Thomas Frank Quotes
As you may recall, Truman was extremely unpopular when he finally left Washington in 1953, thanks largely to the Korean War. Today, however, he is thought to have been a solidly good president, a 'Near Great' even, in the terminology of those surveys of historians they do every now and then.
Frank, Thomas. "George W. Bush, 'Near Great'?" The Wall Street Journal, 14 Jan. 2009.
The President tends to keep increasing the number of Americans who are opposed to his policies, or felt he did not live up to his promises, or has been sufficiently negatively trashed by his opposition that his negatives are driven up and positives, down. The only exception to this is President William Clinton, who ironically is the only President who was impeached since Andrew Johnson, a terrible President. However, the pettiness and partisanship of the impeachment attack on Clinton caused the Senate to acquit him where the Republicans who controlled the Senate could not even muster a majority, much less the two-thirds necessary, for conviction. Meanwhile, with all the distractions of impeachment, Clinton managed the strongest economy in American history, not only balanced the budget, but created a surplus for the first time in modern history. So Clinton left office, a hero and his popularity was sustained after his presidency as George W. Bush, following a new Republican ideology, squandered the surplus, created very few jobs, and then crashed the world economy triggering the Great Recession of 2008. He left the Presidency as one of the more unpopular Presidents in history. By contrast, Clinton’s accomplishments were even more appreciated as Bush was his foil.
Thomas Carr Frank is an American political analyst, historian, and journalist. He co-founded and edited The Baffler magazine. Frank is the author of the books What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal (2016), among others. From 2008 to 2010 he wrote "The Tilting Yard", a column in The Wall Street Journal.
