Failures of the Presidents: from the Whiskey Rebellion and War of 1812 to the Bay of Pigs and War in Iraq

by Thomas J. Craughwell, M. William Phelps (Primary Contributor)

What were they thinking? • In an effort to put an end to Britain and France’s policy of seizing American ships and sailors, Thomas Jefferson calls for an embargo. The 30,000 sailors put out of work; mercantile families bankrupted overnight; a nationwide economic depression; and the New England states, which depended heavily on international commerce, threaten to secede from the Union. • To promote the doctrine of popular sovereignty, Franklin Pierce approves the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and permits residents of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether their territories will admit slavery. The Dozens of settlers murdered; Lawrence, Kansas, burned and looted; John Brown elevated to the status of national hero among abolitionists; the country moves closer to civil war. • Convinced the 20,000 men, women, and children of the Bonus Army were Communists and criminals, Herbert Hoover sends 600 crack troops, a detachment of cavalry, and five tanks to drive the protesters out of Washington. The 4 dead, including two infants; more than 1,000 injured; the Communist Party in America enjoys a public relations field day; Hoover is driven into political exile. • In an effort to install a capitalist government in the Middle East, stabilize the region, and protect America from a possible Iraqi terrorist assault using weapons of mass destruction, George W. Bush orders the invasion of Iraq. The More than 4,000 American soldiers and personnel dead; estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead; hundreds of billions of dollars spent; the torture of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction leave American global credibility in tatters.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Presidents, American History, Military History, Audiobook

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really nice and short stroll through two and a half centuries of American policy debacles. Some are reasonably well known such as Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush fabricating evidence to entangle America in wars it would find itself still reeling from decades after the fact. Others are less known perhaps (at least to me), such as President Herbert Hoover using the military to crush the peaceful protests of thousands of unemployed and homeless veterans in the shadow of the White House under the pretext that they were Communist agitators and not actual veterans (spoiler: Douglas MacArthur and George Patton make an appearance and yes, the protestors were actually veterans who were vocally anti-communist).
If you want to know more about the Whiskey rebellion (George Washington didn’t always make the wisest choices) or need a re-introduction to Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, and the Sandinistas, this is a great jumping off point (with a great bibliography!) to find out more about some history you may have missed.

[La Crosse County Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published December 2008

Last month, American voters spoke loud and clear that our nation is in need of a change in the current political atmosphere. After serving as President of the United States for eight years, George W. Bush will leave office with the lowest approval rating of any president in our recent memory.

Believe it or not, President Bush is not the first president to make catastrophic decisions while in office. Failures of the Presidents by Thomas J Craughwell is a fascinating book that details what really happened during many conflicts in American history, such as the Whiskey Rebellion under the presidency of George Washington and The Bay of Pigs under John F. Kennedy.

What do George W. Bush and our fourth president, James Madison, have in common? President Madison was convinced that that the British were responsible for recruiting Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa to drive white settlers out of Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio, which would ease the way for the British to carry out a grand scheme to take over all of New England. Both claims were false.

President Madison then convinced Congress that the British were responsible for suffocating American commerce, as well as forcing American citizens to serve on British warships while violating American waters. Congress believed him, and by a narrow margin voted to declare war on the British, which resulted in The War of 1812.

Lasting two years and 8 months, 20,000 Americans lost their lives in addition to 17,000 lives lost due to disease in military camps and Indian raids. National debt doubled and by November of 1814, the federal government was virtually bankrupt.

Read about Richard Nixon’s part in the Watergate Scandal as well as the bombing of Cambodia, Grover Cleveland’s order to involve military forces to settle a strike by Pullman railroad workers, and Jimmy Carter’s mistakes during the Iran Hostage Crisis and many others.

This book and many other historical accounts of America’s past are available at the five County Libraries located in Holmen, Onalaska, West Salem, Bangor and Campbell or visit us online at www.lacrossecountylibrary.org.

Find this book and other titles within our catalog.

[Elyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was familiar with some of earlier presidents's "mistakes" but what I really liked was the synopses of the presidential errors in my lifetime. To my embarrassment, I have been too busy living my life to take the time to keep up with current events and analyze them as much as I would have liked. I'm glad I finally understand how we got into the Vietnam War, Watergate, Carter's Iranian hostage crises, Iran-Contra, etc. Hoo boy, does the author lambast President G.W. Bush and the Iraq War! I could picture steam coming out of his ears while he wrote about it. He was impartial writing about previous Democratic and Republican presidents' misguided acts so I don't think his view of the Iraq War is politically motivated - he just thinks it was a REALLY bad idea.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of short articles on a variety of presidential debacles... those 50+ years in the past seem to be relatively balanced in their coverage. More recent events are much less balanced - the Bay of Pigs article lets JFK off the hook while Iran-Contra manages to attack both Reagan & Bush I repeatedly.

All in all, a collection of Newsweek-ish articles about historical events with a moderately liberal slant. (The 2 stars is not because of the political leanings - it's because they're so obvious in a book about history.)

