By Rabbi Ben Kamin
SAN DIEGO — President John F. Kennedy rarely spoke publicly about his personal faith, though he brilliantly and effectively defused the issue of his being the first viable Catholic nominee for the White House. It was an ignominious issue in 1960 (hard to fathom nowadays) and he mitigated it head-on at a conference of Protestant clerics during the heat of the campaign.
“I am not the Catholic candidate for president,” he declared. “I am the candidate for president who happens to be Catholic.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson, one of the more complex human beings who ever served, a bawdy Texan who galvanized the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, relied more on the power of persuasion than on the power of faith. He might have convinced God Almighty to barter a deal in the back halls of the Senate just by thrusting his over-sized physique in God’s face. According to one author who chronicled the history of Air Force One, Johnson sometimes cavorted on the presidential plane in the raw—he had his own deal with morality, though was said to have been profoundly and chronically depressed by the cascading number of American deaths in his Vietnam tragedy.
President Richard M. Nixon, a Quaker, was an apogee of insecurity, corruption, and inexplicable self-destruction. Though intuitive and prescient about China, he built a “Silent Majority” of Americans by pandering to their innate fears of blacks, poor people, and other “undesirables.” One wonders if Nixon even had a soul; he remains the only president to resign the office in the history of the republic.
President Gerald Ford was a completely decent man, a true American prodigy who was a genuinely successful athlete and hard-working congressman catapulted to the vice-presidency and then the presidency—in neither case being elected. He failed to explain his reasons for pardoning Richard Nixon and his legacy is haunted by an unfair smear created by his own poor communication skills.
President Jimmy Carter remains a willful, self-righteous man who is a prisoner of his own sanctimony. Whatever is in his soul, he never had the necessary guts to be president and commander-in-chief; the disgraceful fall of US prestige worldwide began with his ill-advised outreach to the Shah of Iran, which helped trigger the Islamic revolution in Iran and the dark cycle that has ensued.
President Ronald Reagan, in spite of his Hollywood paternalism towards blacks, connected his optimistic soul to America’s needy spirit. His faith and charm were as much about patriotism as religion; there remains something uncommonly appealing about his legacy and we long for his populist royalty.
President George H. W. Bush (“Bush 41”) carried the finest resume of any modern president and while more analytical than feeling, nonetheless did not confuse his policy goals with theology. He really liked Reagan.
President Bill Clinton traded his soul—and his natural brilliance—for a kind of hedonism not seen since JFK.
President George W. Bush has a notably affable soul and deep convictions about all the wrong things when it comes to the actual national interest.
President Barack Obama is so cool that it unfortunately comes off cold. Yet even his soul has brains. And he undeniably practices fidelity and love when it comes to his wife and children.
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Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com. His articles also appear on examiner.com