The press had an idealized view of John F. “Jack” Kennedy and his family’s life at the White House, with the Kennedy White House being nicknamed “Camelot.” At the time, most people did “not know about the president’s chronic pain and the narcotics he t[ook] to manage it or the intrigues that Kennedy br[ought] upon himself” (295).

Kennedy was the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, a wealthy Irish American financier from Boston, and his wife, Rose. Joseph wanted Kennedy’s older brother, Joseph Jr., to one day become president. The family moved to New York City, where anti-Irish discrimination was still rampant. Kennedy suffered numerous ailments during his childhood. A mediocre student, he was almost expelled from boarding school after putting live firecrackers in a toilet as a prank. Despite these challenges, he was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by his classmates (296). Kennedy enjoyed reading and writing as a college student at Princeton and Harvard, and his father anticipated that he would become a journalist.

Despite his increasingly severe back pain, he enlisted to fight in World War II alongside his brother Joseph. After joining the Navy, Kennedy was stranded on an island with 11 other sailors after their ship collided with a Japanese warship. Kennedy saved the life of a fellow sailor who was burned in the collision. Meanwhile, Joseph was killed in England when a bomb accidentally exploded on his plane. Kennedy’s father then urged Kennedy to enter politics in Joseph’s place. Kennedy campaigned for a spot in the US House of Representatives.

Kennedy’s health worsened, with back pain, Addison’s disease (a condition that causes stomach pain), and recurring malaria. Still, Kennedy stayed committed to his career in politics and as a writer, publishing a book based on his college senior thesis, Why England Slept, and a history, Profiles in Courage.

Eleanor Roosevelt and others criticized him for not speaking out against Joe McCarthy’s anticommunist demagoguery. In 1953, Kennedy married Jacqueline “Jackie” Bouvier, but he retained a reputation “as a playboy” (299). When Kennedy ran for president as the Democratic candidate in 1960, he was seen as a poor candidate because of his Catholicism and his youth. Still, Kennedy won by a narrow margin. Despite allegations that Kennedy’s father and Chicago mayor Richard Daley helped rig votes in Kennedy’s favor, the authors suggest that the “real reason” Kennedy won was because, in the first televised presidential debate, Kennedy was more telegenic than his opponent, Richard Nixon (301).

Kennedy’s administration started out on a bad note. The United States was experiencing the first economic downturn since the Great Depression, and tensions with the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba were rising. A CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) effort to overthrow Castro, called the Bay of Pigs Invasion, failed badly. Kennedy also reluctantly committed more American soldiers to support South Vietnam in an attempt to contain the spread of communism. The CIA was believed by some to have been involved in the assassination of South Vietnam’s widely hated president, Ngo Dinh Diem.

Kennedy and Jackie were hugely popular. A CBS television special documented Jackie’s redecoration of the White House. Kennedy’s approval rating was above 50%, with the media not reporting on the darker side of Kennedy’s personal life. On November 22, 1963, while riding a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Assessing Kennedy’s presidency, the authors argue that Kennedy “matured” since the blunder of the Bay of Pigs (304), something shown in his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. For his second term, Kennedy, who had been worried about harming his reelection chances, wanted to focus more on civil rights and withdraw the United States from Vietnam after the election.

On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a televised speech announcing that attacks on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin would mean an escalation of the war in Vietnam. In a resolution, Congress gave Johnson complete authority over any actions taken in the Vietnam War. Domestically, Johnson proposed two programs that were labelled part of his Great Society initiative, and he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which “outlaw[ed] all discrimination based on race or color, sex, religion, or national origin” (308). However, the Vietnam War “overshadow[ed]” all of Johnson’s domestic reforms (308).

Johnson was born in the small town of Stonewall in southern Texas in 1908. He grew up in poverty in a house that did not have electricity. Instead of going to college right after high school, Johnson moved to southern California, only to return home and work as an “unskilled laborer” (309). Eventually, Johnson did enroll in a college, the Southwest Texas State Teachers College, and took a job teaching public speaking to Mexican American students. It was “the first time he encounter[ed] citizens whose future [wa]s limited by race and social class” (309), and the experience deeply influenced him.

He entered politics by volunteering for Welly Hopkins, a member of the Texas House of Representatives. Hopkins later recommended the young Johnson to serve as legislative secretary to US Representative Richard M. Kleberg. In Washington, DC, Johnson “[wa]s a hardworking, relentless man” whom Kleberg entrusted with all tasks (309). Johnson became friends with Robert Gene “Bobby” Baker, a former Senate page from South Carolina who “arrange[d] sexual favors” in exchange for government contracts, votes, and insider stock trading tips (310). Johnson married Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor.

