Presidential Leadership

A collection of good basic summaries of philosophies, contributions,and most interestingly, shortcomings of our first 43 presidents.

The ratings are especially intriguing - Pierce and Buchanan had a rough go of it. I find it amazing how life experiences, intellectual capacity, and knowledge of domestic and/or international affairs before taking office are frequently not very good predictors of a successful presidency. What is not surprisingly is that leaders of character have often flourished while in office. Also notable is that it appears that most successful presidents seem to be likable chaps - the surely codgers (sp?) who appear to find little joy in life are often poor performers. Admittedly, these somewhat naive observations are not likely to be embraced by presidential scholars, but, nonetheless, they work for me!