war i? >> is that on an accomplishment to be able to bring the country into the war, and what would've happened to europe had he not come they are? >> what i would say is take a look at what happened to europe after he did do that. it was absolutely disastrous. i believe and other historians

-- historians of notability have you noted this for a long time. and it is a legitimate point overweight. i happen to believe that wilson's getting us into the war and breaking that still may be some promises that he made to all of the combatants, and then being unable to preserve those promises to the point that germany was totally humiliated, i think that that basically led the way to help other. and i think if there had been a negotiated settlement in the first world war, i think that most likely, things would not have emerged the way they did in a tragic way that they did. you can argue that that is very tenuous as a connection. but my study of that period indicates that that is very likely to have been maybe what happened. >> okay, thank you.

>> sarah jane foster. another question about woodrow wilson. wasn't he the one who is deathly ill and he had -- what was wrong? whatever was wrong. pretty much his wife was running things. what kind of effect would you say this had on historians and voters reactions to their opinions and everything? >> well, he had two strokes. he had one most likely in paris during the verse i peace treaty negotiation. their side was campaigning on the behalf of league of nations which was the only thing left from their size and negotiations that he went there today. he was adamant that he was going to do everything possible to get

america into the league of nations. he had this stroke in the middle of that. it's very dramatic. nothing happened at that point it cannot happen today. that was that the magnitude of this infirmity was kept from the american people. the people around wilson and his wife essentially manage the country without letting the country know that this is what has happened to their president. that was very unfortunate is a turn of events in our system and it can't happen today because we have -- actually we have a constitutional amendment that is designed to allow for the peaceful -- temporary peaceful transition of power. >> so you are saying that it probably will not have made as much difference, given that they didn't know that much about her? >> toward the end of his second term, he was kind of there anyway. >> okay.

>> charlie rose the other evening, i think it was a rerun. discussing various aspects of the presidency, including the issue of second terms and whether most presidents who served a second term, their performance and accomplishments fell down in the second term. i would like your thoughts on that, and one thing that truly puzzled me was that doris kearns said abraham lincoln an exception to this and it seems to me he has served hardly any of the second terms. so i don't know whether she misspoke or what she was doing. i am curious as to what she might have been getting at. >> i was asked on morning joe the other morning, if i can think of any president who second term was actually more startling than his first term.

i really cannot come up with one. and i think there is a reason for that. there is something that i call a longevity of success. the greatest longevity was and then roosevelt. now you can do so because of the funny second amendment which i'm opposed to. but longevity success, it means that you want to manage the country without some combination of economic dislocation, dislocation in the streets with demonstrations of some kind that lead to violence. a war you can't get out of it cannot win. all of these things are sort of part of life. it is very difficult to maintain stability throughout. eight years as a is a long time

to maintain stability and you begin to see the frame of leadership in the second term. we certainly saw that with reagan and certainly saw it with george w. bush. i think that bill clinton and his second term, it was actually in some ways better than his first term if you include the first two years, which were considered a failure by the electorate standpoint. you are basically not doing what the voters want you to do. but aside from that scandal and the other thing that i said about bill clinton is that he was reluctant to invest political capital. he was very brilliantly crafted a centerleft mode of governing that the country was very comfortable with, and he used that to run the country quite effectively. but then he didn't really try to

use that political capital for any major initiatives in the result was that he ended up being a good president but not a great president. that was an unfortunate scandal. whatever the republicans did, and i considered it monumentally stupid from a political standpoint, many americans were uncomfortable to have a president be caught in that kind of a scandal. i'm not sure that i would consider his second term to be better than his first. >> yes, sir? [inaudible question] and never got down to the uva to have his wife of jefferson and her family copy. you have a favorite presidential biography? >> i am not sure that i do. marcus james biography of -- it's two-volume, it has been consolidated into one, of andrew jackson. i think that might be my

favorite. >> hello, my name is passed and i am a social studies teacher here in washington. and i just want to know your thoughts. what are your thoughts on 16 year term. it seems to me as we watch this campaign unfolding, millions and millions of dollars that are being spent. secondly, the fact that the incumbent president in his first term needs to start campaigning. almost two years before the actual election. what are your thoughts on that? >> i am not enamored of the idea of the six-year term. i will tell you why. first of all, tony fodor's grappled with this. it is fascinating. they grappled with the question of executive power. it is really one of the biggest

conundrums they had to grapple with. and they kept putting it off because they couldn't quite figure out -- they knew that they were against unchecked executive power. and you had alexander hamilton, who gave a five-hour speech at the constitutional convention. he talked extensively about the president. he wanted the governor to be elected by the people. he wanted them to be elected in each state. those electors should be elected by the people. so he is kind of democratic in that sense. then he wanted this guy to serve for life. and he actually said that the british system is the most fantastic and perfect system that has ever been devised by mind of man. he wanted someone who was elected. so he dies and then we have another election. but he also wanted him to have an absolute veto power, meaning he could just reject anything

the congress does. responding to your question, i'm trying to get there. then there was roger sherman, i believe, who basically wanted the president being no to being no more than the handmaiden of congress. he was just there to execute the laws that congress would enact. in essence, you see two very polar opposite point of views about executive power. the delegates were heading towards the sherman dio that it would just be a handmaiden of the congress. yet, they weren't totally comfortable with that because they couldn't see how there could be a check on progress.

