The Leaders we deserved (and a few we didn’t)

By Alvin Stephen Felzenberg

Individual ratings of all the presidents (except Harrison, Garfield and G. W. Bush)

Based on:

Character

Vision

Competence

Economic policy

Preserving and Extending Liberty

Defense, National Security, and Foreign Policy

This book goes well beyond just rating presidents, it breaks down personal qualities of the presidents and explains how each quality effected the presidency.  Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in politics and/or history.  This is not a quick read, can’t put it down until I am finished type of book.  Rather it is one that a chapter, or even a few presidents from a chapter should be read, thoughtfully, in the quiet of an evening before retiring.

Some selected excerpts –

“Presidential scholars ….  marvel at the meticulous care with which John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton crafted their foreign and domestic initiatives and the recklessness with which the conducted their private affairs . . .”

Father of the internet:

“Eisenhower, in close cooperation the Democratic Congress, backed …. the Defense Reorganization of 1958, which established the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).  (ARPA developed ARPANET, which became the Internet.”

Our current President elect:

“Many of the least successful presidents, except Hoover, entered politics at an early age and caught the presidential bug soon after their political careers began.”

            and

“If great or near great presidents were shaped by numerous experiences with people from all walks of life, the unsuccessful spent most of their adult lives in a single pursuit: politics.  What they knew about voters came exclusively through campaigning, polls, and focus groups.”