If, as British cleric and aphorist Charles Caleb Colton has it, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” then what might resemblance perceived in the eye of the beholder be? With rare exceptions, in politics, sycophancy. 
 

As Slate’s Christopher Beam noted in a recent column, “Presidential comparison isn't the most rigorous form of political analysis”:

 

Bill Clinton was the next JFK, until he was Warren G. Harding, and then Jimmy Carter. George W. Bush was Teddy Roosevelt until he was James Buchanan. And Barack Obama, if you believe everything you read, combines the best of every single ex-president, except perhaps Millard Fillmore.  

 

The most common comparisons, of course, are between Obama and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. …

 

These analogies reflect well on Obama, given how history has smiled on these particular exes. But historical comparisons work the other way, too. Not only can they bathe the incoming president in the warm glow of a legendary figure, but they also can burnish the reputations of the old guys by making their legacies seem newly relevant.

 

For better or worse, here are all the presidents Barack H. Obama has been compared to during the campaign and after the election, or has something in common with.

 

Compared To:

 

† “John Adams: The Barack Obama Story?”:

 

It’s been four days since HBO debuted its critically acclaimed mini-series, John Adams, but only after watching it again last night did I notice some curious parallels to a certain Illinois senator running for President. …

 

First, there’s the series tagline: “He United the States of America.” Read into it what you will, but I could just as easily see that slogan on an Obama ‘08 bumper sticker. …

 

Continuing in that vein, the series goes to rather annoying lengths to highlight Ben Franklin’s famous words, “Join, or Die.” … Three powerful words that helped galvanize a political and ideological revolution, and all those years before Obama’s “Yes We Can” mantra …

 

Among other similarities, one that particularly stood out involved some of the characters’ choice of words. “War has been this administration’s policy from the beginning,” says an Adams confidante, referring to the British crown. Then there’s this gem, from Adams to some of his adversaries: “You’re trampling on the Constitution.” Don’t mistake these lines for sound bites from the Election ‘08 campaign trail. Adams says at some point: “Objects of the most stupendous magnitude are now before us.” This guy was totally the Barack Obama of colonial times!

 

† “Barack Obama and Thomas Jefferson”:

 

The new American President is becoming the darling of the wine industry! He likes wine, he has good taste in wine and knows his history. Thomas Jefferson, third American President, is also well known and appreciated in France for his taste for French wines and his willingness to create a real wine industry in the US, starting by its own Virginia state.

 

† “Obama versus McCain = Adams versus Jackson?”:

 

With a sort of eerie precision, this year?s Presidential election looks like a replay of the Jackson-Adams race of 1828. Obama is playing the role of the arch-Brahmin and Puritan John Quincy Adams; McCain, the role of Jackson, the populist military hero and voice of outrage against corruption in the capital. But I suspect that the outcome this time around might be different: In the wake of Bush II, JQ Adams? style -- earnest, academic, and trustful of governmental expertise -- might be more to the nation?s liking.

 

† In a November 2008 interview (video) with “The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart about his book, “American Lion,” Newsweek editor Jon Meacham said Andrew Jackson’s and Barack Obama’s supporters thought they could walk on water (2:50 into the clip).

 

† “Obama’s Challenges Are Unprecedented in U.S. History”:

 

Few incoming presidents have been left by their predecessors with as many challenges as Barack Obama. …

 

Other presidents facing an uphill task when taking office were … Martin Van Buren, who had to deal with the economic panic of 1837, which originated from the inflationary and excessive monetary and credit expansion by his predecessor Andrew Jackson. … Grover Cleveland, who faced the second worst depression in U.S. history caused by the high tariffs, profligate federal spending, and excessive monetary expansion of his predecessor, Benjamin Harrison. …

 

Economically, the episodes most similar to the present appear to be the severe downturns that Van Buren and Cleveland inherited from their predecessors. Astutely, both of these men - two of the best presidents in U.S. history - relied on tight money policies and free market principles to let wages and prices go down in order to reestablish equilibrium in the market. … Unfortunately, it seems that Obama will also join Bush’s big government response to the crisis.