[Ilze · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good in-a-nutshell type of read that skims through a number of so called presidential failures. I was rather agrieved that Clinton was not called to task for Waco at least. It's oversights like that brings out the dittoheads with screams of bias.

Also I think including the Trail of Tears was something of a misnomer. This horrible event can't be called a failure. Heinous, cruel, disgusting, criminal, bigoted, yes, but not a failure. It did exactly what it was intended to do by moving eastern Indian tribes west.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable albeit random collection (no Harding or Clinton?) with simple overviews of the situation, how it unfolded, and the role the President in question played in managing the crisis. Enjoyable but very much on the shallow end. Does have a good references section for those who want to explore deeper.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has trouble reading about history (high school history books in the US are awful), this was a great read. The book is broken up into easily digestible chapters. I may not remember everything I read, but it has inspired me to explore more.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to stop and look up this author in the middle of the book because, based on his writing, I thought I'd somehow stumbled on a left-leaning author I'd just not encountered before. But...nope! He was (he has since passed away) an expert on The Roman Catholic Church and wrote for VERY right leaning publications (by anyone's standards). So, I guess he's just telling the truth as he researched it no matter where it lies...

I will say that I thought some of the historical events he chose to focus on were strange, given some of the other things that were going on during the time periods he explored. He wrote extensively about Hoover's "Bonus Army," which was interesting, but in terms of "failures," I would think the widespread, abject poverty ("Hoovervilles") might carry more weight. He gave us a chapter on Wilson's "Punitive Expedition into Mexico" (slightly less interesting than "The Bonus Army") but said almost nothing about our involvement in WWI at the time.

I really enjoyed his treatment of Carter and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. He was appropriately critical of him when dealing with the Crisis and mentions some of his other presidential blunders. Craughwell does NOT, however, treat Carter as a bumbling idiot who couldn't even plant peanuts. He said, "As a leader, Carter had many strengths. Neither Republicans nor Democrats questioned his exceptional intelligence and uncanny ability to quickly develop a deep understanding of any issue put before him. Carter was able to see all sides of an issue without bias, and he had brilliant foresight when it came to the future of America. His ideas about America's energy use were far ahead of his time. And his ability to develop trusting rapports with world leaders were borne out during the Sadat-Begin talks." Personally, I wish we could go back to the 1970's and take heed to his warning about oil and where we'd end up (dependent on countries we now create war with to get at their supplies).

I also liked that he didn't treat Bush II like he was a fool who just wandered into the White House off the street. Sure, like LBJ had the all-powerful McNamara whispering in his ear, Bush had Cheney and Rumsfeld but, he wasn't a dumb as people thought. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he went to war with Iraq and why he stood before the American people and said they hate us because of our freedom. Um, nope. They hate us because we tried to act like their saviors and ruined them and turned tail to runback to the states; we left a TOTAL cluster there and they are NOT better off by any measure Falluja, for example, used to be a thriving city, rich in history, of 450,000 people. After we showed up? There are about 50,000 people left. There are no schools, 80% of the buildings and homes are destroyed and most of the city has no electricity, water or sewage. It once had 200 stunningly beautiful mosques; it now has 60 that are intact (although many of those are damaged as well). Estimates of how much "collateral damage" (DEAD PEOPLE) vary but it's likely close to a million Iraqis. Think about this: "In one survey, researchers asked individual Iraqis if they had a civilian relative or friend who had been a war casualty. Eighty percent of those interviewed said yes." Those are CIVILIANS, not soldiers.

And still, has Bush admitted that we went to war based on lies? There were no weapons of mass destruction found. Why? There were not! And personally, I suspect they knew that from the beginning. When Bush was asked about going to war over false pretenses, his reply was (and still remains) basically to say, "So what! It was the right thing to do nonetheless." At least Colin Powell, when asked the same question, has said, "The intelligence I was given turned out to be inaccurate. That will always be remain a blot on my record."

At the end of the book, there are pages and pages of suggested reading that supports some of the material in this book and beyond. A lot of it looks like great reading!

[Miranda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I understand the author said that he wasn’t going to be biased in this book. The problem is that this book really should be considered an editorial piece cause it is biased.

Even with some of the older Presidents that bias is there for instance he calls out Jackson for the Trail of Tears - fair; the author should have given more context but the Trail of Tears is the obvious event to use. But then why not call Lincoln out for the Dakota 38? I know the Dakota tribes today are still very upset over the whole incident, but the author didn’t even include Lincoln in the book.

Other notable Presidents left out include James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Harry Truman, Eisenhower, and Bill Clinton. Other Presidents were also excluded as well.

But yet we get two chapters for both Nixon and Carter…of which my take away was that the author likes Carter.

The author also gets some things incorrect. For instance George Washington didn’t have a political party; he opposed them as stated in his Farewell Address. He did lean towards the Federalists but he was not one. He also hinted at Grant causing the end of Reconstruction, which isn’t true. Reconstruction only ended because of the election of 1876; Grant allowed the compromise for the election only because we were that close to a second civil war. Also, is it fair to wholly blame the War of 1812 on James Madison especially when in the previous chapter the author brings up tensions between the US and Great Britain under Jefferson not being resolved? Or when he talks about gas prices skyrocketing in the 2000s; his numbers are incorrect based on the 5 min of research I did. Or how the author contradicts himself in the two Carter chapters saying Carter wasn’t at fault for the energy crisis and then the next chapter being on how Carter was at fault for it.

