Could you be more specific about what you mean? We have had countless biorgraphies on Presidents including while they were holding the office. People were interviewed all of the time about the President's early life, schoolmates, elective office positions, etc. And some people in their past have had some rather derrogatory remarks to make about them.
Top 10 Presidential Scandals, Here are a couple of them
Andrew Jackson's marriage--Before Andrew Jackson was president, he married a woman named Rachel Donelson in 1791. She had previously been married and believed that she was legally divorced. However, after marrying Jackson, Rachel found out this was not the case. Her first husband charged her with adultery. Jackson would have to wait until 1794 to legally marry Rachel. Even though this happened over thirty years previously, it was used against Jackson in the election of 1828. Jackson blamed Rachel's untimely death two months before he took office on these personal attacks against him and his wife.
Grover Cleveland had to deal head on with a scandal while he was running for president in 1884. It was revealed that he had previously had an affair with a widow named Maria C. Halpin who had given birth to a son. She claimed that Cleveland was the father and named him Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Cleveland agreed to pay child support and then paid to put the child in an orphanage when she was no longer fit to raise him. When this issue was brought forth in the campaign and even became a chant "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!," Cleveland was honest about the entire affair. This helped rather than hurt him, and he won the election.
And here are a few more:
Thomas Jefferson's alleged relationship with Sally Hemmings was the first presidential sex scandal in the United States and prompted a discussion that continues to this day. In 1802 Jefferson was charged with having an affair with his slave, Sally Hemmings, and in fact fathering a child. Jefferson denied the charges and remained as president for another 7 years, however the debate about the truth of the matter continued until 1998 when DNA testing proved that Jefferson more than likely fathered at least one of Sally Hemming's children.
Warren Harding had a reputation as a lady's man. Rumors circulated that the GOP paid one mistress to stay quiet during his campaign, while another girlfriend, Nan Britton, was raising his illegitimate child. Harding reportedly maintained his relationship with Britton, paying child support and continuing the affair, sometimes in an anteroom of the Oval Office.
You just proved my point. It’s just not a common thing. When you have to get all the way back to Andrew Jackson being a second husband then the legion of ex-girlfriends is clearly not a common part of presidential reporting.
Not so. The DNA simply proved that Hemmings' children and Jefferson were related. A more likely suspect in their paternity is a relative of Jefferson's--his nephew, I think it was.
I thought the DNA testing proved that more than likely it was Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph who fathered Sally Hemmings child?
> ...when DNA testing proved that Jefferson more than likely fathered at least one of Sally Hemming’s children.
No, it proved that somebody in the male Field Jefferson line did, of which Thomas Jefferson was not the only representative who had access to his slaves. Remember that this is the conclusion of the leftist historical establishment, who were motivated at the time to try to find parallels to excuse Clinton’s infidelities.
“The study team and most historians say that paternity is most likely to be Thomas Jefferson, since he was documented at Monticello at the time of each of Sally Heming’s conceptions.[4] Joseph Ellis, a major biographer of Jefferson, was among those who changed his mind to conclude Jefferson’s paternity as a result of the DNA studies.” [Wikipedia] Ellis, by the way, is the biographer of Jefferson (and Clinton apologist) whose lying about having served in Vietnam was later exposed.
I don’t rule out the possibility that Thomas Jefferson fathered some of the Hemings children, but the claim is typically made by leftist establishment sources that tend to exaggerate the evidence, and it may not be true. I don’t feel that I have to accept it. Here is a site that presents some of the evidence against it. http://www.angelfire.com/va/TJTruth/rebuttal.html
Here too is the Minority Report part of the study by the Monticello Research Committee that explains some reasons for rejecting the majority conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was the likely father of one or more of the Hemings children. http://tinyurl.com/3g77wp3