There's no accounting for taste.
Let's see who is still at the top of the list five years from now, and who has fallen off.
The recent ex-president I most admire is Jimmy Carter. As president-emeritus, he continues to exhibit the moral leadership and unquestionable integrity our country is so desperately lacking today. At 95, he is still building houses for Habitat for Humanity, three years after beating brain cancer, and teaching Sunday Bible study at his local Baptist Church (which left the Southern Baptist Convention because of its overinvolvement with politics.) He has written at least a dozen thought-provoking value-laden books on national and international issues as well as memoirs. He just took half his peanut farm and covered it with solar panels to provide clean energy for his town of Plains, GA. His Carter Center, now directed by his grandson, is dedicated to peace and eradicating disease in the third world.
I also admire how former-presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush developed such a strong friendship after both were out of office, and how they have worked so well together for humanitarian causes that 'W' used to joke that his father had adopted Clinton as part of the family. This respect that crosses party boundaries was also evident when John McCain, also known for moral leadership, asked Barack Obama to speak at his funeral.
Bill Clinton, in his bio, wrote that former president Nixon was one of his trusted advisors on international policy. Although Nixon had resigned due to Watergate, history also recognized his knowledge and expertise in foreign policy, particularly in his relations with China and the Soviet Union. Nixon had also proposed universal health care--years before Clinton was elected.
It has been said that the ex-presidents' club is a close one, because they are the only ones who understand the extraordinary demands of the job.
And now I have a question. In the mutual admiration of the ex-and-current presidents' club, who is admired? Who is respected? Who is on the outs? Who has been excluded from funerals? Who has separated himself from the others through name calling, insults, and disparagement?
Who will be most admired five years from now?
How will each ex-president spend his Thanksgiving? Will he bring his family to serve dinner at a homeless shelter with a smile, as the Obamas did? Will he bring millions in aid to countries such as Haiti when climactic disasters come, as the Clinton/Bush team did? Will he travel the world persuading international businesses to plant trees on their rooves to counter climate change, and persuade pharmaceutical companies to provide HIV meds to third world countries for $300 a year, as Clinton does? Will he be teaching Sunday school and bringing moral leadership to our world as Carter does?
That is what will make a president admired over the long term.
