February 27, 2001

Robert Bartley's a fan of

Robert Bartley's a fan of Calvin Coolidge:

President Reagan also cited the Coolidge (actually Coolidge-Mellon) tax cuts, which helped fuel the boom of the 1920s and increased rather than decreased government revenues. Succeeding with the death of Harding in 1923, Coolidge also cleaned up the Teapot Dome scandal by appointing a special counsel (actually two, a prominent lawyer and a former Democratic senator). In the process, he demanded the resignation of his attorney general. Handily elected in his own right in 1924, he presided over a extraordinary period of economic progress.

Bartley isn't a fan of JFK:

My own view of President Kennedy is much more direct: His callowness and amorality got us into Vietnam. Or to be more precise, his blunders turned a limited commitment into an open-ended one.

"Viewing Reflected Images"