Steven F. Hayward – författare

What makes a president great?

Academics, journalists, and popular historians agree: our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That''s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the bold leaders—the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts—who reshaped the United States in line with their grand "vision" for America. Unfortunately, along the way, these "great" presidents inevitably expanded government—and shrank our liberties.

As the twentieth-century presidency has grown far beyond the bounds the Founders established for the office, the idea that our chief executive is obliged to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" has become a distant memory.

Historian and celebrated Reagan biographer Steven F. Hayward reminds us that the Founders had an entirely different idea of greatness in the presidential office. The personal ambitions, populist appeals, and bribes paid to the voters with their own money that most modern presidents engage in would strike them as instances of the demagoguery they most feared—one of the great dangers to the people''s liberty that they wrote the Constitution explicitly to guard against. The Founders, in contrast to today''s historians, expected great presidents to be champions of the limited government established by the Constitution.

Working from that almost forgotten standard of presidential greatness, Steven Hayward offers a fascinating off-the-beaten-track tour through the modern presidency, from the Progressive Era''s Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. Along the way he serves up fresh historical insights, recalls forgotten anecdotes, celebrates undervalued presidents who took important stands in defense of the Constitution, and points the way to a revival of truly constitutional government in America.

What you didn''t learn from your history teacher but will find in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents includes:

–Progressive hero Woodrow Wilson aired a pro–Ku Klux Klan movie at the White House

–Calvin Coolidge, much mocked by liberal historians as a bland Babbitt, was the last president to write his own speeches, guided the country through years of prosperity and limited government, and was one of the most cultured men ever to live in the White House

–Why Eisenhower''s two biggest mistakes as president were, in his own words, "both sitting on the Supreme Court"

–How, as president, JFK took mind-altering drugs, many of them prescribed by a physician he called Dr. Feelgood, who later lost his medical license for malpractice

–Nixon''s hysterically vilified Christmas bombing of North Vietnam in 1972 caused very few civilian casualties and compelled North Vietnam to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War

–The "misunderestimated" George W. Bush read 186 books during his presidency, mostly nonfiction, biography, and history

M. Stanton Evans (d. 2015) was one of the unsung heroes and key figures of the modern conservative movement, offering a model to be remembered and emulated in both thought and deed. A person of extraordinary breadth, he combined the roles of journalist, first-rank thinker, and political action, often at the center of crucial events for the conservative movement from the mid-1950s to his last decade in the 2010s. He was the principal author of the Sharon Statement, the founding document of Young Americans for Freedom. Evans was also a mentor to an entire generation of conservative writers and journalists, including Ann Coulter, John Fund, Martin Morse Wooster, Tim Carney, Richard Miniter, William McGurn, and this author. 

Evans was libertarian in economics and policy, traditionalist in moral and social matters, respectful of religion, and resolutely anti-Communist. Over the years he wrote a number of elegant articles and one book (The Theme is Freedom) that reconciled many of the strains that often appear between these differing schools of conservative thought. He also wrote a controversial defense of Joseph McCarthy (Blacklisted by History), which is one of many examples of his fearlessness in contesting the conventional wisdom. 

Beyond his professional profile, Stan was also known for his ironic dry wit, which only came out in person, as well as his personal modesty and kindliness, and fondness for fast-food, sports, and classic rock and roll music trivia. He was “the conservative for the common man.”