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Second term promise and problems

From Brian Todd
CNN

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Wolf Blitzer Reports
George W. Bush

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Supremely confident, steadfast in his agenda and seasoned from an eventful first term, President Bush's roughest days may still lie ahead.

"Second term presidencies have been remarkably difficult in the post-war era," says American University historian Allan Lichtman.

From the personal to the political, scandal and war have touched second term presidencies.

Some historians say an unpopular, drawn-out war is characteristic.

"If the war persists and there is no remedy, then the president who's in power gets blamed for the fact that he got us into this and he can't seem to get us out of it," says Stephen J. Wayne of Georgetown University.

That led Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman to scrap prospective second runs for the presidency even though both were eligible.

In scandal, as in war, the commander in chief bears the ultimate responsibility. But often the worst abuses -- especially in second terms -- are committed by over zealous aides.

The Iran-Contra scandal, to a great extent, was driven by Ronald Reagan's national security team. How much the president knew is still an open question.

"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not," President Reagan told the nation in 1987.

More than a decade earlier, loyal advisers had taken a president's darkest ideas to literal extremes.

"A lot of Richard Nixon's very dangerous and un-democratic tendencies were reinforced by the sounding board of his top aides, including people who went to jail, like his attorney general, John Mitchell, his top domestic aides, Erlichman and Haldeman," says Lichtman.

One historian sees potential for a similar problem in the Bush administration.

"He doesn't surround himself with a lot of advisers who believe different, different things. They're all essentially on the same wavelength," says Wayne.

Second term crises have one thing in common: the arrogance of power.

"Maybe second term presidents have been on the mountaintop too long, breathing rarified air, and think they can do anything," suggests Lichtman.


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