end. because the ending, too, is so audacious, but it's so right. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists, visit booktv.org. coming up, robert merry examines how u.s. presidents are ranked in the eyes of historians. the author places the presidents in groups from those he calls leaders of destiny, split-decision prime ministers, those who had a better first term than second, and utter failures. this is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. i have to say that it's always a great pleasure to be here at politics & prose. i've done this on more than one occasion, and i consider this old place to be a literary cathedral in washington. [laughter] so it's a real pleasure to be here. i will say that i'm very pleased to see so many people here, although it gave me just a

moment of nervousness because it looked like i wasn't going to be able to find a parking place for a moment, and i got kind of nervous about whether i was going to be here on time. and it's an honor to be here, although i will have to say that i feel a little bit devalued to learn ha in a 365-day year, there's 475 such events at politics & prose. [laughter] let me say that my book really began with a phone call in early 2010 from a editor in "the new york times" op-ed page by the name of mark lotto who has since moved on. he wanted to know whether i wanted to do a piece for the op-ed page on a statement that obama made to diane sawyer shortly before that in which he was responding to being chided a little bit by her on the basis of some of the apparent unpopularity of some of his policies. and he said i would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

and lotto wanted to know if i maybe wanted to write a piece about some of our really good one-term presidents since i had just recently come out with a history of the presidency of james k. polk, generally considered by historians to be the greatest of our one-term presidents. i said i'm very interested in writing a piece, but i'd like to take a different tack and compare history's judgment with the contemporaneous judgment of the electorate. this was something i'd given some thought to, and i thought it got to the heart of what obama had to say. and what occurred to me was a somewhat remarkable statement far president to make. what he was saying, essentially, was he was willing to accept unpopularity, even to the point of voter rejection, than failure in the esteem of history. and my question that i wanted to pursue in the op o ed piece was -- op-ed piece was how realistic was the? so i looked at history eakes

judgment -- history's judgment, and it's generally considered to be the judgment of the historians and the polls. it really began with arthur. schlessinger sr. in 1948 after a poll he took in life magazine. and it stirred a great deal of interest showing that the american people have a real fascination and affection, really, for their presidency. and there's a body of literature that's grown up as a result of those polls over time, so there's a generally recognized consensus on the part of historians, and there's plenty of room for discussion about where so and so belongs, john adams, for example, or grover cleveland. i'll talk about both of them momentarily. but then i wanted to compare that with the contemporaneous judgment of the electorate and how do you assess that? well, a president who's a two-term obviously receives higher esteem on the part of the electorate than a one-term president.

a two-term president who is succeeded by his own party meaning that he had two terms that were judged by the voters to be worthy of retention on the part of the party, um, is another index of significance, perhaps. and what about midterm elections, the fate of the party, the incumbent party in the congressional elections midterm. what we see is a very large correlation in which the assessment of history tracks largely in most instances with the assessment of the voters. in other words, seldom does history hail a president who's rejected by the voters, and seldom does history, um, debunk a president who was hailed -- based on my indices -- by the voters. so the question posed by obama was, can he set himself above the electorate with unpopular programs to such an extent that he gets tossed out by the electorate and still get high praise from the historians?

and what i wrote is that there's almost no chance of this. it just doesn't can, it doesn't work that way generally speaking. but there are some interesting and intriguing exceptions, and so having written that piece i thought, well, i'd like to explore these exceptions because perhaps this might be possible through this matrix of these, of the historians' verdict, the voters' verdict, comparing them to look at the presidency in terms of how prime presidents sd and fail, how the presidency works. how we assess presidents through history. and i was reminded of one of my favorite quotes from mark twain among many, many: it's differences of opinion that make horse races. what occurred to me about that was, and i really thought that was applicable here except for one significant thing. in horse races, the difference of opinion ends at the the finish line. in the great white house rating

game, there's no finish line. we can just talk about this endlessly, and that's why i want to sort of get through these remarks, so we can get to questions and discussion. [laughter] so let me begin with the disparities, and there are some examples that i'll bring up and then talk about some of them, maybe some in the question and answer, but some in this talk. presidents that the voters liked and historians considered in a negative light; grant, harding, coolidge. we could, we could also include in that ike and reagan because ike, especially eisenhower and reagan, too, but eisenhower came in immediately after his presidency in the first poll afterwards, arthur schlesinger's second poll in 1982, had a terrible rating. the first johnson, andrew johnson, arthur was a nonentity and andrew johnson who lost