A skilled legislator, Johnson was a heavy smoker and “prone to fits of temper and depression” (312). Meanwhile, Lady Bird’s investments in Texas radio and television stations made the Johnsons millionaires. When Johnson ran to be the Democratic candidate in the Senate, he initially lost, but six days later, 202 ballots were “mysteriously discovered,” making him the candidate by 87 votes (312). A 1977 investigation by a journalist found that the ballots were faked, but Johnson was saved by the statute of limitations.

In Congress, Johnson used a negotiating tactic he called “the Treatment,” in which he “corner[ed] the individual in question, put[] his face very close to theirs, and launche[d] into a verbal harangue that last[ed] several minutes” before quoting the Book of Isaiah from the Bible, saying, “Come now, let us reason together” (312). Because of his friendship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Johnson was able to blackmail other people in Congress, including John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s father, Joseph, decided to neutralize Johnson by making him an ally and giving him the position of vice president.

Kennedy and his brother Bobby locked Johnson out of political influence as vice president. Then, after Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson became president. Growing casualties of very young men in the Vietnam War led to massive opposition to the war among the public. Six thousand American soldiers were killed in 1966 alone, and while the average age of a soldier in World War II was 26, the average age of a soldier in the Vietnam War was 19, with 25% of American soldiers in Vietnam being draftees. The protests against the Vietnam War coalesced with the hippie movement, a youth culture movement embodied in protest music and in new styles that were seen as transgressive at the time, including long hair for men and miniskirts for women. Protesters chanted, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” (315).

In 1968, the North Vietnamese Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, a simultaneous attack on many military bases and cities. The well-known television anchorman Walter Cronkite “openly display[ed] doubt about the war” (315). As a result, Johnson’s reelection campaign and popularity showed signs of weakness. In the end, Johnson decided not to seek reelection.

While Johnson supported strong civil rights reforms, he used racial slurs in the presence of his Black chauffeur, Robert Parker, and supported openly racist politicians. Although the authors acknowledge that Johnson’s Great Society reforms, including the creation of Medicare, helped Americans, Johnson had “a foggy moral compass” and “hurt the nation more than he helped it” (317).

After losing his first presidential campaign to John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon won a narrow victory over his Democratic opponent, Hubert Humphrey, in 1968. He was later reelected in a “landslide victory” in 1972 (319). Despite having been strongly anti-communist, Nixon was the first president to diplomatically visit China, opened trade relations with the Soviet Union, and initiated peace talks in Vietnam. He had to deal with growing inflation and unemployment, but during his presidency, US astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. However, five months before his victory, burglars broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, an event that would come to dominate all conversations about Nixon.

Nixon’s parents, Francis A. Nixon and Hannah Milhouse, operated a citrus farm. The Nixon family was poor, and their Quaker religion counseled pacifism and forbid “drinking, dancing, and swearing” (321). When the farm failed, the family moved to Whittier, California, to open a grocery store.

Nixon was offered admission to Harvard University, but the family could not afford to lose his help at the store. Instead, Nixon enrolled at nearby Whittier College. After graduating, he received a scholarship to attend Duke University Law School in North Carolina. With his law degree, Nixon hoped to work for the FBI, but they rejected his application; instead, Nixon returned to Whittier to become a local lawyer.

In his free time, Nixon acted in local theatrical productions. His work in the theater introduced him to Thelma “Pat” Ryan, who would become his wife, even though she did not like him at first. During World War II, Nixon joined the US Navy. While stationed on an island near New Guinea, Nixon learned to play poker, and he was so good at it that the “winnings w[ould] later finance the early years of his political career” (322). After the war, Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican and joined Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. After being elected to the Senate, Nixon became Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president.

Nixon was an active vice president, serving as an international representative of the Eisenhower administration while also discreetly filling in for Eisenhower after his stroke. In 1960, Nixon lost the presidential race against John F. Kennedy, and in 1962, his bid to become governor of California failed. Afterward, the Nixons moved to New York City, where Nixon began another private law practice.

