The One-Term Tradition

If George W. Bush knows what's good for him, he won't run for a second term—the nemesis of presidential reputation. If Bill Clinton had retired after one term, both he and the public would have been spared his impeachment over the Lewinsky matter. A single-term Ronald Reagan would not have somnambulated into the impeachment-worthy Iran-contra affair.

If Richard Nixon hadn't run again, "Watergate" would refer merely to the complex at the corner of Virginia Avenue and Rock Creek Parkway, in the District of Columbia. If FDR had not won a third term, in 1940, he would have been remembered as much for his dictatorial attempt to pack the Supreme Court, among other hubristic second-term blunders, as for the New Deal. Haunted by the ghosts of the doughboys he had led into World War I, Woodrow Wilson in his second term lost his capacity for pragmatic accommodation in his fight for ...