Mature Presidents Outperform Young Presidents

Of all our presidents since World War II, the three who ranked highest among all American presidents in a 2005 survey of scholars by the Wall Street Journal were:

• Ronald Reagan: No. 6 of 43 presidents, inaugurated within weeks of his 70th birthday.  
• Harry Truman: No. 7, inaugurated at age 60.  
• Dwight Eisenhower: No. 8, inaugurated at 62.

The three youngest presidents since WWII were:

 Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both elected president at relatively young ages, and both made grave mistakes that directly led to the deep foreign policy problems we have today. The next president will face serious issues, from al-Qaida to Iran to Russia to the economy, which will require a maturity achievable only through age and experience.

• John Kennedy: ranked No. 15, inaugurated at 43.

• Bill Clinton: No. 22, inaugurated at 46.

• Jimmy Carter: No. 34, inaugurated at 52.

In a 2000 survey by the Federalist Society and the Journal, 78 scholars in history, politics and law were asked to name the most overrated president. A shocking 43 of the 78 picked Kennedy.

"Kennedy brought the Cold War to dangerous heights," political scientist Bruce Miroff said.

First came the failed Cuban Bay of Pigs episode. Six weeks later, the Soviet Union's 67-year-old Nikita Khrushchev sized up the then 44-year-old Kennedy in Vienna and two months later quickly built the Berlin Wall, which lasted for 28 years. Only two months after it was built, U.S. and Soviet tanks faced off for 16 hours at the Wall. Kennedy next dramatically escalated our involvement in Vietnam. And after that, Khrushchev nearly started World War III when he armed Cuba with nuclear missiles.

One month after President Clinton took office in 1993, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history up to that date occurred with the bombing of New York's World Trade Center twin towers. During Clinton's eight years in office, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing 250 and injuring 6,000; bombed U.S.-Saudi facilities in 1995 and 1996, killing Americans; and in 2000 bombed the USS Cole.

Through all this, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the Clinton administration had 10 different chances to get bin Laden. Intelligence knew just where he was, but was never able to make the final decisions or take effective action.

Riding the peace dividend created when Reagan won the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the late 1990s Clinton years were an "anything goes" wild bubble period that finally broke apart from early 2000 to January 2001, with the Nasdaq declining 56%, the sharpest market drop since 1929.

But that's not all. In addition to being ineffective against al-Qaida and being a part of the bubble stock-market crash in 2000, the Clinton administration and Democrats were the major cause behind the frenzied real estate subprime-mortgage bubble that blew up and caused the most recent stock-market panic, sent companies into bankruptcy, wrecked 401(k)s and forced the government to rescue our collapsing financial system.

Clinton and Democrats mandated through quotas and ratings that banks significantly increase their loans to lower-income people in the inner city who otherwise would have never qualified. It was well-intended, but incompetent, resulting in enormous numbers of loans made with little or no down payments or no checking of standard credit ratings. These are many of the loans that have resulted in rampant home foreclosures. It was another gigantic mismanaged government program that was a colossal failure, not a failure of the free market system.

When attempts were made to enact some control and limits over the enormous leverage of up to 50-1 being used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, congressional Democrats continually defeated efforts to put in sound controls and loan ratios.

ACORN, possibly involved in voter registration irregularities, was also able to collect substantial commissions for its part in marketing these risky subprime loans.

President Carter lost one country after another to the expansionist Soviet Union. He withdrew U.S. contracts for defense supplies intended for the Shah of Iran because he didn't like the Shah's human rights treatment of jailed Soviet agents who for years tried to undermine Iran's government. Because we stopped supporting our strongest ally in a volatile area of the world, Iran was overthrown, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling mullahs are now well on their way to having nuclear weapons.

Tehran has promised to wipe Israel off of the map in one blow. The regime also created and financed the terrorist group Hezbollah.

When Carter, who had been a one-term governor, first met the older Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR quickly invaded Afghanistan. Carter, the naive appeaser, said: "I can't believe the Russians lied to me." The Soviets ran wild on Carter and also took over Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.

Our next president will face a resurgent Russia run by Vladimir Putin and his KGB friends, Iran and its nuclear program, and al-Qaida and other terrorists who want an atomic weapon. Do we want to elect another young president, possibly a Carter or a Neville Chamberlain type, who will get fooled by our dangerous enemies who are masters of deceit?

If we are to learn anything from history… the clear mandate here is a vote for experience and age, especially at a time like now is what we need and equates to a

Vote for McCain... not Obama!!

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, October 31, 2008 4:20 PM PT