The Five Criteria For a Great President

The Five Criteria for a Great President

            When a person looks up the phrase, “criteria for a great president” on the internet, you find very little.  Actually, there was close to nothing.  Even in a site dedicated to quotes, there is nothing describing the criteria for a great president.  Why is this?  Why is it that when a person tries to find what the essentials for a great president are, there is nothing that we find?  Is this because not a single president has been worthy of judging the rest?  Is it because we can not find a certain criteria for which to judge the rest?  Or is it because there is no such thing?  If there were such a criteria, it would have to contain: values, patriotism, looking to the people before himself, understanding when and how an action must be taken, and finally the ability to understand what is best for the country.  However, which president can truly fit this criteria?  Then that brings the question, “Have we had a great president?”Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.”  This means that where we get this values that we speak of is from a religious standpoint.  Every president has had a religious background.  Even Thomas Jefferson was a deist.  However, what we fail to admit is that every law, every fiber of our constitution, every aspect of our society is built around values and the beliefs that come from something higher than the person that wrote it.  “Higher than the person that wrote it”.  We need to think about that phrase because if a president is to truly have morals then that would mean that each would have to believe or put something higher than him.  Have we had such a self sacrificing man?  We couldn’t or else why would we have a voting system.  If we had such a righteous man, then he would have been introduced into our presidency and we would have a utopia on Earth.  However, each has fallen short of the values that he would have to place in front of himself.  Each president has lied in some point of his presidency and has fallen short of a higher calling.  Even FDR, according to, “Rating the presidents: purpose, criteria, consequences: by, James MacGregor Burns,” has fallen short of the values by being unfaithful to his wife.  Thus, if we were to try to find such a criteria that fits a great president, values could not be considered such a criteria, for there hasn’t been a single president that would be fitting for this criterion.  If values are not in such a criterion, then we would have to go to the next step or a criterion which is patriotism.  What exactly is patriotism?  Webster’s dictionary states patriotism as the “devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.”  Having this knowledge we can now find if a certain president has fallen in this category.  We can now judge if a single president has taken this quality and lived by it, so we can make it a criteria for the presidency.  When we look at this definition we have to ask ourselves, “Has a president actually followed this definition?”  Devoted love… a love that is unconditional for every being in the country.   George Washington came close; however, he despised the people who gave him the presidency because he thought it would lead to a monarchy.  Something they fought to destroy.  There might have been a president that had national loyalty.  However we have to ask ourselves has there been a president that has defended our country?  Some would say yes, but I ask whom.  We have been a part of many wars, including ones in our own country.  Has there been a president that has been loyal to his own country and not thought about others countries before his own?  Ronald Regan was phenomenal in this category by not firing a shot in the cold war.  However, he did not recognize the soon to be epidemic that was starting in his own country.  AIDS was recognized as an incurable disease and something that would spread faster than the cold.  Instead of funding research on this, Regan refused to look at the subject and focus on other things.  He turned his back on his country.  A great president must look for the people’s interests and not his own.  Why is there campaigning in the year before the election?  To tell people what this upcoming candidate is going to do for the country.  However, I ask for a person to give me an example of a president, who was elected, that did everything that he was going to do.  Also that president has to have stood for everything that he was going to stand for and not just give a round about answer to the moral question standing before him.  Has there been a president who has stuck to the people and not the “Interest” groups.  Why do we call them interest groups?  We do this because they have certain interests that they want to be recognized by the person they are funding for the candidacy. Can a person be such self sacrificing that he would give up his own interest to answer the interests of the people and his country?  No.  Not a single man in the history has acted with out such regard for his own interests.  If a person does believe in a higher calling, then this would then this person, this self preserving person would then be considered GOD.  In essence, there is no such man on earth let alone in our presidency.  So, this certain aspect of my criteria cannot be considered as an aspect in the search for a great presidency.  Did we bomb
Hiroshima too early?  Did we invade
Iraq too early?  Was the use of the atomic bomb justified in the surprise attack by the Japanese in WWII?  I guess the phrase; “Hind sight is 20/20” is one that can directly describe these actions.  Were these actions performed too early, and/or were these actions performed with the interests of the people?  These things are things that should be thought of when a person is trying to find the criteria for a great president.  That is why the next aspect of my criteria is when and how actions should be performed.  Did we give the Japanese sufficient time to surrender or was it necessary for us to use the atom bombs?  90% of a city was destroyed with the use of one single atomic bomb.  The total of slain bodies in two cities soared.  The civilian casualty of the bomb totaled an estimate of 103,000 according to www.uic.com.au/nip29.htm.  Can a person actually imagine what the atomic bomb would have looked like?  A survivor once said, “It looked as if Jesus was coming down from the heavens to save us all, instead it was the devil bringing nothing but death to my family.”  Every president has been faced with a task that has brought them to their knees.  So many people critique each president and say that they are not worthy of being president because they did something to early.  Or they said something a group did not like.  Does a president have the knowledge of what is going to happen if he invades a country at this exact time?  Many say that a person who can tell the future is something of a myth.  If this is true, then the phrase, “a correct action” is something of a myth, because there will always be consequences to every action taken.  Therefore, there this criteria cannot be considered for the presidency.  Who knows exactly what is best for over 280 million people?  Who can exactly pinpoint every action as something that will benefit this many people?  Not a single person can absolutely follow this next quota and here’s why.  We have a two party system.  This is where we have democrats and republicans yelling and screaming at each other over the same issues, because someone a long time ago said they have to disagree with the other.  Now, these people have different viewpoints on how the presidency should be performed.  Will there ever be a time where both sides would actually be happy with an action performed by the president.  Absolutely not.  There are too many people that play the devil’s advocate against the president and try to disagree with everything he does.  However, even though these people may seem like they are horrible for doing such a thing are they not considered to be a part of our country.  Aren’t they just another member of our society that we have to care for and the president has to try to please.  Actions must be taken for the best of the COUNTRY, and not a single person.  But these people when they come together they are a significant part of our country.  Thus, this question arises, “Is there an action that is best for the WHOLE country?”  No.  This is because there will always be someone that is not satisfied by the action or gets the short end of the stick in the situation.  We were supposed to answer the question of the criteria of the presidency, however that cannot be answered.  This is because not a single person can answer this question.  The definition of criteria is a standard of judgment or criticism; a rule or principle for evaluating or testing something.  Can we actually place every president that we have had in a rule or judgment then find what makes them a great president?  No, we cannot because each president has had his downfalls, but each one of them has done great things.  There must have been something extraordinary about themselves to have the people vote them president.  This is why we have an election and not just a monarchy.  The presidency how can we now describe it?  We can describe it with this coming phrase, “Something that we cannot define, something that we cannot consume, something that we cannot understand, and something that we cannot judge.”  This is the criteria for the presidency.