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

significant element of this whole theme in terms of how the voters judge the presidents and how the historians judge the presidents. totally different. historians look at a president's full tenure in office, whatever that might be, two terms, one term, partial terms, whatever, and then look at what he's accomplished and say, good and not so good, terrible, whatever. and they rate him accordingly. the voters look at their president as they were invited to, by the constitution in four-year increments. these guys, you, we all have, we have hiring and firing authority over these guys, and we take it very seriously. and that's why we judge them exclusively on four-year increments. and then with not much sentimentality, we just move on. so let's look at the presidents that consistently have been

considered the nine greats or near greats by the historians. and there's a pretty much consensus here. number one, it's lincoln, washington and fdr almost always in that order. and then in various rank order, jefferson, jackson, polk -- my guy -- theodore roosevelt, wilson and truman. now, interesting here they're all two-termers except for polk, but polk really is the exception that proves the rule if there is such a thing as an exception that proves the rule, because he's the only president that ever ran on a one-term promise. as soon as he got the nomination, he told the people, if i'm elected, i will only serve one term, and he kept that promise. and no one else has done that. so all eight who sought re-election got reelected, and all but two of those were succeeded by their own party which, as i say, i believe is the highest electoral assessment. the exceptions being wilson and truman. so history and the electorate are in sync here.

now, let's look at those judged by history to be presidential failures. and there's a pretty strong consensus there too at the bottom. buchanan -- my least favorite president, i think he was a man of very low character -- pierce, drank too much -- [laughter] and was not much better than buchanan. andrew johnson, as i say, he lost control of the government. you can't govern if you can't control the government for whatever reason. fillmore. i'm not sure i necessarily think fillmore should be in the total failure category, and warren g. harding who we'll talk about momentarily. and then, of course, since his departure from the white house, richard nixon who raises a very interesting question which i'm not going to get into here but maybe in q&a, about what do we do about a president who's just so ig no min crousely, you know, 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 is lyndon johnson who had, you know, massive accomplishments and then, basically, brought himself down through his vietnam. so let's talk about grant. i seem to have lost my place. oh, here we are. um, so all of these guys that are the so-called failures are one-termers except for nixon. and except for the one outlier besides nixon, and that's ulysses s. grant. and grant is considered a failure, although he's rising in the estimation of history. here he was, a two-term president, he was succeeded by his own party. he was succeeded by his own party in the 1876 but only as a

result of corrupt manipulation of the electoral college by the republicans who were able to do that because they had occupied the south. grant's first term was a clear success, not a huge success, but indubitably a success. it was accompanied by a boom, the voters had no reason to toss him out of office based on the economy. his second term, however, was characterized by nasty white house scandals including very close friends of the president who didn't seem to take it as seriously as perhaps he should have. there was a significant economic downturn that he didn't really seek to attack because it wasn't his philosophy. and so his second term was much less successful, and the republicans should have lost, and as i say, they probably would have lost had it not been for those manipulations. but if you take the two

together, i don't -- my personally, i don't quite see how you can judge grant to be a failure. and what's interesting, sean will lantz at princeton has written in "the new york times" that grant is rising in the estimation of history, and he thinks he's going to continue to rise, and i think he's probably right. so let's get back to harry truman and get back to that point i was making earlier about how the differential between how the voters assess presidents and how the historians assess presidents. you've got to love harry truman. he's such a simple guy, and he's made such simpling strong decisions that cut away all the chaff. and as i say, history regarded him almost from the very beginning, the first poll after his presidency he was in the near-great category, and he's never faltered from there. but the voters grew tired of

him. he had in his last full year in office in 1948 a gal up approval -- gallup approval rating of almost 22%. bush at one point came close. how do we square this? the historians put this guy in the near-great category, but the voters were essentially saying he's ineligible for rehire. well, history is looking at his overall record which was highly successful. in fact, i would describe it as heroic if you look at his first term. because he had, he made the agonizing decision to drop the atomic bomb, thus saving probably a million american lives. he presided over america's role in fostering the united nations in the bretton woods agreement. he was the president under containment which saved western europe from soviet russian bolshevism that was poised with

