Rough starts

W. has company

by Dan Kennedy

George W. Bush enters office under an ominous cloud: nationally, he lost the popular vote by more than 300,000 ballots, and he won Florida -- and thus the presidency -- only through a combination of legal maneuvers and the disenfranchisement of hundreds, if not thousands, of black voters. But he's hardly the first modern president to get off to a rocky start.

* Richard Nixon. By the time of the Trickster's smashing 1972 election triumph, the Watergate mess was already beginning to spread. In less than two years, the scandal had grown from what Nixon had called a "third-rate burglary" into the only presidential resignation in history.

* Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney's first White House boss got off to a heartening start by proclaiming, "Our long national nightmare is over." But soon thereafter he pardoned Nixon, enraging millions of Americans who wanted the former president called to account. Ford's long personal nightmare ended in defeat.

* Jimmy Carter. The exception, and proof that a good start isn't everything. The peanut farmer from Georgia won the public over by walking at his inauguration and hosting freewheeling town meetings. Yet Carter was an intelligent but ineffective leader who was laid low by economic and foreign-policy disasters, culminating in the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-'80.

* Ronald Reagan. It's hard to remember now, but by the time of his election in 1980 the Gipper had been a divisive figure in American politics for nearly 20 years. Although it sounds morbid, the assassination attempt that took place early in his term turned out to be a good career move, buying him time and sympathy during the worst recession since the 1930s.

* George H.W. Bush. "Not in the loop" was Bush's mantra as he attempted to deal with the fallout of the Iran-contra affair, which had broken wide open during Reagan's second term. Though it was easy to accept that the obviously addled Reagan didn't know the full story, it was harder to believe that about Bush, a former CIA director and an unusually involved vice-president.

* Bill Clinton. Let's see. By the time Clinton took office, the public already knew that he'd "caused pain" in his marriage, had dodged the draft, and hadn't inhaled. The New York Times had already broken a few Whitewater stories, with many, many more to come. In fact, Clinton's first two years were about as bad as any president's could be, from his gays-in-the-military double-clutch to the health-care fiasco. But as we all know, since then it's been nothing but fast roads and clear skies, illicit blow jobs and impeachment notwithstanding. Who would have guessed?