Presidential History for Our Times

The other day, I had an exchange with a life-long democrat, a

senior citizen in “middle America.” In the course of it, he wrote, “As for me, I don't like President Trump because he's a bullying, whoring, lying, bigoted a**hole who got out of the military with the rich-kid equivalent of running off to Canada.” Later, he wrote, “If you want “deep political analysis” look somewhere else.

Neither response was particularly surprising; they were what I have come to expect, not just from “ordinary Democrats,” but, sadly, from members of that party in Congress. However, it did get me thinking about US Presidents and who might be the "champions" at that list of Trump's alleged (they are seldom supported by facts) transgressions. But ignore that. I'm not going to get into a back-and-forth about the reliability – or not – of sources of those judgments, or their accuracy.

I'll take those judgments as they are. Besides being a bit of a “history geek,” I am old enough to remember a few previous Presidents and their reputations. “Top Ten” and “GOAT” lists are popular these days, so, considering all his predecessors, does Donald Trump compete with the absolute best at bullying, whoring, lying, bigotry, and (artfully) avoiding the draft? Not even close. Here are the Champions:

Bullying - Andrew Jackson defined himself not by enacting

legislation but by thwarting it. A charismatic figure, Jackson was combative, quick-tempered, and thin-skinned. To his friends he was generous, considerate, and loyal; to his enemies, mean-spirited and spiteful. “When Andrew Jackson hated,” a Jacksonian scholar wrote, “it often became a grand passion. He could hate with a Biblical fury and would resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious.” He once fired his entire cabinet except one because they would not invite another cabinet member’s wife to parties. He at times exploded with anger, but it seemed he launched into tirades quite purposefully to intimidate his opposition. In 1834 he was censured in the Senate for assuming "authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."

Whoring - Really no contest on this one: John Kennedy “If I

don’t have a lay for three days I get a headache.” - JFK to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

Notable dalliances: Marilyn Monroe, Judith Exner, Inga Arvad, Anita Ekberg, Ellen Rometsch, Gene Tierney, Mimi Alford, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Priscilla Wear, and Jill Cowen.

Honorable Mention goes to Thomas Jefferson, who started his sexual dalliance with Sally Hemings when she was 14 (he was 44).

Lying - A tough one, since the very act of running for office

apparently requires a certain amount of deception ("Medicare for all" is a pretty good example). Kennedy is in the running here, too, with the "missile gap," again, a lie while running for office. There have been lies while in office, like Clinton, "I did not have sex with that woman...", Nixon denying White House involvement in Watergate, Kennedy again, covering up his Addison's disease and his numerous affairs. But the winner has to be Lyndon Johnson's "“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” At the very same time and with Johnson’s approval, the Pentagon was drawing up plans to send the first wave of more than 100,000 American servicemen to Vietnam. Johnson’s macho determination not to “lose” Vietnam led him to keep increasing the number of American troops until they reached over 500,000.

Bigoted - I'm not usually one to apply current ideas of

morality to previous centuries and generations, but this one is historically laughable. Starting with George Washington, 12 US Presidents owned slaves, 10 while in office. The Huffington Post created a list of the 11 "most racists presidents" (before Trump was elected, or being the Huff Post, it would undoubtedly have included him). Though they put Andrew Johnson 1st for pretty much overturning the result of the Civil War and the emancipation policies of Abraham Lincoln, I'll go for their number 5. Thomas Jefferson, owner of over 600 slaves in his lifetime, became the preeminent American authority on Black inferiority. Among his racist statements, he wrote, “The blacks...are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind,” in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1787).

Draft-dodging "a**hole" – Recently, Clinton and Bush 43 

avoided the Vietnam war (at least 43 served in the Air Force Reserve), but here is the current champion: Just a few months before Donald Trump received his now-infamous diagnosis of “bone spurs in the heels,” former high school football star Joe Biden got the same 1-Y draft deferment for “asthma as a teenager.” It was one of five deferments Biden received that allowed him to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War.