This desire for comity has overwhelmed fidelity to history. In reality, Reagan’s presidency, too, was deeply divisive and fraught with bitterness. Ideological warfare is frequently a handmaiden to democratic debate.
Yet democracies do need statesmen. In “The Presidents Club,” a lively history of the crisscrossing personal relationships among America’s post-World War II presidents, Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy suggest that it has often been former chief executives who have put aside partisan concerns to help achieve larger national goals. Sharing a unique bond based on their common (and uncommon) experience as leaders of the free world, all of our presidents have left the White House convinced that only they and their fellow occupants of that august office — with its power, privileges and burdens — can truly know what the job is like. That shared knowledge and experience have forged a special relationship among them that has helped them work together for what is deemed the common good.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.