By supporting Republican candidates and stoking opposition to the Johnson administration’s policies in the South, Nixon became the Republican candidate for president in 1968. He ran against the Democrat Hubert Humphrey, who supported continuing the Vietnam War, and George Wallace, a “white nationalist” with support in the South (323). During his campaign, despite being “famously reserved” (323), Nixon made a cameo on the comedy show Laugh-In. Humphrey was also offered a cameo role, but he refused, seeing it as “unpresidential” (323).

One week after he was nominated for the presidency, Nixon had to deny to the press that his administration was involved in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. However, an investigation implicated many of Nixon’s leading staff members. The subsequent hearings were televised for the public. The Watergate scandal and a separate bribery scandal caused Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, to resign and be replaced by Gerald Ford. After recordings proved that Nixon himself approved the Watergate break-in, he resigned before he could be impeached.

On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford announced that he was pardoning Richard Nixon. When Nixon was about to leave office, he tried to pardon himself, although the move was deemed illegal by the Justice Department. It was the first time “a sitting president faced criminal charges,” and “his successor” was “judge and jury for another chief executive” (330). Ford knew that the decision would be extremely unpopular. After the pardon, Ford’s approval rating dropped from 71% to 50%.

Ford was named after his father, Leslie Lynch King, at his birth in 1913. His father was abusive and addicted to alcohol. When Ford was a baby, his father threatened to kill both him and his mother, Dorothy Ayer. She fled to her parents’ home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and divorced Leslie. She later married a salesman, Gerald Ford, who adopted her child, and Ford’s name was changed to match that of his adoptive father.

Ford enrolled at Yale Law School and returned to Michigan after graduation to become a lawyer. Ford enlisted in the Navy during World War II. He nearly died when a typhoon struck the ship he was on.

Inspired by his world travels during World War II, Ford entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives. He married Elizabeth “Betty” Bloomer, though he was “afraid the public w[ould] disapprove of her past” as a former dancer and a divorcée (332). While Ford worked in the government, Betty became addicted to alcohol and pain pills. With Spiro Agnew resigning because of a bribery scandal, Ford became Richard Nixon’s new vice president. He then assumed the presidency when Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974.

Ford was unpopular, especially with the press, who called him “Bozo the Clown” and “Klutz in Chief” after he stumbled on Air Force One’s stairs. Ford was mocked on the comedy show Saturday Night Live, but he still appeared on one episode, speaking the line that opens the show, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night” (333).

On January 1, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, communist rebels in Cambodia, attacked the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. This spurred North Vietnam to attack South Vietnam again. Ford ordered Operation Babylift, a mission by the Air Force to take orphans away from the warzone. One plane crashed, killing 78 children. Television screens captured the image of American embassy staff in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon escaping in helicopters.

Also in 1975, Ford was nearly assassinated by Sara Jane Moore. The next year, Ford ran for the reelection. However, his unpopular choice to pardon Nixon, coupled with growing inflation, ruined Ford’s chances, and the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, was elected instead. After his brief presidency, Ford became rich through oil investments, and he and Betty moved to Palm Springs, California. After overcoming her addictions, Betty also opened the Betty Ford Center to treat patients with addiction.

Ford believed that his accomplishments were improving relations with the Soviet Union, stopping Cuba from intervening in Angola, and deregulating the trucking, railroad, and airline industries. The authors argue that deregulation led to “more competition and better prices for consumers” and that Ford was right to pardon Nixon (336).

James “Jimmy” Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy and married Rosalynn Smith. Carter nearly became an officer in the Navy, but the death of his father required him to return to run his father’s farm and store.

In 1962, Carter ran for and won a seat in the state senate, and years later, he was elected governor of Georgia on a pro-civil rights platform. In 1974, Carter ran for president and won narrowly because “the American public want[ed] change from the old politics of Vietnam and Watergate” (338). Right away, Carter alienated his own party in Congress by cutting expenditures, including funding for the new B-1 Bomber. At the same time, gas prices were rising, and inflation was worsening, costing Carter support from Congress. Because of this, his attempts to address labor issues and reform consumer protection rules were blocked by Congress. There were scandals as well. Carter’s sister, the evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, was viewed holding the hand of pornographic magazine publisher Larry Flynt, and Carter’s brother Billy was accused of accepting a bribe from the Libyan government, among other scandals.

Carter had to deal with two foreign crises: the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis. There was also an “increasingly hostile media” (341). Another setback was Carter’s much-maligned “malaise” speech. This speech was critical of America’s culture of individualism, and while it was well received initially, it was later blamed in the press for Carter’s declining popularity, with many commentators arguing that voters had taken the speech as a personal insult. Ronald Reagan, who ran for the presidency in 1982, decided to exploit the reaction to Carter’s “malaise” speech with “a platform of optimism” (342).