 

† “Text and Twitter Your Way To Victory”:

 

Barack Obama’s Democratic nomination triumph reprises one of the oldest stories in American politics: that victory so often goes to the candidates who best understand and exploit novel mediums of communication.

 

A close parallel to Barack H. Obama 2008 is William Henry Harrison 1840. Rolling a giant ball from town to town, people sang a campaign song that began, “O, what has cause this great commotion, -motion, -motion, Our country through? It is the ball that’s rolling on for Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” As ardent Whigs rolled the ball through town, other men might join in the fun - and in the process, self-identify as Harrison voters. Today, we would call that “social networking.”

 

† Barack Obama and Franklin Pierce:

 

[Franklin] Pierce was a member of the Democratic Party. He was from New Hampshire, where he had worked his way up from the state legislature to the U.S. Senate. He sounds a bit like Barack: "youngish, erect, smiling, and convivial."

 

† Lincoln ... Or Buchanan?:

 

The popular narrative is that our new Abraham Lincoln - Barack Obama - has succeeded our bumbling James Buchanan - George W. Bush. Obama, the lawyer from Illinois, relatively inexperienced but with a savvy political sense, takes over from the man who made a mess of things - just as Lincoln took over from his inept predecessor, James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861. …

 

No one, least of all George W. Bush, would make the claim that Bush is another Abraham Lincoln. Nonetheless, is it not possible that we have things a little bit backwards, when we think of Obama as the new Lincoln? In fact, he may be our new Buchanan.

 

† “Lincoln At 200”:

 

No president has such a hold on our minds as Abraham Lincoln. He lived at the dawn of photography, and his busted-sod face makes a haunting picture. He was the best writer in all of American politics, and his words are even more powerful than his images. …

 

As we celebrate Lincoln's bicentennial, here are four aspects of him that made him successful and compelling, and that distinguish him from other presidents.

 

Ideologically, Lincoln was well prepared for the White House. His resume was slight - eight years in the Illinois legislature, two in the House of Representatives. But he spent the run-up to his presidency contending with one of the most important politicians in the country, Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, on the most important issue of the day - the extension of slavery. …

 

Barack Obama admires his fellow Illinois politician, but he had, by comparison, a frictionless ascent. Obama's only significant opponents in his 2004 Senate race were felled by scandal, and his nomination struggle with Hillary Clinton had only one issue, the war in Iraq, which vanished during the general election.

 

† “N.Y. Times Blogger Has Sexual Fantasy About President Obama”:

 

And now, 25 days in office, the 44th president is already being compared to Abraham Lincoln. Although in his years Lincoln faced a few things like Civil War and Obama so far has cheered for the Pittsburgh Steelers and watched some Cabinet nominees quit.

 

† “The Abraham Lincoln Analogy”:

 

Mark Salter, a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign against Mr. Obama, sees no real political harm in Mr. Obama’s claiming the Lincoln mantle and says that if Mr. McCain had been elected, he would probably claim it too.

 

But he is irked at cable television shows that he says get carried away with the analogies. He sees Lincoln as a rich, textured figure of Shakespearian proportions who had to make extraordinarily difficult decisions, and says few if any other presidents have risen to that level. He says the Lincoln atmospherics have no bearing on the success of Mr. Obama’s presidency.

 

“If he adopts a governing style like Lincoln’s, maybe it will improve the chances of his presidency succeeding,” Mr. Salter said. “But if the economy stays bad, it doesn’t matter if he grows a beard and puts on a top hat.”

 

† “Historical Breakthrough - Proof: Chester Arthur Concealed He Was A British Subject At Birth”:

 

Chester Arthur perpetrated a fraud as to his eligibility to be Vice President by spreading various lies about his parents’ heritage.  President Arthur’s father, William Arthur, became a United States citizen in August 1843.  But Chester Arthur was born in 1829.  Therefore, he was a British Citizen by descent, and a dual citizen at birth, if not his whole life. …

 

Chester Arthur’s lies came during his Vice Presidential campaign in 1880.  His fraudulent attempt to obfuscate family history provides context and evidence that in 1880 it was recognized that having been born as a British citizen would make one ineligible to be President or VP.

