The Questioning Librarian

The President-Elect and the President meeting at the White House Like so many others in this country, the results of the Election came as a shock to me, the outcome a possibility so mind-numbingly terrifying that, until the very end, it did not even seem worth thinking about. Yet here we are, watching as lobbyists fill out the transition team , Washington insiders are considered for Cabinet positions , and Trump promises to at least consider keeping parts of the Affordable Care Act that he and other Republicans pledged to repeal and replace immediately. While politicians often don't keep their promises, the speed with which so many of the President-elect's campaign promises have been abandoned is dizzying. My initial shock, and deep sadness, in the first few days have gradually begun to give way to anger instead. I've wondered how something like this could have happened, how a know-nothing charlatan blustered his way into the highest office in the land. Much ink ...

I've long been fascinated by the occupants of the White House, along with the history of slavery in the United States. Given that, a book like Robert Strauss' new biography of James Buchanan,  Worst. President. Ever.,  was going to be a must-read regardless, even if it hadn't been given such a catchy title.  Plenty of ink has been spilled about great men who've held the highest office in the United States. Any reader interested in learning any imaginable minutia about the lives of Lincoln, Washington, and the Roosevelts have hundreds of books to choose from, including multi-volume doorstoppers like Edmund Morris' three volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt, coming in at over two thousand pages. But with forty-four presidents having taken the reins in our two hundred forty year history, inevitably not all come out looking so great. While the current vogue is to label either George W. Bush or Barack Obama as the "Worst President Ever," depending on ...