Tag Archives: Presidents

Presidents’ Day Weekend: William Henry Harrison

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Happy Presidents’ Day weekend! Enjoy the three-day weekend if you’ve got it. The holiday itself is monarchical and un-American, but it’s also the American Way to use any excuse to take a day off from work. I want to focus on three of the lesser-known Presidents this weekend, the first being William Henry Harrison. Harrison is only known as the answer to a trivia question: which American President died after only 31 days in office? Or, he’s the butt of a joke: he was the best President because he didn’t stick around long enough to screw things up! But who was William Henry Harrison? And is his presidency more important than we give it credit for?

9th President William Henry Harrison

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The Worst President?

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The question is often asked, who is the worst president of all time? Surprisingly, you’re going to get a lot of overlap between mainstream left and right. They may disagree on specifics but look at any “best presidents” list and you will find that “do something” presidents always rank near the top. Presidents who waged war and governed as a monarch always rank high. “Forgettable” presidents who presided over times of peace and prosperity tend to rank lower. This is wrong. We should not rank presidents by how famous they are. We should not judge them based on whether they did unconstitutional things that we like or don’t like. There is one single metric for measuring how good a president was: Did they uphold their oath to defend the constitution? Based on that, who is the worst?

The Presidents of the United States as depicted by Louis Marx
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Book Review: The Jazz Age President – Defending Warren G. Harding

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A book reexamining the Warren Harding presidency? Sign me up! Harding is always at the bottom of presidential rankings, but is that earned? Published in 2022, author Ryan S. Walters tackles rehabilitating the 29th presidents’ reputation. Just attempting to do this is heresy according to mainstream historians. Michael Beschloss told the New York Times, “If you had to reach for a great revisionist mountain to climb, that would be it.” Sounds like Walters has an uphill battle. Does he succeed in his goal?

The Jazz Age President – Defending Warren G. Harding
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Book Review: President Without a Party – The Life of John Tyler

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If you’re looking to read a biography on John Tyler, you don’t have many options. Published in 2020, President Without a Party is the first full-scale Tyler biography published in half a century. Does it shine any new light on an oft neglected and historically maligned president?

President Without a Party – The Life of John Tyler
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