Presidency

Adam J. White on what happens when the commander in chief takes the mound.

Kevin Gutzman on what Noah Feldman's recent biography of the fourth president gets right—and wrong.

In February, then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson was informed by a North Korean envoy that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un wanted to meet with President Trump. Tillerson favored accepting the invitation quickly. Trump didn’t.

Philip Terzian: A new book defending Jimmy Carter’s presidency reveals how his supposed strengths became liabilities.

If you’re tired of being overwhelmed by the presence of President Trump, you’ve come to the right place. The subject here is Gerald Ford, the so-called accidental president who took over when Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, and served until January 20, 1977.

In the winter of 1949, the first secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, announced his impending retirement from office.

Now that we have one full year of the Trump presidency in the history books, isn’t it time for Trump’s conservative critics to acknowledge his election was worth it?

We will admit to still sometimes shaking our head at the realization that Donald Trump is the president of the United States, though apparently not just his ardent fans but liberal America, too, is now ready to embrace the idea that billionaire TV stars are a good recruiting pool for the Oval…

Leave to one side for a moment the debate over whether Confederate memorials, many of them more than a century old, should be pulled down as an act of civic and moral hygiene. Nearly everyone can agree that the memorials themselves are artistically accomplished. Some of them are overwrought, some…

We can speak of “settled law.” Not so with biography. The verdict is always out on appeal, and the subject accountable to more litigation. Discovery yields new evidence, and additional litigants take up the case. This is especially so with Ulysses S. Grant.

If you’re still wondering how Donald Trump, a man whose approval rating sits at 36 percent in a September 6 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, ever became president, well, here’s a clue: That same poll has Hillary Clinton’s approval rating at 30 percent.

Time will tell whether the American cruise missile strike against the Syrian air base will deter future Syrian government use of chemical weapons or even whether it was sufficient punishment for Assad's gross and continuing violation of international norms against their use. But it's clear that…

The seal of the president of the United States features an eagle clutching the arrows of war in its left talon and the olive branch of peace in its right, a fitting symbol of the expansive powers of the American executive. But one might just as well have substituted a pen and a telephone to…

The seal of the president of the United States features an eagle clutching the arrows of war in its left talon and the olive branch of peace in its right, a fitting symbol of the expansive powers of the American executive. But one might just as well have substituted a pen and a telephone to…

During the 1952 campaign, Dwight Eisenhower boldly announced that if he won the presidency, "I shall go to Korea." He believed he could broker peace in the Korean conflict, which had reached a stalemate under Harry Truman. About two months before he took office, Ike flew to Korea on a visit that…

Ronald Reagan loved Wash­ington but disliked the government. George W. Bush hated Washington but liked the government. Donald Trump loathes both Washington and the government.

During the 1952 campaign, Dwight Eisenhower boldly announced that if he won the presidency, “I shall go to Korea." He believed he could broker peace in the Korean conflict, which had reached a stalemate under Harry Truman. About two months before he took office, Ike flew to Korea on a visit that…

Ronald Reagan loved Wash­ington but disliked the government. George W. Bush hated Washington but liked the government. Donald Trump loathes both Washington and the government.

As a futurist, Herman Kahn’s job was to think about the unthinkable. And the unthinkable subject in the 1960s was thermonuclear war. Kahn's analysis struck a nerve; going beyond consideration of how to prevent a nuclear war, he assessed how the United States could survive and win one. This step…

Do federal conflict-of-interest laws apply to the president? Do the criminal laws that prohibit officials from participating in any decision in which they have a financial interest apply to the man or woman in the Oval Office?

Martin O'Malley, a likely Democratic presidential candidate, took a shot this morning at Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, saying that the presidency is not a "crown" and need not "be passed between two families." Of course Clinton's husband Bill Clinton was president. And Bush's father, George H.W.…

The consensus across America, and perhaps especially along the I-95 corridor, seems to be that Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are on a nearly inevitable collision course, with one or the other poised to be declared president-elect on November 8, 2016. At a minimum, they are viewed as the…

An MSNBC reporter asked Rick Perry in an interview that aired this morning whether the Texas governor is "smart enough to be president of the United States." Perry responded that "running for the presidency is not an IQ test."

A year before his first inauguration, Barack Obama laid out the objective of his presidency: to renew faith and trust in -activist government and transform the country. In an hourlong interview with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal on January 16, 2008, Obama said that his campaign…

David Remnick, an Obama biographer and the editor of the New Yorker, said this morning on national TV that President Obama is disappointed in the world:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, on President's Day and why Obamacare is causing big trouble for President Obama and Democrats.

When President Obama abruptly called off the bombing strike on Syria and decided to seek the approval of Congress, he surprised no one more than French president François Hollande. France, the only country set to join the United States in the raid, was left in the lurch. Hollande was humiliated and…

On the cusp of the July 4 holiday weekend, President Obama quietly announced (via an underling’s blog post) that he had unilaterally chosen to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate—its requirement that businesses with 50 or more workers provide federally approved health insurance. Obama claims to…

In his second term, President Obama won’t lead or compromise. But he still manages to find ways to keep the country divided.

Many factors are contributing to President Obama’s decline in popularity since his historic election less than two years ago.  A stagnant economy with stubbornly high unemployment certainly caused part of the downward trend.  But there is more.