From Publishers Weekly
Perennial favorite George Washington holds onto the top slot in this latest incarnation of presidential greatness surveys. Wall Street Journal Web editor Taranto and Federalist Society executive vice president Leo polled experts in history, politics and law on both sides of the volatile liberal-conservative divide. This politically attuned selection process produces no real surprises, however. Abraham Lincoln and FDR join the "Father of His Country" in the exclusive pantheon of outstanding leaders. Longtime failures James Buchanan and Warren Harding anchor the bottom rungs. Ronald Reagan merits "near great" status here, compared to "average" rankings elsewhere. However, Democratic icons provoke gratuitous partisan sniping from some of the well-known conservative contributors, especially on the contentious issue of character, tilting the editors’ much-vaunted objectivity rightward as a result. Peggy Noonan lingers on JFK's peccadilloes, including his use of sunless tanning products, rather than on his skillful management of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert Bork highlights FDR’s domestic and international miscues, leaving readers to wonder how the only four-term president ever made the top three. Although George W. Bush is not ranked, he garners a glowing profile that’s twice as long as FDR’s. Fortunately, back-to-back essays on Lincoln by Jay Winik and Andrew Johnson by Jeffrey Tulis stand out and provide perceptive, timely appraisals of contrasting styles of executive stewardship during national crises. Complemented by William Bennett’s cri de coeur against declining standards in the teaching of American history, by scholarly musings on economic policy, wartime leadership, judicial appointments and disputed elections, and by a fine concluding overview of the editors’ methodology, these subtly shifting critiques of American presidents will give political junkies plenty to tussle over.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
James Taranto is editor of
OpinionJournal.com, the website of
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Leonard Leo serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society, an organization of 35,000 lawyers and other individuals committed to limited, constitutional government as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.
William J. Bennett served as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H. W. Bush and as Secretary of Education and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Reagan. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Williams College, a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Texas, and a law degree from Harvard. He is the author of such bestselling books as
The Educated Child,
The Death of Outrage,
The Book of Virtues, and the two-volume series
America: The Last Best Hope. Dr. Bennett is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show
Bill Bennett's Morning in America. He is also the Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute and a regular contributor to CNN. He, his wife, Elayne, and their two sons, John and Joseph, live in Maryland.