1.3 million troops. he fostered the marshall plan, he brought the national security act that created the defense department and the cia and other things. he successfully made a transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy x he made the momentous decision to read about how he made that decision when all of his advisers said you can't save berlin, you're going to have to give up on berlin, and he made the decision for the berlin airlift. absolutely heroic. all that i just described happened in his first term. his second term was quite mediocre. he didn't manage to maintain what i call longevity of success which is a frothy record a frothy performance through eight full years or whatever time you have. he had a couple of notable achievements, nato was in his second term. the korean war under macarthur was in the second term, but he had a sputtering economy, on again/off again throughout the

entire four years. he ended up with a stalemated war in korea that he couldn't win and couldn't get out of which is political poison for any sitting president. there were a series of scandals involving his presidential cronies that he brought to washington from kansas city who he put in significant positions in the white house and around the government, that they were really not qualified for and can that they abused their offices in. and one could argue that he brought about, he invited the korean war to some extent by letting the nation's military guard down. so the voters and the democratic party essentially signaled to him that there wasn't any point in trying to get the nomination, and then the democrats were tossed out in 1952 when eisenhower came in. so in my view, history and voters both had it like even though they're looking at this president from two totally different perspectives. now let me give a couple of examples when history was,

perhaps, too generous. and this is all subject to mark twain's dictum about difference of opinions making horse races. grover cleveland is my favorite example. in the first academic poll by arthur schlessinger sr. in 1948, cleveland was rangd eighth, and john adams was ranked ninth. cleveland, as we all know -- we don't know much about cleveland, i mean, i didn't before i started, and to be honest with you, i still don't -- [laughter] i know enough to be able to talk about him a little bit. what we know about him, though, everyone knows is he's the only president who served two nonconsecutive terms. less known is the fact that after each of those terms, his party was tossed out of the white house. the first time, 888, with him on the ticket, and the second time after his party had basically said we don't want you on the ticket, but the voters still tossed out the democrats under william jennings bryan and

brought in william mckinley. so he represents -- he really is the only two-time, one-term president in our history. [laughter] so my question is how in the world if you think the voters are not totally stupid, how in the world can he be considered number eight? i mean, i didn't think he should be down there, you know, 27, but eighth seems a little rich for me. so let's look at him. um, his first defeat in 1888 was a near thing. he actually won the popular vote, but he lost the electoral college, and his first term was a decent, though probably not exemplary term. the interstate commerce act was passed which wrought control to the -- brought control to the railroad trusts, and it was an important piece of legislation. but interestingly, cleveland didn't really identify himself with it, so he didn't really get credit for it. there was solid economic growth at the time.

he curbed the abuses in the civil war pension and disability program that had become very, very serious. but he presided over extensive labor unrest during his time that led to a lot of demonstrations, riots and death. a lot of bloodshed, significant loss of life and significant property damage. and just like an intractable war that a president can't get out of, blood on the streets is a political poison for a sitting president. and then he also failed to reduce tariffs which he promised he was going to do. so his fate was written in that record. second term was a clear failure. characterized by persistent economic downturn, extensive bank failures, corporate bankruptcy, devastation in the farm sector and a kind of inert response on the part of the president. so i would say that overall his record is midling at best, and

the voters probably had it right. i think maybe the historians were a little bit off the mark on that one. now, why was he eighth? i don't really know, but historians can be influenced by various things. a few years before that first poll in 1948, one of the premier historians of his time wrote a two-volume biography of grover cleveland, steven grover cleveland, called "grover cleveland: a study in courage." two volumes. more than you really want to read about the guy. [laughter] i, my next project is, actually, the 890s -- 1890s and william mckinley, so i'm going to have to read both of these volumes, and i'm not sure that i'm looking forward to it. but alan 9/11s is a -- never vin is the a beautiful writer, so i'm sure it's going to be a wonderful book, a wonderful biography. so i think that probably the influence of allan nevins on his

colleagues influenced that rating. and cleveland has trickled down since then, but he's still rather high, often in 12th, 13th, 14th. now let's talk about john adams. obviously, a great man, obviously, a great patriot, a great contribute tore our nation's birth as we all know from david mccullough and that wonderful hbo miniseries, but he was not a great president. he presided over french abuse of u.s. commercial shipping that got to be really problem proble. he signed and really kind of fostered the alien and sedition acts which criminalized public criticism of the government, and he used the sedition act to root out french emigres that he considered hostile to federalist sensibilities. i don't think that would go over very well today. there's a story of one quiet french bookstore owner moved here, emigrated here, he was quietly running a bookstore in

