Intro: Analyzing POTUS

I posted a random question the other day on Facebook, asking my

friends to identify their favorite and least-favorite U.S. presidents and
why they felt that way. The comments that followed were enlightening
and prompted me to think about this subject which has fascinated me
for about as long as I can remember.

If I had a dime for every time someone in elementary, middle and high

school asked me to name all of the Presidents, I would have zero credit
card debt. The question became so embarrassing that I would usually
tell the person asking that I had forgotten most of them. That was just a

lie, though; my experiences taught me that exposing my brainiac self in

this way sometimes led to bullying by...well...stupid children. As stupid
children usually turn into stupid adults who become well aware of their
own mediocrity, I no longer get called out in a negative way, so I feel

completely free to 'toot my own horn', if you will (or if you wont, I don't
care.)

For much of my pre-teen days right up into the present, I have been
obsessed with the personal lives of the Presidents. No detail was too
minor for my interest, as I delighted finding reading material on Luci
Johnson's 1966 White House wedding, the amount of debt that Mary
Todd Lincoln got herself into with her luxurious dresses, and the real
reason why James Buchanan was our only unmarried Chief Executive.
Although presidential history sounds nerdy, those who read People
magazine or watch E! Hollywood really can't throw stones. If you think
that the spicy gossip of today doesn't compare to oh, say, Warren

Harding having sex in an Oval Office closet in 1921 with the mother of
his illegitimate daughter and nearly getting caught by the First Lady,
you're quite mistaken.

Sometime during the latter part of high school, I became equally
interested in presidential administrations. Connecting what I knew about

the Presidents personally made it interesting for me to read about their
decisions, leadership quirks, successes and failures while in office. And
that is what I'll be blogging about in this series.

Welcome to "Analyzing Presidents Of The United States." If you've read

this far along without closing the tab, I hope that you'll enjoy reading my
irreverent yet mostly-substantiated evaluations. Critiquing our Leaders (or
most anything, for that matter) is subjective, and I fully expect that my
readers' opinions will differ from my own. This analysis comes from my
years of research and interest in the topic--from multiple sources--which
has given me my own interpretation of the Presidents and their
administrations. Individual analysis will be blogged in chronological order,
followed by a letter (A-F) grade.

Feel free to comment on the series, and remember that in this country,

just like our Commanders-in-Chief, you have the fundamental, god-given,
Constitutional right...to be absolutely wrong.

(and yes, I can still name them all. In order. With birth and death dates.)

Don't judge me. :)