War and single-term presidents- A curse on the White House

LA Times ^ | 07-06-03 | Ed Stockly

[Brian S]

Call it the curse of the wartime president. Not a single U.S. president who has led the country into a major war has gone on to serve another full term in the White House. Not James Madison after the War of 1812. Not Woodrow Wilson after World War I.

Not Lyndon Johnson after Vietnam. And not George H.W. Bush, who won a popular war but was unable to win over everyday Americans a second time. Will the current President Bush, who is expected to raise record amounts of money in his re-election bid, be able to buck this long and curious trend in American history? Every president who has led this country into full-scale war has paid a heavy price politically and personally. Most chose not to run for re-election and, upon leaving office, saw their vision for America rejected by the voters, their party defeated and their rivals elected. Some left office with shattered reputations, fading into a marginalized obscurity and irrelevance. And the few who survived grueling re-election campaigns were swiftly cut down by illness or assassination.

Excerpt

[pabianice]

I'll bet Franklin Roosevelt would give this guy a good argument, since his fourth term was ended only by his sudden death in 1945.

[You Dirty Rats]

Madison was in his second term when the War of 1812 ended.

Lincoln and McKinley were cut down by assassins.

Wilson was in his second term when WWI ended.

FDR was elected to a fourth term, then died.

In none of these cases did the public decide that they didn't want the same leader in peace that they did in war.

This article is just plain ignorant.

[VoodooEconomics]

FDR - elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

I believe FDR was reelected in 1944

[dirtboy]

I believe FDR was reelected in 1944

Note the weasel words - went on to serve a full term.

[maplenut]

And as a precedent, no other President had a "9/11" to address.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The argument could be made that Harry S. Truman was able to accomplish this feat. He was re-elected in 1948 after leading the US to victory over Japan.

Though he did not lead the US into WWII, he was there to make sure we won the war in the Pacific.

I shudeer to think of what may have come to pass if FDR were still at the helm through 1945 and onward.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

http://www.angelrays.com/mb/pres/bush.html

[Ole Okie]

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

FDR was in his third term when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. He had defeated Wendell Wilkie (R) in 1940, after the electorate sort of agonized over whether to go against Washington's example of serving only two terms.

In 1944 he defeated Thomas E Dewey, Republican. Roosevelt then died in 1945, succeeded by the man from the Kansas City Pendergrast machine, Harry S Truman.

Truman won on his own in 1948, defeating (taranta ra!), Thomas E Dewey.

Harry Truman, in turn, got us into the US led United Nations "police action" in Korea in his second term.

I wonder if this writer ever studied American history. The whole issue is much more complicated than he wants to make it. His premise is very, very faulty.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Of course, shudeer=shudder.

[discostu]

Gee they kind of skipped FDR, and Truman who started the Cold War, and Lincoln, and of course Johnson refused to run in 68 so that's a little disingenuous.

Definite bulldada.

[sheik yerbouty]

The LA Times is Pravda with sunshine..

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #1

He tried to put a vodoo curse on GW Bush.:)

[dwilli]

I don't know the answer but GWB and the military have got to get a handle on this one-a-day death in Iraq. If it takes
UN peacekeepers to stop it, as much as I hate the UN, bring it on. The politics of casualities will haunt GWB.

[LS]

And I think LBJ would have won vs. Nixon in 68. It would have been close.

[So Cal Rocket]

Didn't Clinton get re-elected after taking us into Somalia?

[So Cal Rocket]

Didn't Clinton get re-elected after taking us into Bosnia?

[TruthNtegrity]

Thanks for correcting this idiot's assumptions - they surely weren't FACTS.

How interesting (OK, NOT) that someone could get so many facts wrong in one article. Is this proof of the mistakes in our school's text books? Yipes, I've heard that they are full of misstatements, and erroneous "facts", but this is severe.

I find it so difficult to believe what the NEA and the unions have done to our educational system, and want to know when we are going to get fed up with it, and take our schools back. Graduating from HS means nothing when the freshman year of College (IF they get there) is spent in remedial math, English and history. Friends, your tax dollars are being flushed - into the coffers of union thugs who don't give a d@mn about what our kids are learning. Or is there some "sotte voce" purpose, and they WANT to turn out illiterate kids, because they make better Democrat voters? Ohhhhh, that is a really scary thought!

TNI

[AntiGuv]

George Bush Sr took us into Somalia; Clinton took us out after the 'Black Hawk Down' incident.