We don’t really expect to have many American presidents of the stature of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and just a very few others.
But shouldn’t we insist upon having presidents quite a bit better than some of those we have chosen?
President Washington unquestionably was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
He obviously was the “right one” to be our first president, the “father of our country.”
Without him as our top general in the American Revolution, we might not have won our independence, and the right to elect our presidents!
Without him, we might have had a different form of government. Some Americans, looking back at England, suggested Washington should become king! But he rejected a monarchy.
As our first president, he set the important precedent of serving only two consecutive terms – a precedent that endured until President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third and then a fourth term!
Along with Washington, most Americans surely would name Lincoln among our greatest presidents.
He kept the Union together after our country was divided between the United States and the Confederate States in the horrible War Between the States.
Who can guess what might have happened to our country and to our people had the United States been permanently divided?
Over more than two centuries, we fortunately have chosen some really “great” presidents, helping us to become the truly great nation that our United States of America is.
But sometimes we have not chosen very well. Fortunately, we have been able to survive some very mediocre – and worse – presidents. (Remember, we picked them.)
Look back over the list of the presidents we have had: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S (he didn’t use a period with his initial) Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William J. “Bill” Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
How many of them do you feel were up to the standard of Washington and Lincoln, or at least up to the quality we wish we had had?
We really don’t have a “great” record of electing “the best and the brightest” to be our presidents, do we?
Well, in 2012 we are going to have another presidential election.
From which end of that historic spectrum – the great and the, well, not so great – do you believe we will choose in 2012?
Shouldn’t we begin thinking seriously about that now, lest we come up on the low end in 2012?