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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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23 January 2004 - 6:55 pm
All of the liberals out there should take heart in the knowledge that the historical record does not look favorably on a second term for George W. Bush. The twentieth century saw five major military conflicts in which the US participated: World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the first Persian Gulf conflict. All of the presidents who presided over these wars had aborted final terms or failed to gain a final term. Here's the full tally.
Woodrow Wilson campaigned for his second term in office using the slogan "he kept us out of war," but within a month of taking the oath of office he asked Congress to declare war on Germany. Mr. Wilson saw us through the World War I, but suffered huge setbacks in his post-war plans when his allies rejected nearly all of his 12 Points and the Senate then refused to affirm the Versailles Treaty. He suffered a stroke after a nation-wide tour to publicize the need to ratify the treaty. Mr. Wilson was largely incapacitated by his stroke and the government was largely run by his wife. Although Mr. Wilson could have run for a third term, he did not.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a record four terms in office and he successfully guided America through the Great Depression, but he did not live to see the end of World War II. In the waning days of the war and only a few months after his fourth inauguration, Mr. Roosevelt expired from a cerebral hemorrhage while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, GA.
Harry Truman was re-elected after presiding over VE-Day and VJ-Day, but his reckoning came in his second term. Truman was the last president eligible to run for an unlimited number of terms, but after a strong start the Korean conflict had turned ugly and public sentiment had turned against the president. Mr. Truman's dismissal of General MacArthur, while a military necessity, did nothing to bolster his faltering public opinion. Mr. Truman opted against running for a third term, and Dwight Eisenhower won election based on a campaign that promised the former Supreme Allied Commander would personally go to Korea and fix things.
The Vietnam conflict did in three presidents. John Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet late in his first term. Mr. Kennedy had overseen the initial building up of troops in Vietnam, but was not subject to the great public outcry that his predecessors had to deal with. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Mr. Kennedy, further ramped up troop deployments in South-East Asia, but public sentiment had turned against him by late in his second term. Regardless, Johnson had withdrawn himself as a candidate for re-election in early 1968 in order to devote himself fully to the peace process without the hindrance of politics. Peace talks were underway when he stepped down. Richard Nixon presided over the end of the Vietnam conflict and was elected to his second term by the largest margins in modern presidential history. However, Mr. Nixon apparently suffered from extreme paranoia and this along with various criminal acts that would have resulted in his impeachment, led to his resignation in August 1974.
In the early 1990s, during the final military conflict of the twentieth century, George Bush sent American and allied forces to liberate Kuwait and Kuwaiti oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. After weeks of air and missile bombardment, the 100-day Operation Desert Storm was successful in removing the Iraqis from Kuwait. However, as the economy in the US plummeted, Mr. Bush's approval rating also fell, and he failed in his re-election attempt in 1992.
What does this mean for George W. Bush and his "war on terror?" Perhaps nothing. It is a new century, after all. However, the historical record of the twentieth century seems to indicate otherwise
Posted by on 23 January 2004 at 6:55 PM
Comments
Wow, another great, informative post.
The best thing Bush has going for him is the apparent lack of a presidential candidate from the Deomocrat camp.
I think there are many talented people out there who would make a fine president, but none in his or her right mind would want the job.
Posted by rkc on 24 January 2004 - 8:21 AM
Hello
Posted by politics on 19 February 2004 - 2:07 AM