The “Presidents Club” is not written in an orderly way. The reason why the “Presidents Club” is written this w is because the authors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy only write about recent presidencies that they have witnessed throughout their lifetimes. By witnessing these presidencies the authors have watched the presidents from Truman to Obama make lifetime relationships. Life relationships take decades to form. To write this book, memoirs and presidential correspondences were used rather more than actual interviews. So the book started with Truman and how he went from being vice president for Roosevelt to forming the Presidents club with former President Hoover. Truman was able to get advice from Hoover for both counsels and political for building better relations abroad. To build better relations abroad Truman needed an ambassador, so he picked Hoover. Hoover was considered as a bad president during his time in office, but he redeemed himself as ambassador. One of Hoover’s stops abroad that is mentioned in the book was in Argentina to help feed over 1 million Europeans. After Hoover helped out Truman during his term as president, they formed the “Presidents Club” because they were two living ex-presidents and so they got it into their heads to share their experience and knowledge with other presidents when they take office. Truman and Hoover started accepting new presidents that came after them like Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Dwight Eisenhower did alright during his term as President because he took advantage of the “Presidents Club”. But John F. Kennedy is another story. Gibbs and Duffy gave Kennedy a chapter all to himself. It was called, “He had no idea of the complexity of the job,” also these were the word... ... middle of paper ... ...mess the country was already in and knew that initially that the country as a whole is more important than him. The mess that was taking place during his term was the Vietnamese War. Wars are a really big deal, so it does not just take one person to deal with them, but many. Johnson sought a helping hand with Nixon. But it turns out that Nixon stabbed Johnson in the back and they don’t get along now because of the back-stabbing. To conclude about the “Presidents Club” is that former presidents are not trying to control the new presidents, but instead offer them some advice and some experience so that the new presidents don’t feel like they are stepping into a job that doesn’t come with a description. The “Presidents Club” was formed as a support/ transition group for presidents who know what that guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders is going through.
The U.S. president is a person deemed to be the most fitting person to lead this country through thick and thin. It’s been such a successful method that it has led to 43 individual men being put in charge of running this country. However, this doesn’t mean that each one has been good or hasn’t had an issue they couldn’t resolve when in office. But no matter what, each one has left a very unique imprint on the history and evolution of this nation. However when two are compared against one another, some rather surprising similarities may be found. Even better, is what happens when two presidents are compared and they are from the same political party but separated by a large numbers of years between them. In doing this, not only do we see the difference between the two but the interesting evolution of political idea in one party.
Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were elected to Congress in 46, a year in which the New Deal took a serious beating as the Republicans regained control of Congress on the slogan Had Enough? Nixon of course, had campaigned against incumbent Jerry Voorhis on an anti-New Deal platform, but it's often forgotten that when JFK first ran for the House in 1946, he differentiated himself from his Democratic primary opposition by describing himself as a fighting conservative. In private, Kennedy's antipathy to the traditional FDR New Deal was even more extensive. When Kennedy and Nixon were sworn in on the same day, both were already outspoken on the subject of the emerging Cold War. While running for office in 1946, Kennedy proudly told a radio audience of how he had lashed out against a left-wing group of Young Democrats for being naive on the subject of the Soviet Union, and how he had also attacked the emerging radical faction headed by Henry Wallace. Thus, when Kennedy entered the House, he was anything but progressive in his views of either domestic or foreign policy. It didn't take long for these two to form a friendship. Both were Navy men who had served in the South Pacific, and both saw themselves as occupying the vital center of their parties. Just as JFK lashed out against the New Deal and the radical wing of the Democratic party, so too did Richard Nixon distance himself from the right-wing of the Republican party. Nixon's support of Harry Truman's creation of NATO and the aid packages to Greece and Turkey meant rejecting the old guard isolationist bent of the conservative wing that had been embodied in Mr. Republican Senator Robert Taft. Indeed, when it came time for Nixon to back a nominee in 1948, his support went to the more centrist Thomas E. Dewey, and not to the conservative Taft. Kennedy decided to go into politics mainly because of the influence of his father. Joe Kennedy, Jr. had been killed in the European arena of World War II and so the political ambitions of the family got placed on the shoulders of John. Nixon, however, got involved in politics by chance. While celebrating the end of the war in New York, he received a telegram from an old family friend indicating that they needed someone to run against the Democrat Jerry Voorhis.
A successful president’s legacy is measured by his ability to address issues of public concern, rid the government of corruption, create reliable foreign affairs with existing countries and most importantly, act as a voice of the people. However, it appears that Warren G. Harding was more concerned with striving to satisfy many of his cabinet members priorities, without weighing the negative consequences it could have on his presidency. Additionally, his successor Calvin Coolidge was caught in the web of political corruption and sexual scandals that had surrounded Harding’s presidency. Many historians have accurately depicted Warren G. Harding as one of the least consequential president’s due in part to his various political scandals that defined his term; whereas Calvin Coolidge has been wrongly tarnished with the same reputation as his predecessor without sufficient evidence.