 

Chester Arthur - like Barack Obama Jr.  - was a British citizen at the time of his birth.  President Arthur’s Presidency must now be re-evaluated in light of the fact that he was not eligible to be President.  And his lies show he was aware it made him ineligible.

 

† “Edmund Morris's Misuse Of Teddy Roosevelt And History In The New York Times”:

 

The historian Edmund Morris has an op-ed in today's New York Times in which, by cherry-picking quotes from Teddy Roosevelt, he attempts to make the case that America's 26th president would support Barack Obama. …

 

In setting up his fictional interview, Morris claims Teddy's "statements below are drawn from the historic record and are uncut except when interrupted by his interviewer." Well, the statements are factually correct only inasmuch as Morris managed not to introduce typos when reproducing them. Contextually, however, they are grossly distorted, and, as a historian, Morris should be ashamed. …

 

[C]onsider this one from Morris, which supposedly shows Teddy's support for Obama's eloquence:

 

Q: You're not afraid that [Obama is] primarily a man of words? Like Woodrow Wilson, whom you once called a "Byzantine logothete"?

A. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in a democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly.

 

Under Morris's skillful editing, however, Teddy's views are rendered neither clearly nor convincingly. Here's how Roosevelt finished that thought in his 1910 speech in Paris: "Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand."

 

† “Obama's Not ‘New’”:

 

America first encountered the vision Obama espouses under Woodrow Wilson, the first progressive president and the first to openly disparage the U.S. Constitution as a hindrance to enlightened government. His new idea was to replace it with a “living constitution” that empowered government to evolve beyond that document’s constraints. The Bill of Rights, lamented the progressives, inhibited what the government can do to people, but it failed to delineate what it must do for people.

 

The old conception of individualism needed to be replaced by a new system in which the citizen would “marry his interests to the state,” in Wilson’s words. This would allow the state to fulfill the progressive pledge to “spread the prosperity around.” Obama shares Wilson’s faith in a living constitution and has argued that Supreme Court judges should be confirmed based on their empathy for the downtrodden.

 

† “Is Obama another Herbert Hoover?”:

 

With the U.S. economy teetering on the verge of collapse, presidential front-runner Barack Obama is proposing higher taxes, more government regulations and protectionism. His economic plan is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover on the eve of the Great Depression.

 

† “Turning lemons into lemonade?”:

 

The stimulus package is almost certainly an unwise public policy - as Obama looks to walk in Bush’s unimpressive economic footprints. Borrowing more money to finance current spending undermines the dollar and lowers confidence in the economy (for consumers and foreign investors). And since the proposal is political, it is sure to be larded with monies to benefit special interests at the expense of the general interest.

Even without those considerations, the stimulus is unlikely to be stimulative. Fiscal policy is notoriously slow. (Will it have its impact before the economy turns upward?) And it’s imprecise. (I love how they pretend to know how large it should be!)

In addition, history does not look favorably on this sort of thing. Beyond the failed attempts at stimulus over the last year or so, former presidents Herbert Hoover and then Franklin Roosevelt used public policies like this to help turn a severe recession into a decade-long depression.

 

† “The Obama Presidency: Here Comes Socialism”:

 

Obama will accomplish his agenda of "reform" under the rubric of "recovery." Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. …

 

In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) …

 

[I]n the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.

 

Obama's record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements. These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit -- indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible -- Obama will do them all rather quickly.

 

† “Can Israel make it alone?”:

 

In 1938 the West abandoned Czechoslovakia and Poland to Nazi aggression, signaling so much weakness that Hitler immediately grasped that he could now send his tanks against France and the rest of Europe.  At Yalta, in 1945, the United States and Britain abandoned Eastern Europe and half of Germany to Stalin's armies. China was left to Mao Zedong, who ended up killing an estimated 40 million of his own people in various utopian massacres. In 1975 we left Vietnam and Cambodia to the tender mercies of Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh, poster kids of the American Left. Several million dead people later, in 1979, Jimmy Carter abandoned Iran to Ayatollah Khomeini and his torturers, one of whom is now President of Iran. Later this year Iran may explode its first bomb. The Obama administration will stand by and smile. …

 

[O]ur record of standing by besieged allies is decidedly mixed, especially when Democrats take power. Barack Obama is no Harry S Truman. 

