The Architects

There are a lot of lists that rank the presidents from best to worst (or vice versa). Scholarly lists have some consensus, usually. Popular opinion lists vary wildly. We're not going to try to rank them, but we're going to look at the damage done to American society by each of the forty-five men we've elected to lead us, and we'll see how they all stack up to the current guy. In this episode, we're looking at George Washington (#1) through Andrew Jackson (#7). These guys were the architects of the U.S. presidency, for many reasons. They established and broke with precedents, they fostered traditions, and they built the executive office from its inception. And I think we'll find that the pedestals we've raised under some of them ought to be a little bit shorter.