What makes a good President?

On the same day when the news media was commemorating the annual anniversary marking the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Atlantic Wire published an article describing a recent Gallop Poll that asked Americans to rank all the presidents since John F Kennedy on how they approved or disapproved of how each president handled his job in office. To no surprise, the most popular modern president for the Americans interviewed for the Gallup Poll was John F Kennedy. Coming in a close second, was the former actor turned politician, Ronald Reagan, followed by Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Although most readers may agree with these results, the poll confirms how badly informed most Americans are about what makes a good president, and how most Americans closely associate American military strength and economic power to the success of the chief executive. The latest Gallup Poll helps to perpetuate the continued progression of the Imperial Presidency over the last 50 years and further sustains the popular misperceptions surrounding Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

The Gallup Poll released on eve of the anniversary commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor also helps to further influence the predisposition of Americans to view a president’s success on the economic and military strength of the country as opposed to honoring the Constitution or his moral character while in office. Although most Americans believe that honor, family, and hard work are some of the most revered traits of being an American, the gallop poll reflects the contrary. While John F Kennedy undoubtedly gets high approval marks based on the sympathy of getting killed while in office and his work on civil rights, Kennedy also benefits from his sucessful military standoff with the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis and his pledge to win the space race to the moon. Kennedy also benefited from presiding over a growing economy, a huge military expansion, and not being linked too directly to the Vietnam War. Further helping Kennedy achieve the highest ranking in the recent Gallup Poll is the exclusion of Dwight D Eisenhower from the survey.

Astute students of American political history will confirm that the large peacetime military build up of strategic nuclear missiles that Kennedy is credited for, was due to deceitful propaganda by a democratic challenger to the Eisenhower/Nixon administration. Although started by Stuart Symington, a Missouri Democratic who was a fierce opponent of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the myth of a strategic missile gap was later continued by Kennedy, even after he was given information by the CIA that the claims of a missile gap were untrue. Further justifying why Kennedy does not merit the top ranking in the Gallup Poll, is his unconstitutional abuse of power and the use of the CIA in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Although minuscule in comparison to the unethical behavior of future presidents, the constitutional abuses of power have to be acknowledged.

Likewise, the jump in ranking for Gerald Ford and Lyndon B. Johnson are disquieting signs of how the American people determine what merits a great president. The rise of public opinion for Gerald Ford, a man who is the only President who was never elected President or Vice-President, and Lyndon Johnson a president who escalated the Vietnam War to near genocidal levels, show how badly misinformed the American people of what constitutes a great president.

Although not as charming and attractive as John F Kennedy or as skilled as a politician like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, history in due course will prove that the current low public opinion of Jimmy Carter is erroneous and shortsighted. Jimmy Carter, a president who tried to warn the American people about the dangers of relying on foreign oil, and a man who never performed any kind of illegal acts such as Ronald Reagan and the Iran Contra Affair or the unethical actions of Bill Clinton treating the Oval Office like a frat house, will one day be vindicated by historians.

The leadership of Jimmy Cater was based on the long-term interests of the country and not short term political goals. Contrary to Ronald Reagan who did nothing to get America to be less dependant on foreign oil, Jimmy Carter demonstrated his willingness to be a leader and not just a politician when he urged the country to support his initiatives on solar energy and to use less imported oil.

As the recent release of Wikileaks confirm, the inability of the United States to become less dependant on foreign oil has transformed the US military into a glorified global mercenary force protecting despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain.

One can only imagine the condition of the world in 2010, if the United States in 1980 put more of its natural resources, technology, and leading academic minds to the long-term strategic fields of alternative energy and high-speed trains, instead of the short-term goals of more oil and bigger defense budgets to protect an ever-dwindling supply of that natural resource.

A more accurate reflection of a presidents ability to protect the US Constitution and the ability to put the long term interests of the country before short term political gains, would be reflected in the following ranking. Because Ford was never elected, he is excluded from the ranking.

Eisenhower
Carter
Kennedy
Bush (Sr)
Clinton
Reagan
Johnson
Nixon
Bush (Jr)