philadelphia, and he ended up being singled out for deportation. he had a friend who had some connections in washington, so he asked his friend, you're down there, you know, ask why me, why am i being singled out? so the guy made some inquiries, and he reported back that the president was quoted as saying, nothing in particular, but he's too french. [laughter] he presided over massive tax increases which led the economy to begin sputtering. so the voters in 1800 basically sent him packing, and i think the voters pretty much had it right. i think the historians are kind of off the mark. i think that there's a collective judgment, maybe even occasionally a collective wisdom in the electorate. they don't always get it right, but, you know, they have four years to stew over it or watch it and then take another action. and that's what they do. so, um, both cleveland and adams have seen their rankings slip a bit since 1948, but they're

still rather high. so we're on a roll here. so let's see if i can just toss in a few more before we get to the questions. let's talk about warren g. harding. considered a total failure by the historians, ranked dead last in most of the polls since 1948. now, we all recall he was elected in 1920, died in office. he was a passive chief executive. viewed generally as a kind of vacuous suit of clothes whose career was fueled primarily by the fact that he looked precisely what people thought president should look like. so people, of course, within his time and later when they would read about him shake their heads at the 15-year affair he had with carrie phillips who happened to be his closest friend be's wife. -- friend's wife. and they would snicker at the sort of vision of the sexual tryst he had in a white house coat closet with a starry-eyed young woman named nan brenton

who was 31 years his junior. all true. and finally, there was -- [inaudible] the scandal which e resulted after he died in office but, nevertheless, really harmed his reputation because there were all those trials, trials of the century and the next trial of the century. and so it really just eroded his standing. but arthur schlessinger jr. once said, wrote that he was more careless than villainous. he was overly protective of people he should have been watching for quickly, and alice longworth who always knew how to capture these things said harding was not a bad man, he was just a slob. [laughter] but consider this, he was never implicated in any scandal himself. in fact, he was a small-time newspaper other than. he owned a small town newspaper in ohio. he never used the government at any point in his career to enhance his newspaper business unlike lyndon johnson, for

example, who used his rich friends to get into the television business, very lucrative, which he did under his wife's name and became very rich in the process. harding never did anything like that. nothing bad happened to the country during his time in office. he didn't get us into any intractable wars. he got the country through wilson's economic depression, and then he presided over an extremely robust economy including 1922 a 14%gdp growth rate which president obama could use right now. [laughter] and social unrest which had been really brewing and percolating under wilson for many reasons that i believe are attributable to some of wilson's decision making declined rather significantly. so you could say that this guy, harding, notwithstanding his weaknesses and liabilities, was elected to nullify wilson by the electorate, and he fulfilled

that mandate. if so, maybe you could argue that's not such a terrible record. so what is a terrible record? well, now we come to where i really am hoping i might stir things up a bit here. woodrow wilson. whose first the term was a clear success. now, we're looking at him as the voters do. but i'd say of modest proportions. he enacted tariff reductions which is what democrats did in those days. he initiated banking reform, created the federal reserve. very significant. he brought about the clinton anti-trust act, anti-monopoly legislation which was needed, and he overcame economic difficulties that emerge in his presidency, but he overcame them before his re-election. and most significantly, his slogan for re-election, he kept us out of war. then reelected he promptly maneuvers the country into war

by manipulating neutrality issue in ways that favor great britain over germany. his secretary of state, william jennings bryan, warned him if you continue this, you're going to get yourself sucked into the war. and wilson didn't 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 they had to do with his sort of overarching, um, visionary views about how the world could be transformed through his particular brilliant view of the world. and he also very unwisely allowed himself to transform american domestic society overnight when we went to war. telegraph, telephone and railroads were nationalized. military draft, obviously, but that always happens. taxes surge, very, very significant. which happens in war but not necessarily to the same extent.

the economy flipped out of control. gdp dropped 5% during one year and the next year at 6%. there was a significant expression of dissent under his secretary, and the war never yielded what he promised. by 1920 the american people were saying we've got to get rid of this guy. and then i'll just say as an aside, he was a sanctimonious man. and, you know, we don't like sanctimonious people, do we? [laughter] the sanctimonious presidents have been john quincy adams, james k. polk -- quincy adams, a one-termer, james polk a one-termer by choice but who brought upon himself much more political difficulties during his one term in office, jimmy carter and george w. bush. and i don't think that trait helped any of those presidents.

but the historians consistently have rated wilson as consistently in the great or near-great category. and voters, as i say, had a totally different view of him. so let's talk briefly about when the voters and the historians converge. and they converge on the greatest of the great. the men i call leaders of destiny. and i have three criteria for those presidents that we put into the category of leaders of destiny. they have to have -- because i believe that these assessments are valid and up to, you know, in and of themselves not necessarily complete, however. so consistently high ranking in the historians' polls. then consistently or high ranking in terms of the voters. two terms succeeded by their own party x. then a third test that i apply, presidents who transform the country's political landscape and set the country on a new course.

and this is very difficult to do. it's difficult enough to be a two-term president succeeded by your own party. there are only eight presidents who have been elected twice and succeeded by their own party. if we count partial terms, there's 12. so who are these greatest of the great, the men of destiny? there's six of them, according to these criteria. well, the suspension is killing me, so let's get to it here. [laughter] washington -- in order of service -- jefferson, jackson, lincoln, t.r. and fdr. why do i say these guys? well, washington set it all in motion, and he did it brilliantly through deft and judicious decision making, and he relinquished power at an appropriate time which was a marvelous contribution to his nation. jefferson obliterated the federalist effort the to craft an american aristocracy, and he established the small government ethos as a significant political

sensibility in america. jackson fostered the mass electorate. it was something percolating in the, in american politics particularly in the west as he was emerging. the western states, new states were ending property requirements for voting and also popularly electing the electors that then elected the president. so there was -- voters were sort of invited into the presidential election process in a way that they hadn't been before, in a way that hamilton and the federalists didn't want them to be. and jackson fostered this and created the mass electorate and galvanized it with what i call conservative populism and was the dominant political voice in america for 25 years. lincoln we all know he freed the slaves, saved the union, but he also turned the republican party into an agency of industrialization which had to be done, it had to be controlled and monitored and directed, and the republican party did that. but then over o time the abuses

of that system emerged, and t.r., teddy roosevelt, was the first president who brought forth the political idiom concentrated on curbing those abuses of the industrial age. so he set the country on a new course. and finally fdr who saved democratic capitalism from the ravages unloosed upon it by the agonies of the great depression. and then, in so doing, he transformed america. having done that, he transformed the world. so that is quite a remarkable record. so what were common about the attributes of these men of destiny? first of all, let me just do a little bit of an aside here. what can we say about these people? some might call conservatives, some we call liberal. i think the main point to be said about these men of destiny is that the american people have fired and hired conservative presidents, and they hired and fired liberal presidents. and they're not really ideologically formulated in their thinking.

what they're forklated on is performance -- formulated on is performance, and that's why i believe that presidential elections, even ours that we're living through today, are largely referendums. and so if they are not happy with an incumbent, let's just say jimmy carter who was not particularly liberal as a democrat, but was a accurate and far more -- democrat and far more liberal than any republican of that time, even though he was considered to be by many far more conservative than the american people. but there's one proviso when they do this in these referendums, it's got gotta work. if you don't make it, that's the end of you. end of your presidency, that is so say. so common attributes of the men of destiny are that they understood their time. de gaulle once said a

statesman may be determined and tenacious, but if he does not understand the character of his time, they will fail. they all understood what was happening. as i mentioned about jackson, they understood what was happening. lincoln, when he said a house divided against itself cannot stand. and what he was saying, essentially, was everyone else was trying to prop up this divided house, and lincoln cut true all that with this idiom that showed that the country had to move in a new direction. and they all, um, understood the character of their time. they all had vision. they all had an ability to envision the new country, the new direction that they wanted to move the nation toward. and they all had this vague, complex quality which i call simply political adroitness which is the ability to sort of get your hands on the levers of power. and our system's not that easy. it's not designed to be easy. but to get your hands on the levers of power and direct them in such a way as to move the country towards that vision. and all six had it. now we come to ronald reagan.

who i believe had it also. i think that he did, in fact, transform the critical land scape and set the country upon a new course. he certainly meets the voter test because he was a two-term president succeeded by his own party. he's not consistently elevated in the polls although as i note, he is going up rather significantly, and i think that he's probably going to get there. so by my standards, my criteria, he probably will be there. so what's the underlying theme of all this? that the presidency is an amazing institution, its power emanates from the people who own the office, and that's why they take it so seriously. and this has considerable political force, but it also has multiple curtailments. he has to deal with all kinds of other politicians who speak for smaller constituencies very, very forcefully. they're not going to be

intimidated by this guy just because he speaks for the rest of the country unless, unless the president can force that agency into something that they have to listen to. and the result is that it's very difficult to be success. and the leaders of destiny only emerge when the country really needs them, when the country really is hungry for a few direction. i believe the country is in that kind of situation right now. so i'll end with two quotes from two presidents to sort of sum this up. wilson, who said if a president -- i think this is absolutely right -- if a president rightly interprets the national thought and boldly insists upon it, he is irresistible. that's true. it's not that easy to do. so consider another quote from our friend harry s. truman. when he was drinking with his pals up on the hill one afternoon. when he was president, he used to go up there because he missed those days so much. and he stared into his bourbon

glass, and he growled: they talk about how i can just push a button getting something done when i spend most of my time kissing somebody's ass. [laughter] well, those two quotes really represent -- [laughter] how it works. and i think that it's a marvelous institution, and as i say, it's a pleasure being here to talk about that marvelous institution with all of you. and with that, i'd be happy to take any questions. and as you noted, please, go to the microphone. [applause] thank you. >> thank you for your talk, and i finished your book this morning and can verify that everything you said is pretty much in there. [laughter] my name's dave price, i'm a retiree. i have two questions, one is about the book, and the other is about the future which none of us can see. very limited mention of john kennedy, of course, a very limited time, but more so than

some of the others. was that deliberate on your part or why? second question would be given kind of the new media which we have now, do you think that will have any impact, for example, you know, you think of adams alien and sedition act, imagine what rachel maddow or someone would do with that now? >> [laughter] abraham lincoln may not have even become president because of his squeaky voice and his looks. first would be kennedy and second would be where do we go from here, where do you see it affect the standing? >> well, in kennedy i made a judgment, and i say in the book it's really hard to assess what he could have accomplished because he didn't have enough time. i was taken to task on that by one reviewer who noted some of his accomplishments. i actually think that i'm probably right, although i felt somewhat chastised by that. it was a very prominent historian who suggested that. i think kennedy might have been a great president.

he had to get himself reelected. he wasn't in great political shape when he was killed. but we simply can't know, and so i just basically put it aside as kind of an unknowable. the nature of the new media, social media and its impact on politics, boy, it is clearly having a huge impact on politics. will it erode the paradigm that i'm talking about, the historical paradigm of how politics works, how presidential elections are referendums? i don't know. i worry about that a little bit. but i'd like to think not, that the american people will continue to sort of sift through and cut out the chaff and get to the heart of things. but, um, as i see what's happening in the media, i'm not absolutely sanguine about that. >> thank you. >> uh-huh. >> hi. my name's dick smith. i'm a bostonian.

i guess i'll take your bait on woodrow wilson. and i hesitate to do that was -- because i know you must know a lot more about him than i do. >> mark twain said different opinions make horse races, so let's have a horse race. >> right. i guess i'd is ask this, despite his isolationist kind of campaign and then getting us into world war i, do you feel that there were any -- was there not some positive outcome, globally speaking at least, from the u.s. being in world war i? >> um -- >> is that not an accomplishment to be able to bring the country into the war and, um, you know, wald have happened to europe had he not done that? >> well, i guess what i would say is let's take a look at what happened to europe after he did do that and what happened to europe was absolutely disastrous.

i believe and other historians, historians of real note have debated this for a long time, and, um, it's a he jet mate -- legitimate point either way. but with i happen to believe that wilson's getting us into the war, wreaking that stale -- breaking that stalemate based on 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, basically, led the way to hitler. and i think that if there'd been a negotiated settlement in the first world war, i think that most likely things wouldn't have emerged the way they did, in the tragic way that they did. you can argue that that's a very tenuous connection, but my study of that period indicates that that is very likely to have been what really happened. >> okay, thank you.

