Book Discussion on Calvin Coolidge: A Documentary Biography

C-SPAN ^ | July 28, 2013 | C-SPAN

[statestreet]

David Pietrusza talked about his book, Calvin Coolidge: A Documentary Biography, in which he recounts the life and career of the 30th president. Born in Vermont and left motherless at just 10 years old, Coolidge attended Amherst College, worked his way up through Massachusetts state politics to serve in the state House of Representatives and Senate, and ultimately was elected governor of his adopted state. In 1920, he was elected as Warren G. Harding’s vice president. Just three years later, with Harding’s sudden death, the man nicknamed “Silent Cal” was sitting in the Oval Office. The event took place at Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library in New York.

[Slyfox]

One of the first things Ronald Reagan did when he became president was to order Calvin’s portrait out of storage and get it hung in the White House.

[nathanbedford]

I rank the 20th and and 21st century presidents in order of their contribution (or damage) to America as follows:

Barak Obama

Franklin Roosevelt

Lyndon Johnson

Jimmy Carter

Woodrow Wilson

Richard Nixon

Harry Truman

Herbert Hoover

Bill Clinton

Teddy Roosevelt

John F. Kennedy

Warren Harding

George W. Bush

George HW Bush

Dwight Eisenhower

Calvin Coolidge

Ronald Reagan

It is a close question whether Barack Obama or Franklin Roosevelt is the worst president of the 20th and 21st century but Brack Obama gets the prize because he alone of all American Presidents is possessed of malice against his own country and might yet succeed in destroying our constitutional republic. Besides, Roosevelt seems to have had rather more success in his world war that Obama has had in his.

Reactions to the sequence?

[Fiji Hill]

Last year, I started to read Pietrusza's book 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies (New York: Union Square, 2008), but I only read a few pages. From the very biginning, the book was gushingly adulatory toward JFK, so I took it back to the library.

[Fiji Hill]

William McKinley and William Howard Taft aren’t on your list.

[Resolute Conservative]

I would move GHW Bush up above his son and Clinton up above Truman simply because of the damage he did to the definition of marriage and sex.

[smallelmike]

I would put Wilson at second place after Obama because of the progressive agenda and WWI.