Barack and the Buchanan precedent (OneNewsNow.com)

Barack and the Buchanan precedent (OneNewsNow.com): "Presidential comparisons that greeted Barack Obama's election ranged from the sublime to the transcendent. He was variously described as the second coming of John F. Kennedy, a re-embodiment of Franklin Roosevelt, and even a budding Abraham Lincoln — a sort of Savior-in-Chief to rescue an aggrieved nation from the Dantesque tribulations of his predecessor. Mr. Obama's public pronouncements signaled his determination to abrogate George W. Bush's policies and send us all back upon paths of righteousness. And that was before the new president had even done anything.



Well, now President Obama has done quite a number of things, which bring to mind other analogies, some of which lurk beneath the worship continuum. Before Roosevelt there was Herbert Hoover, and before Lincoln there was James Buchanan, both of whom share the dishonor of being ranked among the country's worst presidents, as Nathan Miller pointed out a decade ago in a perky book entitled Star-Spangled Men. About Hoover, much has been written; but it is President Buchanan who presents a really interesting case."