>> good evening. my name's sarah jane foster. another question about woodrow wilson. wasn't he the one who was deathly ill, and, you know, he had what was it, you know, a stroke or whatever? >> yeah. >> and pretty much his wife was running things. would you say -- what kind of effect would you say this had on historians' and voters' reaction to, their opinions and everything? >> well, he had -- we think he had two strokes. he had one most likely in paris during ther versailles peace treaty negotiations. and he had another much larger stroke that came close to debilitating him while he was campaigning on behalf of the league of nations which was the only thing left from the versailles negotiations that he sort of went there to get. and he was adamant that he was

going to do everything possible to get america into the league of nations. and he had this stroke in the middle of that. very dramatic. something happened at that point that couldn't happen today, and that was that the mag think tuesday of this infirmity was kept from the american people. and the people around wilson and his wife essentially managed the country without letting the country know that this is what had happened to their president. that was very unfortunate turn of events in this our system, and it can't happen today because we have, actually, we have a constitutional amendment that's designed to allow for the peaceful -- temporary peaceful of power. >> so you're saying it probably would not have made all that much different seeing as how no one really knew that much about it? >> yeah. and he was toward the end of his second term anyway.

>> i caught an interesting charlie rose the other evening, i think it was a rerun, a panel that i forget whether you were on it. discussing various aspects to have the presidency including the issue of second terms and whether most presidents who served a second term, their performance and accomplishments sort of fell down in the second term. so, a, i'd like your thoughts on that and, b, one thing that truly puzzled me was the doris kearns said that abraham lincoln was an exception to this, and it seems to me he served hardly any of the second term. so i don't know whether she misspoke or what she was -- i'm curious as to what she might have been getting at. >> i was asked on morning joe the other morning, a week and a half or so, if i could think of

any president whose second term was actually more sterling than his first term, and i really couldn't come up with one. and i think there's a iraq -- a reason for that. there's something that i call longevity of success. the president who had the greatest jeffty -- longevity of success was franklin roosevelt. he's the only president who dared to run more than twice, now you can't because of the 22nd amendment, which i'm opposed to. but longevity of success basically means you manage to maintain the country, um, and run the country without some combination of economic dislocation, um, dislocation in the streets with demonstrations of some kind that lead to violence, a war you can't get out of and can't win, a scandal. all of these things are sort of part of life, aren't they? and because it's very difficult to sort of maintain stability throughout. ..

that political capital accumulated political capital because he very brilliantly crafted a center-left mode of governing that the country was very comfortable with and used that to run the country quite

effectively but then he didn't try to use that political capital for any major initiative and the result was that he ended up being the good president but not a great president. think about what the republicans did and the congress impeachment and monumentally stupid from a political standpoint. many more americans were uncomfortable to have their president be caught in that kind of scandal i would consider the second term to be better than the first. one of my regrets living in washington is i never got to the you va to have them autographed his life of jefferson for our family copy. islamic i'm not sure that i do.

andrew jackson might be my favorite. >> i'm a social studies teacher here in washington and i just want to know your thoughts on if we talk about the two terms what are your thoughts on a six year term? it seems to me as we watch this campaign unfolding millions and millions of dollars that are being spent. second, the fact that the incumbent president in the first term needs to start campaigning almost two years before the actual election. what are your thoughts on that? >> i am not an hamre of the idea of the six year term. first of all the voting father is really grappled with this, and it's fascinating.

they grappled with the question of executive power. it was one of the biggest conundrums they had to grapple with and they kept putting it off because they couldn't quite figure it out. they knew that they were against the unchecked executive power but we had alexander hamilton give a speech in the convention in the speech he said among other things he called the governor and he wanted the governor to be elected by the people, to be elected by each state and in his view they should be elected by the people, so she was democratic in that sense. he said the british system is the most fantastic perfect system that has ever been devised by the mind of man and wanted to be as close to that as possible so he wanted someone connected, so he dies. then he also wanted him to have

an absolute veto powers and he could reject anything the congress does. totally responded to the question, but i am getting there. then and there was roger sherman, i believe, who basically wanted the president to be nothing more than a handmaiden of congress, and she would be elected by congress and he would have very little power, no independent power base but he will be there to execute laws that congress will enact. so he saw the breeze polar opposite points of view about executive power, and the delegates were heading towards the sherman view that it would be a handmaiden of the congress and they were not totally comfortable with that because

they couldn't see how there could be a check on congress and the congressional legislative authority just as much as executive authority so they said we will make it six years or seven years to get reelected, because if you could then congress would run all over them and they wouldn't have any independent whatsoever and it wasn't until james madison finally began to craft this idea of the independent presidency who could come to the american people independently. now why do i think -- why did i go all that way to get to this question? because i believe the four year term offers tremendous stability because the american people can feel very comfortable about assessing a president after four years. he said for years. you don't have to be uncomfortable about whether he has had an adequate opportunity to show us what he can do. second, in this referendum

presidential politics i talk about the don't have to worry so much about the guy in the wings because they have for years and how much damage can he do? the touraine competent or worse. five years. that is going to generate a lot of sick anxiety which can be destabilizing. so, i think the four year term is -- i would equate this -- pardon me for bringing to this analogy. it's in the book. i got slammed by the reviewer on amazon on this, but i kind of compare this between the bases in baseball. that gives equilibrium to the game. the clever lad 90 feet. it was sort of like that.

