Chapter 12 - The Presidency

1. What makes a great President (not which Presidents have been great) . . . what qualities are essential to greatness?  Why?

            I think that the attributes of a great President varies by personal opinion.  The text talks about Presidential greatness and gives a very good insight into what makes a great President but I think that other factors also play a part.  I think that a great President, without even knowing it maybe, is a President that is a natural leader.  It is the kind of person that can juggle many things and still remain focused on the public and what is in their best interest.  A great President worries less about being the best President ever and more about the public interest.

2. Other than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, which two Presidents have been the greatest and why?

            This again is left to personal opinion and I think that it is hard to determine if one President was better than the other.  They all just seemed to excel at different things.  My parents think that the best President, regardless of his faults, was President Bill Clinton and I would have to agree based on what they have told me.  He did a lot of great things for the American Public and reduced the American deficit.  Being as I have had a limit number of years and Presidents, I would have to say that I am unable to determine which President I personally feel is the greatest as there have only been 3 since I was born.  I have to say I value my parents’ opinion and it is for this reason that I agree.  The text talks about three great Presidents and based on what it said and my own personal research, I feel like President Ronald Reagan was a great President.  He did many good things such as ending the Cold War.  He also did many things for the public such as welfare reform and the first comprehensive AIDS funding and treatment bill.

3. Research a President that you're previously unfamiliar with - list at least three things you learned.  Was this President effective?  Why or why not?

            President Thomas Woodrow Wilson who was our 28^th President is the President that I decided to investigate further.  On of the things that I learned was that he began the United States’ first draft since the Civil War and had left the war mostly in the hands of the Army during World War I while he focused on diplomacy and financial considerations.  Also during his term in office, Wilson gave a well-known Flag Day speech that fueled the wave of anti-German sentiment that was sweeping the country. I was also unaware that he was involved in the creating of the League of Nations.  I think that this President did some really good things but I don’t think that he was as effective as he could have been.  It seems to me that someone as scholarly as President Wilson could have made some better decisions when it came to public policy and he could have spent more time with the concerns of the people.

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