Dead Presidents

I don’t know if I have a “favorite” wartime President simply because I’m not a big fan of wars, in general.  I think Lincoln was probably the best wartime President because he was committed to what he believed he needed to do, which was preserve the Union and crush the rebellion.  I like the way he never referred to the Confederacy as a separate country and always called them “the southern states currently in rebellion”.  For the most part, he deferred to his generals even though he had some really crappy commanding generals until he finally stuck Ulysses S. Grant in the right spot. 

Lincoln was also everything a wartime President should be when they are fighting for the preservation of the country:  he was ruthless and informed and he got back up every time the Southern forces knocked him and the Union Army down in the dirt.  Best of all — and this is the tragedy of Lincoln’s assassination — he was going to be generous and conciliatory in victory.

One surprisingly good wartime President that might surprise some people was George H.W. Bush.  He laid out a mission for liberating Kuwait in 1991 and driving the Iraqis back across the border.  Our military decimated the Iraqis and we could have just walked into Baghdad and owned Iraq after the beating we handed Saddam’s military.  However, the mission was not to bring down Saddam and occupy Iraq; it was to liberate Kuwait and Bush 41 did that in pretty much record time and didn’t push any further than he said he was going to.  Some might say that that was a mistake, but it’s also a perfect example of a President doing what he said he was going to do and not getting greedy and risking lives pushing for more.