there could be abusive congressional or legislative authority, just as much as executive authority. they say okay, make it six or seven years, if you could be reelected, congress would have no independence whatsoever. and it wasn't until james madison and gouverneur morris cracked this idea of the presidency who could go to the american people independently. why do i think and wonder why go all that long wait to get to this question? >> because i believe that the four year term -- it offers tremendous stability. the american people can feel very comfortable about assessing a president after four years. we don't have to be uncomfortable about whether he has had an adequate opportunity to show us what he can do. secondly, in this referendum presidential politics to talk

about. they don't have to worry so much about the guy in the wings. he only has four years and how much damage can he do. suppose that it were six years and after year you realize that this guy was incompetent or worse. you have five years. that is going to generate a lot of civic anxiety, and i think the four year term is -- i equated going into this analogy. it's in the book. i got slammed by a reviewer on amazon on us. i kind of compare it to baseball. hand eye coordination, reaction time, they are all in equilibrium at 93. before your term, in my view, is sort of like that. >> i never believed that i would be saying this in public, but i

wonder if you are underrating reagan event, particularly his second term. another is the part of iran-contra. but when you think of the tax reform, which is major, and then the whole cold war and the way that he and scholz dealt with gorbachev and the soviets seemed like a major accomplishment. the second question about reagan, in this media age, haven't we learned that we did not know a lot about how badly off he was after he got shot? and the potential for manipulation on presidential health is about as bad now as it was when we were wilson was president. >> are you saying that his first term is better than his second

term? >> i think it was substantial. plus the other criterion of getting george h. w. bush elected in his wake. >> weight. >> i think he made very good points. i am very hung on reagan, and i think he will be included in the leaders of destiny. he is headed in that direction. and i believe that he is very consequential as a president. the two greatest presidents of the century were franklin roosevelt and ronald reagan. and one was probably the most liberal president of the century and the other was the most conservative president of the century. on the question of secrecy of his health, you know, that is a very good point. it did come out during his presidency. they weren't able to bury bear it until history got ahold of it. it was gotten a hold of my journalism. but your point is very well

taken. >> hello. i respect what you're doing. i just have this feeling that, and certainly no much more than i do, but i have this feeling that this is such a complex topic because i think each president is a product of their time in history. to go back to john f. kennedy, while i believe used far from a perfect president. i saw chris matthews the other night or whatever it was. and basically he said he saved the world, you know, from the brink of nuclear destruction. and i often wonder. if 9/11 didn't happen, with

president bush does have, you know, stayed down on the ranch for four years and will run on a horse or something? [laughter] that would've been it. >> i think it is just a really difficult topic untuned topic to, you know, to quantitate to use your baseball analogy, it is just like who is the greatest first baseman of all time. it is hard. it is hard to really say because of the arrow and which they prayed. while i certainly believe it is a topic of great interest, i think that there is a lot involved and it is really difficult.

>> i think it is embedded in me now. let me just say in response that i take your point, and many historians have made the point that you can't compare it untrendy president from the 1840s to the 2000. that might be white. i'm not really trying to make any definitive statement about these guys. i'm just trying to play the game. i am trying to engage american voter bases and citizens in the discussion about the president. so i don't normally do readings, but just by way of summoning up, perhaps, just pick one little section towards the end of the convention when i'm trying to explain what i am up to here. so i write the embarking upon my explanation of the presidency, i consider the institution to be a

work of genius, a unique governmental institution that have historical explanation, penetrating political analysis and philosophical endeavors. it came together by accident during that miraculous building section in the building during 1977. the word miracle was used to describe the outcome. people demand someone an appropriate degree of solemnity and success. it is difficult today with 22 -- 225 years of constitutional history to see what a remarkably innovative and novel idea the presidency was. the great kings of the world are long gone and they had their heyday and it wasn't clear in near president could rival the world royalty interrogatory times. but americans have been handed a gift of the presidency. they never doubted it. that is because the president is a problem of himself that is one

reason why the american president shows so much and why some americans have been captivated by the rating game. it is more than just a beguiling diversion. it can tell you how wide presidents fail or have they get crushed with history. the dan emmett could reinforce those rare leaders of destiny. it will seek to put forth my own thoughts and observations, whatever they have about other countries presidential politics unfolded under the centuries. i do so fully and that rating the spirit and differences of opinion. if your views diverge significantly in this book, relax. as i say, the great playhouse rating game is ongoing and unless and open to everyone want to play. [applause] >> thank you very