Trump will be fine, predicts presidential biographer in W.Va.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — When he is inaugurated Friday, Donald Trump will become the first U.S. president without prior political or military experience.

Biographer and Marshall professor Jean Edward Smith

But historian Jean Edward Smith, author of four presidential biographies, thinks Trump will be all right.

“You have to know something about the world, and it is helpful to have some executive experience,” said Smith, the John Marshall professor of political science at Marshall University.

“Trump has had executive experience, and I think he also knows something about the world.”

HOPPY KERCHEVAL: Inauguration Day

Smith, 84, is the author of lengthy looks at the lives of former presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush. His “Grant” was a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist for biography, edged out by David McCullough’s “John Adams.”

Grant, Roosevelt and Eisenhower experienced success because they excelled at motivating people, Smith said. (You’ll notice he left out Bush in that assessment, and we’ll get to that momentarily.)

“I think Trump knows that as well, through his companies,” Smith said.

If he sounds accepting of Trump — whose pre-inaugural approval rating of 38 percent was at the lowest of any incoming president ever — then it’s not because he’s of the same political views.

“I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life, but I don’t think he’s that worrisome,” Smith said. “I think Ted Cruz would have been a far more significant worry. Ted Cruz believes he was God’s agent here on earth. George W. Bush believed that too.”

Smith describes himself as a “yellow dog Democrat,” a term that originated from people who said they would vote for a yellow dog before they’d ever vote for a Republican.

“The Democrats elected Trump when they nominated Hillary,” Smith said during a conversation in the living room of his Huntington home.

“I’m a yellow dog Democrat, and I felt I voted for a yellow dog. Biden would have beaten Trump. Probably Sanders would have beaten Trump. I think she lacked it. That’s why she lost. She had her chance eight years ago and Obama beat her for the nomination. She should have retired.”

If that seems critical of Clinton, it might pale in comparison to Smith’s examination of George W. Bush in his 2016 biography “Bush.” That one inspired examinations like an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Arrogance, recklessness and scorn for ideas — no, not Trump. George W. Bush.”

In Smith’s assessment, Bush ignored advisers and let events spiral out of control in Iraq because of overreach. He bounces off Trump’s earlier claim that President Obama founded Isis by saying it’s Bush who deserves the blame.

“George W. Bush founded Isis when he got rid of Saddam Hussein,” Smith said. “The military thought it was going in, removing Saddam Hussein, finding weapons of mass destruction and getting out. And Bush changed that. The military hadn’t planned on that.”

Smith, who grew up in Washington, D.C., is a military veteran, rising to captain in the Army while serving in Germany between 1954 and 1961. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton and went on to get his doctorate in the Department of Public Law and Government at Columbia.

In 1965, he became a professor of political economy the University of Toronto, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.

His first biography was “Lucious D. Clay: an American Life,” published in 1990, about the American general who administered occupied Germany after World War II. Smith was an acquaintance and admirer.

Smith’s followup biography, “John Marshall: Definer of a Nation,” published in 1996, earned him an invitation to speak at Huntington’s Marshall University, which is named after John Marshall, fourth chief justice of the United States whose opinions shaped constitutional law.

His commencement address at Marshall in 1997 led to an invitation by then-university President J. Wade Gilley to join the political science staff there.

Smith arrived on campus in 1999 and began his most prolific biography work. He published “Grant” in 2001, “FDR” in 2007, “Eisenhower in War and Peace” in 2012 and then “Bush” last year.

For the works on Grant and Eisenhower, he was motivated to take a closer look at presidents he regarded as not getting their just due.

“I thought both of them were underrated as presidents,” Smith said.

With Grant, the Civil War general who served as America’s 18th president, the attribute that stood out to Smith was his role in trying to achieve racial equality after the war.

“For three generations, some historians trashed Grant,” Smith said. “I was trying to set the record straight, and I think I achieved that.”

Eisenhower, the 34th president and five-star general during World War II, also doesn’t get the recognition as president he deserves, Smith said.

“Eisenhower ended the Cold War pretty well, built the interstate highway system. Eisenhower also ended desegregation, you could say, in the South when he sent the 101st Airborne into Little Rock. That’s an amazing achievement as well.”

Organizational skills developed in military service helped Grant and Eisenhower succeed as president, Smith said.

“Both Grant and Eisenhower have organizational skills that were probably from the military. They understood how to get things done,” he said. “Franklin Roosevelt was a little bit different but, also having been governor of New York, had organizational skills that he knew how to handle things.”

It takes Smith an average of five years to write a biography — researching, reading, writing and editing. Because the time frame is so long, he has decided to not bite off another. Instead, he is working on a book about the liberation of Paris in 1944, with a deadline to hit about three years from now. At the moment, he is on chapter 2, but it’s a shorter book than usual.

As the Obama administration winds down and others begin writing biographies, Smith offered a snap assessment.

“His recognition of Cuba was a brilliant move,” Smith said. “And the attempt to get a deal with Iran is helping things. I’m over 65, so I can’t comment on Obamacare.”

As a model for post-presidential life, Smith would advise Obama to take a cue from one of his least favorite presidents, George W. Bush, and gracefully clear off the stage.

Obama plans to remain in Washington, D.C., until youngest daughter Sasha, now 15 finishes high school. That will make him the first president since Woodrow Wilson to remain in the capital.

“I think George W. Bush has been an exemplary ex-president because he was glad to get out of the Oval Office,” Smith said. “I don’t think Obama feels that way.”





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