“Was Truman Responsible for the Cold War”, well, according to author Arnold A. Offner, his simplistic answer is an obvious “yes.” “Taking Sides” is a controversial aspect of the author’s interpretation for justifying his position and perception of “Truman’s” actions. This political approach is situated around the “Cold War” era in which the author scrutinizes, delineates, and ridicules his opponents by claiming “I have an ace in the hole and one showing” (SoRelle 313). Both authors provide the readers with intuitive perceptions for their argumentative approaches in justifying whether or not “Truman” contributed to the onset of the “Cold War.” Thus far, it would be hard-pressed to blame one single individual, President or not, for the “Cold War” initiation/s. Information presented shows the implications centered on the issues leading up to the Cold War”, presents different ideologies of two Presidents involving policy making, and a national relationship strained by uncooperative governments.
In chapter eight in The Balancing the Presidential Seesaw (2000), Vaughan offers additional observations and recommendations for future presidents. As a former president, Vaughan observation is clear that “presidency is not about headlines – whether to make or avoid them – it is about working hard day in and day out, year in and year out” to accomplish the community college’s goal (Vaughan, 2000, p.
... invited to meet with the presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. They discussed military matters.(“Douglas MacArthur Biography”)
Each new President shouldered very different challenges when entering the White House. Obama faced a severe financial burden – the national debt.... ... middle of paper ... ... Griessman, Gene.
At first, he was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War but then became a strong opponent. The Department of Defense continued to lie to the people about the hype about the war. The government continued to say that the war was under control. The Pentagon Papers already have statistics on the Vietnam War. As soon as Nixon saw the paper, he went to his Attorney General right away to stop the printing of the New York Times newspaper. Daniel Ellsberg knew that he would get arrested for making copies of the papers.
Just 82 days after becoming Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, Harry S. Truman was catapulted to the presidency by Roosevelt’s passing. Vigorous, hard-working and simple, he had grown up working the soil of his father’s farm and understood the struggles of the people on the farms and in the small towns.
Truman’s accomplishments in his domestic policy were impressive, considering the hardships the nation was experiencing as World War II came to an end, and the resistance of Congress (which was greatly made up of Republicans and conservatives) to liberalism. The president was able to pas...
...ection Nixon went on to serve as Vice President for eight years, traveling abroad as a national ambassador. Nixon won the Republican nomination for the upcoming presidential election and competed against John F. Kennedy. Nixon lost the election to Kennedy and went back to California to run for Governor in 1962. He ran against Pat Brown and ended up losing the election. Nixon’s political career took a break for awhile after his lose for Governor. After a break from politics Nixon announced that he was going to run for president in 1968, he selected Spiro Agnew the Governor of Maryland for his running mate. In his campaign Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War that had been going on for 11 years. His promised and familiarity to the people helped him to win the election against Hubert Humphrey and by a narrow margin became the President of the United States.
Understanding and evaluating presidents’ performance often poses challenges for political experts. The nation votes one president at the time and each presidency faces different tests. The environments surrounding a presidency have a tremendous impact on the success and failure of that presidency. In addition, the president exercises his power through a check and balance system embody in the Constitution. As stated in (Collier 1959), the Constitution created a government of “separated institutions sharing power.” As a result, a president works with others institutions of the government to shape the nation’s agenda. Thus, determining a presidential performance becomes difficult, especially when it comes to comparing the performance among presidencies.
Richard Neustadt today is a professor of politics and has written many books on subjects pertaining to government and the inter workings of governments. He has many years of personal experience working with the government along with the knowledge of what makes a president powerful. He has worked under President Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. His credibility of politics has enhanced his respect in the field of politics. His works are studied in many Universities and he is considered well versed in his opinions of many different presidents. It is true that he seems to use Truman and Eisenhower as the main examples in this book and does show the reader the mistakes he believes were made along the way in achieving power.
Imagine a world where your last name is the company you work for. Imagine a world where the United States includes all of North American, all of South America, all of Australia, the Pacific Islands, South Africa, India, Thailand and Russia. Welcome to Jennifer Government. The novel can be looked at by a reader as a simple, yet innovative story. The novel can also be seen as a deep, catawampus story with plenty of plot twists that are nicely blended together. Each successive chapter is told from the view from a different character; each chapter holds a different plot twist that keeps the reader guessing from one paragraph to the next; each chapter delves into sense of human emotion. Max Barry focuses strongly on the use of political satire plot of his story while using a unique style of third person limited point of view to bring about a story of deceit, and scandal.
Lowi, Theodore J. (1985). The personal President: Power invested promise unfulfilled. Ithaca, New York: Cornell