The reluctant President who was too nice for the job

[NelsonG]

Editor's note: This is the twenty-seventh entry in the writer's year-long project to read one book about each of the U.S. Presidents in the year prior to Election Day 2016. You can also follow Marcus' progress at the @44in52 Twitter account and with this 44 in 52 Spreadsheet.

Poor William Howard Taft.

All this gentle giant of a man ever wanted was to be a Supreme Court justice. He got there eventually, appointed to Chief Justice by Warren G. Harding in 1921. 

But first, he was put through the wringer of presidential politics, which was just as nasty then as it is now.

Reading Doris K. Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit, one can't help but think that Taft was bullied into the White House by two people close to him: his wife and Theodore Roosevelt.  Read more...

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