Robert Dallek Quotes
By the time a second term rolls around, the illusions about a president have largely evaporated.
Dallek, Robert. "The Second-Term Curse." The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2013.
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.
Also attributed earlier to Thomas Corwin. See under "Memorials"
President Kennedy was an inveterate womanizer both before his presidency and during it.
Robert A. Dallek is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. He retired as a history professor at Boston University in 2004 and previously taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University. He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
