Doug Bandow Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. B ill Clinton has run for public office for the last time. No longer subject to judgment by the voters, he is now accountable only to history, or at least to the historians who write the history books. The results of the latest survey, organized by economist Arthur Schlesinger Jr., were not surprising.
Presidential greatness is defined as action, the more frenetic the better.
Which means big government, the more intrusive the better. Abraham Lincoln tops the list. There's no doubt that he was a skillful politician and succeeded in his primary goal. His predecessor James Buchanan, is judged to be a failure, and the latter did much to exacerbate sectional tensions. But he, at least, held back from the fateful step of making war on states that only sought to peacefully depart the union.