Because of Carter’s unpopularity, John F. Kennedy’s brother, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, decided to challenge Carter in the Democratic primary. However, his own popularity dipped following the Chappaquiddick scandal, when an inebriated Kennedy drove his car into a sea channel on the coastal island of Chappaquiddick. Kennedy escaped the scene and did not call for help for 10 hours, leaving a young woman in the car to die. Despite the blow to Kennedy’s image, the Democratic Convention remained tense with the contest between Kennedy and Carter. While Carter won the nomination, he lost to Reagan in 1980 with only 49 electoral votes.

The authors describe Carter as a “stubborn man surrounded by mediocre advisors” who failed to adapt to a geopolitical situation where “oil sheiks in the Middle East” could affect global gas prices (344). Nonetheless, Carter’s post-presidential life was marked by humanitarian achievement. In 2002, he received the Nobel Peace Prize because of his charitable work.

Ronald Reagan was inaugurated for his second term as president on January 20, 1985. During his first term, Reagan had managed to secure the release of the hostages at the American embassy, cut government spending on social welfare while decreasing tax rates for the wealthy, and increase defense spending. Shortly after the start of his first term, he was hospitalized following an assassination attempt.

Reagan was born in rural Illinois in 1911. The authors describe the young Reagan as a mediocre but talented athlete. His first career after graduating from Eureka College was in broadcasting, and he worked in sports radio for an Iowa station. As part of his job, Regan traveled with the Chicago Cubs to Hollywood, where he took a screen test “on a whim” for a major studio, Warner Brothers (347). He was offered a contract as an actor. Because of his nearsightedness, Reagan was not drafted into World War II, and he instead helped make propaganda films for the war effort.

In 1947, Reagan was elected as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He had been married to the actress Jane Wyman and had two children before he and Jane divorced. In 1952, he married the actress Nancy Davis. At this time, Reagan was a Democrat who supported the New Deal. However, by 1962, Reagan had become a Republican, and he campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Four years later, Reagan ran for and was elected governor of California. As governor, he favored higher taxes and supported gun control measures and the right to abortion—positions that ran against the conservative stances he would later embrace as president. He defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election by a large margin.

During Reagan’s presidency, inflation decreased, and, in the authors’ view, a struggling nation regained its sense of optimism. However, while running for reelection in 1984, Reagan had a disastrous debate with his Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, which raised questions about his advanced age. However, Reagan turned the issue around by describing Mondale as young and inexperienced. In the end, he won the 1984 election with 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13.

In 1985, Reagan authorized the sale of 2,000 missiles to Iran, and in return, Iran released seven American hostages. The proceeds from the sale were illegally used to fund an anti-communist militia in Nicaragua without congressional approval. This became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal.

The authors contend that Reagan and the media had an adversarial relationship, with the press often attacking Reagan’s Cold War policies and accusing him of having an “inferior intellect” (351). However, Reagan is remembered for his June 1987 speech before the Berlin Wall, in which he called on Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” (351). In 1989, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Berlin Wall was demolished. The authors credit Reagan’s policies for ending the Cold War.

Reagan was heavily criticized for his environmental policies and “poor treatment of the mentally ill and homeless […] a legacy affecting America more than ever almost four decades after Reagan left office” (352). There were also questions surrounding whether Reagan was affected by Alzheimer’s disease during his presidency. However, the authors add that, although Reagan was “not an insightful man,” he “governed with a strong hand, and economic prosperity resulted” (353).

Early in his presidential term, George H.W. Bush announced to the nation that the United States would be intervening to stop Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, a war known as Operation Desert Storm. Bush’s experience in foreign policy came from his time as the director of the CIA and US ambassador to the United Nations.

Bush had a “Texas twang” (354), but he was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. He had married Barbara Pierce, who was distantly related to President Franklin Pierce. The Bushes created “a political dynasty comparable to that of the Kennedys, but far more low-key” (355).

During World War II, Bush enlisted in the Navy and became a fighter pilot. He nearly died when his plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean. After the war, Bush enrolled at Yale University and then started an oil company in Texas. When he decided to enter politics, Bush lost a race for a Texas state senate, but he later got elected to the US Congress as a Republican. Bush was “shocked” when he was chosen to be Reagan’s vice president since he had previously described Reagan’s tax policies as “voodoo economics” (357).