>> i never believed i would be saying this in public but i wonder if you are under rating reagan of it particularly the second term. i know that there is the iran contra but when you think of that tax reform, which is a major command in the whole cold war and the whole way that he and shultz dealt with the soviets seem like a major accomplishment. the second question even in this media age haven't we learned that we did not know what about how badly off he was at gw after he got shot and that the potential for manipulation closed the line, call it what you want, presidential health is about as bad now as it was when woodrow wilson was president. >> welcome the certainly try to keep it quiet. so, are you saying you think that reagan's second term might have been better than the first?

>> i just think it was pretty substantial and i think that's why the historians are pushing him up. plus that other criterion of getting hw elected in his week. >> i think you need a very good point. i'm very high on reagan and i think that he is going to be included in the leaders of destiny as i say. he's heading in that direction, and i believe that he is very consequential president. the greatest presidents of the 20th century for franklin roosevelt and ronald reagan and one was probably the most liberal president of the century on the question of the secrecy of his health that's a very good point. it did come out of there during his presidency they were not able to sort of. until history got ahold of it. it was gotten ahold of bye journalism and i think that indicates that things are a little bit different than they

might have been roosevelt but you're point is well taken. >> iowa respect what you're doing. i just have a feeling that it's -- certainly you know much more than i do but i have a feeling that this is such a complex topic because i think each president is a product of their particular time in history, and you know, to go back to john f. kennedy i believe he was far from over for to become perfect president. i saw chris matthews the other night and, you know, basically he is seeing the world from the brink of nuclear destruction and

i often wonder if 9/11 didn't happen, what president bush have just stayed down on the ranch for four years and rode around on a horse or something and that net would have been a it. >> i think it is just a really difficult topic to surf quantitate, and to use your baseball analogy it's just who is the greatest first baseman of all time? i think it's hard to say because of error in which they played, and while i certainly, you know, it is a topic of great interest i think that there is a lot involved and it's difficult in

my opinion any way. >> i think it is in bed in there. [laughter] so, but me say in response i take your point and many historians have made the point that you cannot compare a president from the 1840's, for example from 2000. that may be right. i'm not really trying to make any definitive statement about these guys i'm just trying to play the game i'm trying to exchange american voters and citizens in the discussion about their presidents. i nalubaale do ratings but by way of summing up perhaps i take one little section. i'm trying to explain what i am up to here so i write in embarking upon my expiration of the presidency i confessed to

one prejudice pyrrophyte consider this institution to be a week of genius, it contains within it century of civic ex fermentation farms struggle, penetrating political analysis and philosophical endeavor. it can to get almost by accident during that miraculously recession in philadelphia during the hot summer of 77. but george washington and james madison used the word miracle to decide the outcome. it isn't surprising that the american people to get proprietary view of the presidential office and demand the appropriate degree of dignity and solemnity and access to the koza access. it's the today with to under 25 years of constitutional history at our backs to conceive with a remarkably innovative idea that the presidency was. the great kings of the world or long bond now but at the time of the nation's birth they were in their heyday and it wasn't clear that a president could rival the will to royalty and dignity and gravitas. but americans having been handed a gift of the presidency never

doubted that because the president as a product of himself in a way that smoking or even pre-minister could ever be. that is one reason why the american presidency stirs so much interest respect and affection from the broad populist, and why perhaps so many americans have always been captivated by the white house waiting game. plus it is more than just a diversion. it also can tell us something about why and all presidents succeed and fail and get crossed by history and the dynamics that recourse those leaders of destiny. i will seek funding to put forth observations whenever their merits about how the country's presidential politics were unfolded over the centuries. i do so in the writing game spirit and in the spirit of the observation of the difference of opinion. if your views diverge significantly from those contained in the book, relaxed. as i say the great playhouse reading game is endless and open to everyone. want to play? [laughter] [applause]