Personal Mistakes of Past Presidents

He governs our country. He’s commander and chief, chief of state, chief executive, and chief of state amongst many other leading positions. Although our presidents are in such a powerful position, they are still human. Here are some interesting and some well known and some not so well known past discrepancies of our leaders.

• Andrew Jackson was very indifferent to the American Indians. He was in great favor of “ethnic cleansing”. After his win into presidency he signed the Indian Removal Act to force the Native Americans to west of the Mississippi River.
• Ulysses S. Grant was actually a well known alcoholic.
• Thomas Jefferson was our third president as well as one of the framers of the Constitution. He also had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings and had several children with her. With this in mind you may think that he had a view of African Americans as equal, but although he had the power to, he only freed two slaves in his entire life.
• Abraham Lincoln is loved by many. Many would be surprised to know that it took him several times to pass the bar exam. They may also be surprised to learn that he left his wife at the alter several times before actually marrying her.
• Andrew Johnson was the first president to spend his entire term as president as a “lame duck”. He was also one of our first presidents to be impeached. There were a few attempts made before the actual impeachment.
• Woodrow Wilson was an interesting president. In his first term he kept us from entering World War I. His reelection campaign slogan was actually “he kept us out of war”. As an effect, Wilson was reelected and ended up getting us into that very same war. Wilson is famous for being a white supremacist.  Some of his actions led us into the Great Depression in 1929.
• Warren G. Harding did not do very much during his presidency. Most of his staff were found to be corrupt. Although he had prohibition strongly enforced within the U.S., he had the White House stocked full of alcohol.
• John F. Kennedy was loved by many; his picture was hung right next to the Virgin Mary’s in many houses. He was hot and charismatic. He was also a philander. He had been rumored to have slept with multiple women including the infamous Marilyn Monroe scandal. He also led to the failure in the Bay of Pigs event. Many may also be surprised to learn that the Kennedy administration led massive wire taps-even into the phone of Martin Luther King himself.
• Richard Nixon will go down history for the president who took place in the famous Watergate scandal.Those close to him described him as paranoid and narcissistic. He was also taped saying some very offensive anti-Semitic remarks.
• Bill Clinton, to me is the sexiest president we have had. He is also famous for his affair with a 22 year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Everyone seemed to want to know every detail about the affair and every gritty detail down to the events in the Oval Office and what he really did with his cigars were released. The events went further and led to his impeachment due to perjury regarding the affair.
• George W. Bush has been a widely hated figure in our history. Many feel that his launch of the invasion of Afghanistan was premature and wrong. He has been shown as stupid in every newspaper and magazine across the country. He was portrayed as a struggling alcoholic in the movie W. which was about his life. He has also been caught making a number of slurs on television. A 2006 poll showed that 58% believed that his presidency was a failure.