This piece works as a poorly researched editorial. I wish more effort had gone in to ensuring that the author’s bias was contained, facts were properly laid out showing all sides of the decision for every President, or marketing the book properly.

[Robert Strupp · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book packed with adjectives that urge the reader to believe that every American felt the way the Left-Wing authors did. Such as their "with graphic, almost stomach-turning photos." Writing about the Abu Ghraib prison, where women GI's forced Muslim prisoners to fit underwear to their heads. "Stomach-turning?" To whom? Anywhere they can leave out facts, such as they did with their chapter " 'A Splendid Little War' with Spain." Where, to make their point, that the Mexican-American War had no reason, failed to write that the Spanish had murdered 225,000 citizens of Cuba while they persecuted them and forced them into camps. I imagine this is the same anti-American, (especially anti-Republican party) Left-wing garbage, (you would not believe their defense of the dolt-peanut farmer Jimmy Carter) that is being taught in our public schools and that almost enabled a proclaimed socialist, Bernie Sanders, to become the Democrat nominee for President in 2016. I'm sure glad I picked up this brand new book at my Barnes & Noble clearance sale for only $1.80, not its $19.99 cover price.

[Tricia F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 2008, the book gives a narrative of 20 incidents that are considered presidential failures.

Starting with the Whiskey Rebellion (George Washington) and ending with the War in Iraq (George W. Bush). Craughwell starts each chapter with a background of the incident, the major players involved, battles/resistance, the outcome that ended the incident, and historical implications of the incident.

[Greg Parrott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to see that Trump isn't the only one to mess up. I wonder what his chapter(s) will look like if amended to the next revision of this book. Some presidents already have two chapters. Maybe Trump will have at least three?

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this! My copy was published like a coffee table book, so not as readable in such a bulky presentation. Clear and concise on each story. I will read further about some of these sub-stories. Well done.

[Ethan Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading about self inflicted problems that American Presidents have caused for themselves. Should have included Clinton and his scandal really.. aside from that I'd re-read this book if it gets updated to include Trump in the future

[hadden · Rating 3 out of 5]

still reading, but im already annoyed that there's seemingly no mention of the AIDs crisis and epidemic during and after the Reagan era. 😒

[Carol Blakeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book! I really felt like it was pretty balanced with the later presidents where party politics could have skewed the perception.

[Christine Deriso · Rating 4 out of 5]

As politics tear us apart,
Perspective can help us take heart.
Though our land often thrived, we have also survived
Falling short. Then we make a fresh start.

#bookreviewsaslimericks

[Pinko Palest · Rating 2 out of 5]

doesn't really add anything we do not know. Plus it is far too much of a conservative take

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and informative trip through missteps of past American presidents. Well-researched and entertainingly presented. Naturally, it glosses over some details, preferring brevity and mass appeal to full consideration, but the trade-off seemed reasonable enough.

My one gripe is the final chapter on George W. Bush. I happen to share the opinion that the initiation of the war was a failure. And the authors present ample evidence. But whereas the other chapters are thoughtful reflections on history, not enough time has passed, or information been released, for this chapter to fit comfortably in the book. Already more information has come out that would SUPPORT this chapter. Still seems too soon for inclusion in this particular work.

[Rosalía · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Whiskey Rebellion to the Trail of Tears to the internment of Japanese Americans to Bush's illegal war, this book is thorough and has beautiful photographs to illustrate its points. A fine read.

[Gene McAvoy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally had to give up on this book. It features an interesting group of 'happenings' but it is so miserably left-leaning and biased that it is NOT worth the read. Unless you are a CNN devotee and think Anderson Cooper should run for office, you won't like the book.

[Charlotte Vitale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Takes your from President Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion through George W. Bush and the War in Iran. How quickly we forget the bad decisions and only remember the good and highly praise all the presidents after they are out of office or dead. Guess that is politics!

[Eric A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the subject matter. Interesting choice of this particular cover because their are no chapters on either Theodore Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln. I suppose their pictures are there just to sell the book though it is a bit of false advertising.

[April (The Steadfast Reader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. It's 'airplane' history in that it's not very deep or difficult to read. Entertaining and makes a valiant attempt to be apolitical. Take a look.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow, history is more enticing when I know someone fucked up.

[Jerry Landry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, easily approachable book about presidential shortcomings and failures.

[Melanie Franklin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry reading. I thought I would learn something new, but it's nothing more than what was taught in high school or junior high history classes.

[Jason Breedlove · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only problems were I found myself rooting for some of the failed policies and the book was too short.

[Jarret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief but not dumbed down. Much better than the goofy cover art would lead you to believe (this is NOT a "humor" book).

[Lillia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting