DAVID GREENBERG

Presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it.

Every successful president has suffered imputations that he has in sinister fashion charmed the press or used a new medium of communication (radio, television, the Internet) to claim an undeserved standing.

People should make distinctions between the office of the presidency and the person who occupies it. You can respect the office even as you lose respect for the individual.

I'm hard pressed to give an example on the spot of a president who explicitly spoke of the vindication of history, but I'm confident that there are many such examples.

We have to judge presidents not only by the long-term consequences of their actions but also by how they make citizens in their own day feel. One reason that Nixon never succeeded in his comeback campaign is that he had such a negative impact on public trust at the time of his presidency.

More than any other U. S. President, Theodore Roosevelt permanently transformed the position of Chief Executive…. What had been largely an administrative position subordinate in many ways to Congress, grew into the locus of policy making and the office everyone looked to for leadership on issues large and small.

It's actually quite common for presidents to believe that future generations will render a verdict on their presidencies that is more lasting or definitive than the judgments of their contemporaries. The reason is that although history is certainly "an argument without end" - we're still debating many age-old questions - time does help settle others.

One thing that does seem to me to be fairly consistent is that presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it. So most people agree that one of the worst stains on the reputation of FDR, who is widely considered a great president, is the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Likewise, Lincoln is judged harshly for the suspension of habeas corpus.

Coolidge's preference for experience over ideas was a deeply rooted trait.

I find it hard to imagine that future historians will see the Iraq War as a big plus in Bush's ledger, but we have to admit that we simply don't know for sure.

Every successful president has suffered imputations that he has in sinister fashion charmed the press or used a new medium of communication (radio, television, the Internet) to claim an undeserved standing.

More than any other U. S. President, Theodore Roosevelt permanently transformed the position of Chief Executive…. What had been largely an administrative position subordinate in many ways to Congress, grew into the locus of policy making and the office everyone looked to for leadership on issues large and small.

It's actually quite common for presidents to believe that future generations will render a verdict on their presidencies that is more lasting or definitive than the judgments of their contemporaries. The reason is that although history is certainly "an argument without end" - we're still debating many age-old questions - time does help settle others.

Coolidge's preference for experience over ideas was a deeply rooted trait.

I find it hard to imagine that future historians will see the Iraq War as a big plus in Bush's ledger, but we have to admit that we simply don't know for sure.

We have to judge presidents not only by the long-term consequences of their actions but also by how they make citizens in their own day feel. One reason that Nixon never succeeded in his comeback campaign is that he had such a negative impact on public trust at the time of his presidency.

One thing that does seem to me to be fairly consistent is that presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it. So most people agree that one of the worst stains on the reputation of FDR, who is widely considered a great president, is the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Likewise, Lincoln is judged harshly for the suspension of habeas corpus.

Presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it.

I'm hard pressed to give an example on the spot of a president who explicitly spoke of the vindication of history, but I'm confident that there are many such examples.

People should make distinctions between the office of the presidency and the person who occupies it. You can respect the office even as you lose respect for the individual.