When he was nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in 1988, Bush promised not to raise taxes, making the famous statement, “Read my lips. No new taxes” (357). Because of the deficit left by Reagan’s increase in military spending, Bush broke his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his popularity. On February 24, 1991, the Gulf War began. The war was over only three days later. Bush’s approval rating rose to “89 percent, the highest in the history of the Gallup poll” (358).

During Bush’s term, the Cold War ended; the dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, was arrested for “narcotics trafficking” (358); and West and East Germany were reunited. However, Bush’s economic record was poor, with an economic recession that the authors describe as “the most intense financial meltdown since the Great Depression” (358). Bush ran for reelection, but he was challenged by both the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, and a third-party candidate, Texas billionaire Ross Perot.

Riots broke out in Los Angeles when a Black man, Rodney King, was beaten by police following a traffic stop. This further undermined Bush’s reelection campaign. Bush was remembered “as an honorable, hardworking man, without the deviousness of many politicians,” but he lost his reelection bid both because of the bad economy and because he “lacked a ‘common touch’” (360).

The authors compare Bill Clinton to Andrew Johnson. Both had fathers who died young, were from the South, and emulated previous presidents (Johnson followed the example of Andrew Jackson, while Clinton looked up to John F. Kennedy). Also, both Johnson and Clinton had rose to the presidency from relatively disadvantaged, rural backgrounds.

Clinton’s father was William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., a traveling salesman who was secretly still married to another woman when he married Virginia Dell Cassidy. Before Clinton was born, William died in a car crash. Virginia’s second husband was Roger Clinton, the owner of a car dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Roger was addicted to alcohol and was an abusive husband. When he was a teenager, Clinton stopped the abuse by confronting Roger. At first, Clinton wanted to be a saxophone player, but instead, he decided to capitalize on his skill at public speaking and enter politics.

Wanting to live in Washington, DC, Clinton enrolled in Georgetown University. One summer, he worked on Frank Holt’s campaign for the governorship of Arkansas. Clinton then went to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. He opposed the war in Vietnam and was dismayed to learn that he would soon be drafted. Fearing that dodging the draft would negatively impact his future political career, Clinton joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Arkansas Law School, only to return to Oxford University and write a letter to the army colonel in charge of Arkansas’s ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program in which he explained that, because of his objection to the war, he could not join the program after all. The ploy worked, allowing Clinton to avoid the draft; however, in 1992, the letter to the ROTC was leaked to the media. Clinton was vilified by some as a “draft dodger” (364).

After finishing school at Oxford, Clinton enrolled in Yale Law School. In 1971, he met Hillary Rodham, a former Republican and fellow classmate at Yale. By 1975, they married just as Clinton’s political career was beginning to rise. In 1976, Clinton was elected as Arkansas’s attorney general. Two years later, he was elected governor of Arkansas. Because he gained the reputation of being too willing to make “political deals with the wealthy and powerful rather than staying true to his populist agenda,” he gained the nickname “Slick Willy” and lost his reelection campaign as governor (364). Learning from this experience, Clinton won a later campaign to become governor of Arkansas again.

Clinton was dogged by accusations of adultery. Arkansas police officers claimed that Clinton would have them locate women and arrange hotel rooms for him that they would guard. Clinton became nationally known when he delivered the Democratic response to President Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address. Also, he joined the Democratic Leadership Council, which promoted the Third Way, a moderate political philosophy.

In 1992, Clinton ran for the presidency. However, a woman who worked for the state of Arkansas, Gennifer Flowers, came to the national media with audiotapes proving that Clinton had had an affair with her. He and Hillary appeared on the widely watched news television show 60 Minutes to “insist their marriage [wa]s strong” (365). Clinton’s approval rating actually improved after the scandal, and Clinton won the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Clinton and his vice-presidential candidate, Al Gore, ran “from the center” (365), and they addressed deaths from the AIDS virus, an issue that religious Republicans avoided. The poor economy also gave Clinton a boost. The authors characterize Clinton as an “undisciplined” president, noting that he “often los[t] his temper and refuse[d] to follow a daily schedule” (366).

Clinton’s presidency began with difficulties. Two nominees for attorney general resigned when it was discovered that they had hired undocumented immigrants as nannies, and Clinton was forced to moderate his proposal to admit gay people into the military, creating the now-infamous “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy as a compromise (366). The deficit forced Clinton to renege on his promise to cut taxes for the middle class. Hillary’s popularity declined since “many consider[ed] her distant and controlling” (367), and the health care reform effort that Hillary led failed.

