Who is next?

I was born in 1947. Harry Truman was still president. I don’t remember his presidency, but I do remember his successor, Eisenhower. I also remember all of the ones that followed, right up to today. Each of them, with the exception of Gerald Ford, was president for at least four years, so I had time to personally evaluate what they were doing. After they left office, additional information has been made available. Enough information that even the casual observer with a little reading and study can size all these presidents up. I have, and this is what I found, each one of them was not as good as his predecessor. That’s right. Every president since Dwight Eisenhower right up to W has been worse than the guy that preceded him.

Some of them talked a better story than the guy they succeeded, but none of them produced. This leads me to an interesting question. Who is next? Who is it in this country that is capable of being elected and will be a worse president than W? Is it possible? Will the trend finally change? Have we bottomed out? Will the next president actually be as good as or even better than W? The optimist in me would like to think so; the pessimist in me doubts it. The realist looks at the mindset of the electorate, the quality of the politicians and the state of the world and figures 2008 will see the trend continue. I don’t know who he or she will be but I suspect once they get settled in, we will be looking back remembering the good ole days when W was president.