In 1994, Clinton’s approval rating began to rise. Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her employer, the state of Arkansas, claiming that Clinton had “initiated unwanted activity” with her in a hotel room (368). Vince Foster was found to have worked on a failed real-estate development, Whitewater, that the Clintons invested in. Suspicions arose when documents describing Whitewater were taken to Hillary’s office.

In 1998, Clinton was accused of having an affair with a much younger White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and having sex with her in the Oval Office. Clinton denied the allegation. When evidence surfaced in the form of a dress, a Republican prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, began a legal case against Clinton for perjury. The Republican-dominated Congress began impeachment proceedings and voted to impeach Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. However, Clinton was acquitted.

Even with the scandals, Clinton was popular because of a “vibrant economy” (370). In 2000, Al Gore ran for president, but, despite Clinton’s popularity, Clinton was asked not to campaign for Gore because “his wife, Tipper Gore, [wa]s still furious about the Lewinsky scandal” (370). Gore lost the narrow election after a recount and a Supreme Court case over contested election results in Florida. Clinton presided over the largest economic boom since the post-World War II era, but the authors state that “his accomplishments are shrouded by his dubious personal conduct” (371).

George W. Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of George H.W. and Barbara Bush, but the authors note that he “talks like a Texan” (373). When he was seven years old, his sister Robin died of leukemia; because his parents had not told him about her illness, he experienced this as a sudden loss. Like other men in his family, Bush attended Yale University, where he was “popular, fond of history and drinking beer” (373). Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and received flight training, although he was not deployed. Afterward, Bush worked toward a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University.

Bush began working for an oil company and married a librarian, Laura Welch. In 1976, Bush was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was also charged with disorderly conduct when he stole a Christmas wreath as part of a college prank.

In 1978, Bush ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican. His advisor at the time was Karl Rove, who became a lifelong aide and friend. When Bush lost the election, he worked for his father’s election campaigns and joined some investors in purchasing the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Bush returned to politics in 1994, running for governor of Texas. His campaign attacked his opponent, incumbent governor Ann Richards, by implying that she was a lesbian. Bush won the election. Bush’s alcohol use worsened until Laura demanded that he give up alcohol. During the treatment he received for alcohol addiction, Bush became a devout Christian.

Against Rove’s advice, Bush chose a former Wyoming congressman, Dick Cheney, who was President Ford’s chief of staff, as his vice-presidential candidate. Even though the story of his 1976 arrest was leaked to the media, Bush won after a contentious recount and a Supreme Court decision.

The authors argue that Bush had a vendetta against the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In 2002, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, “press and intelligence reports indicate[d] that Iraq [wa]s trying to build a nuclear weapon” (378), and The New York Times claimed that Iraq possessed chemical weapons. Bush’s administration used these later-debunked reports to justify a military invasion of Iraq.

In 2004, Bush ran against John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Vietnam War veteran. The authors state that the “press [wa]s solidly in Kerry’s corner” (379). However, Kerry was undermined by his vote in Congress in favor of the US invasion of Iraq—which, by this point, had become unpopular among Democrats—and by his past anti-Vietnam War actions. Bush narrowly won the election.

Bush’s second term had severe problems. The United States Army was “bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan” (380), and the city of New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The Bush administration’s response was slow, and since New Orleans was home to a large Black community, the administration was accused of racism. In 2008, an economic crash caused Bush’s approval rating to drop to 25%.

Bush’s legislative accomplishments were No Child Left Behind, a public-school reform bill, and the Patriot Act, which increased national security in response to 9/11. The authors suggest that during the Bush administration, the “rising influence of cable television” helped contribute to political polarization (381). The authors conclude that Bush’s “legacy is mixed” but that “he conducted himself with dignity” (381).

Born in Honolulu in 1961, Barack Obama was the son of Ann Dunham, a student at the University of Hawaii, and Barack Obama, Sr., an international student from Kenya. They married even though the senior Obama was already married to a woman in Kenya. They divorced by 1964. After living in Hawaii for a time, Ann moved to Indonesia with her second husband. In 1971, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with Ann’s parents.

Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles and Columbia University before studying law at Harvard Law School. He was the first Black person to become an editor for the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, Obama moved to Chicago and worked as a community activist. In 1992, he married Michelle Robinson, with whom he would have two daughters through in vitro fertilization, Malia and Sasha.

In 1996, Obama ran for and won a seat on the Illinois state senate as a Democrat. Soon after, he became a US senator. Two years after becoming senator, he competed against President Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. After Clinton left the race, Obama made her secretary of state. For his vice president, Obama chose Delaware senator Joseph R. “Joe” Biden. He defeated his opponent, the Republican candidate John McCain, with 365 electoral college votes.

During the Obama administration, Navy SEALs caught and killed Osama bin Laden, the terrorist who had orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Obama also received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in diplomacy in the Middle East. In 2012, a young Black man named Treyvon Martin was shot and killed in Orlando, Florida. Obama remarked, “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. […] If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” (389).

Obama ran for reelection in 2012 against Republican Mitt Romney, who attacked Obama over the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Romney’s attempt to blame Obama for these deaths was fact-checked by Obama and the press, which led to a decline in Romney’s popularity. Obama won the election by almost five million votes and 332 electoral college votes.

At the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Obama made jokes about Donald Trump, who was not present but had decided to run for president. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump won by 10 electoral votes, even though Hillary Clinton had three million popular votes more than Trump. In his last speech as president, Obama lamented that “suspicion between the parties ha[d] gotten worse instead of better” (392).

Obama’s “signature achievement, Obamacare, remained controversial but has aided millions of low-income Americans” (392). The authors contend that Obama’s presidency began a “chain reaction” that brought about Trump’s presidency, specifically because of “backlash against the big government policies Obama embraced” (392). In the present day, “division and suspicion now rule the United States,” and “politics has become a bitter enterprise” for a multitude of reasons (393).

The authors state that the “legacies” of the two most recent presidents, Trump and Biden, cannot yet be properly judged. Instead, they write separate essays without consulting with each other, noting that O’Reilly has known Trump for 35 years.

O’Reilly describes Trump as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Trump” and “overwhelmingly intense” (394). He is the first president to be elected solely through his fame, not any government experience or political viewpoint. O’Reilly praises Trump for limiting illegal migration and dealing with Iran, Russia, and ISIS and writes that “those in denial” about Trump’s “achievements […] are not being honest” (395). However, O’Reilly chastises Trump for the “fraudulent election scenario” (395), which caused a riot at the Capitol in DC. O’Reilly remarks that Trump is surpassed only by Lincoln in the degree of hate he has received, although he reluctantly admits, “[M]aybe, […] Trump brought much of the hatred on himself” (395). People are harshly divided on Trump, either defending him no matter what or “despis[ing] everything [he] says and does” (395).

Dugard identifies as “decidedly liberal” and a “hardcore historian” (396). In many ways, Dugard claims, Trump is “a man no different than his predecessors,” even with his famous lack of “presidential decorum” (397), impeachments, friendly treatment of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and questionable claims to be a devout Christian. However, Dugard adds that it is “harder to overlook” claims that Trump is racist (397). Dugard also suggests that a backlash against the election of Obama as the United States’ first Black president helped Trump to become president. Finally, Dugard criticizes Trump for claiming that he did not lose the 2020 election to Biden, stating that this claim “was a lie and he knew it” (398). Since Trump refused to immediately condemn the 2020 riot, Dugard writes, “I believe he has fallen to the bottom of the presidential list” (398).

Writing about Biden, O’Reilly describes him as “the second-worst-performing president in history, only behind fellow Pennsylvanian James Buchanan” (399), although he admits that later research and assessments by historians may vindicate Biden. For O’Reilly, Biden’s failures were high prices and a rise in illegal immigration, and he questions “why Joe Biden govern[ed] so far to the left” (399), especially in contrast to his earlier moderate political record in Congress.

Meanwhile, Dugard believes that Biden failed to address the divisions between the American people, and while conceding that it was necessary for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan, he argues that Biden mishandled the withdrawal. Dugard also argues that Biden was too early in announcing the crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus to be over. Biden’s one accomplishment was obtaining much-needed funding for infrastructure improvements, but it “barely registers with the American public today,” which Dugard suggests was another political failure, as Biden missed the opportunity to “build unity” (402). Worse, Dugard thinks that Biden withdrew from the public, appearing less and making shorter speeches. Dugard concludes that Biden was a “mediocre president” hobbled by his age (403), but he nonetheless ends his essay by thanking Biden.