 

Israel's planners have to be thinking that with Obama and his crowd in power, the United States may simply pull out the rug from the democratic and modern state of Israel.

 

† “Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas”:

 

President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

 

Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury -  suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues. …

 

But the names racing through the ether in Washington about the choices to follow also suggest that Mr. Obama continues to place a premium on deep experience. He is widely reported to be considering asking Mr. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to stay on for a year; and he is thinking about Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant, for national security adviser, and placing Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary whom Mr. Obama considered putting back in his old post, inside the White House as a senior economic adviser. …

 

In some ways, the choices made so far are reminiscent of the way the last senator to be elected president, John F. Kennedy, chose a cabinet. As president-elect, Kennedy soon picked three top officials significantly more conservative than he was: Dean Rusk as secretary of state, Robert S. McNamara as secretary of defense and C. Douglas Dillon, a Republican, as secretary of the Treasury. They helped him navigate the Cuban missile crisis, but also got him bogged down in Vietnam.

 

† “Obama The Pragmatic Idealist”:

 

Some Obama supporters cling to their view of him as a saint. They need to get over that. Successful Democratic presidents have always sought a balance of idealism and practicality, and have always been criticized by their left wing for straying from perfection. Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton all proclaimed lofty goals and then cut deals.

 

† “Obama Assembles Powerful West Wing”:

 

President-elect Barack Obama is assembling a new and influential cadre of counselors just steps from the Oval Office whose power to direct domestic policy will rival, if not exceed, the authority of his Cabinet.

 

Presidents have long strived to centralize influence in the White House, often to the frustration of their Cabinet secretaries. But not since Richard M. Nixon tried to abolish the majority of his Cabinet has a president gone so far in attempting to build a West Wing-based clutch of advisers with a mandate to cut through - or leapfrog - the traditional bureaucracy.

 

† Chevy Chase, who (unfairly) immortalized Gerald Ford as a klutz in numerous “Saturday Night Live” sketches, should consider coming out of retirement and reprise his pratfall-laden act – but this time parodying Barack Obama, who in just a couple of weeks on the job has managed to bump his head boarding Marine One (video) and to walk into a White House window instead of the door. 

 

† “‘Jimmy Carter’ Tag Has Obama Wincing”:

 

Less than two weeks into his administration, President Barack Obama is being portrayed by opponents as a new Jimmy Carter - weak at home and naive abroad - in an attempt to dim his post-election glow and ensure that he serves only one term.

 

The charge has stung because it was made privately by Hillary Clinton supporters during a hard-fought primary campaign and plays to fears about Obama’s inexperience. …

 

“Barack Obama thinks he can charm his adversaries into changing their ways but his personality can’t change the dynamics,” said Tom Edmonds, a Republican consultant.

“Carter [president from 1977 to 1981] had the same belief in naive symbolism. Their styles are very different but the political similarities are there.”

 

† “Obama's Reagan Moment Is Now”:

 

In 1981, President Reagan took office against a backdrop of economic distress and public apprehension. In that crucible, he forged congressional majorities for a massive reduction in federal income-tax rates. That "supply-side" economic agenda, which only months earlier attracted little support beyond a vanguard of conservative legislators and theorists, reshaped federal priorities for decades.

 

Now President Obama has taken office against a backdrop of economic distress and public apprehension. In this crucible, he is advancing a massive increase in federal spending on programs from education to infrastructure. That "public investment" economic agenda, which has struggled for years to win support beyond a vanguard of liberal legislators and theorists, could reshape federal priorities for years. …

 

Almost all Democrats think that Reagan's tax-cutting revolution, especially as revived by President George W. Bush in 2001, failed to generate widely shared growth. Now they'll learn whether large-scale public investment can do better.  

Something In Common With:

 

† George Washington, James Madison, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter, share a common ancestor with Obama, Lawrence Washington, an English wool merchant born circa 1500.

 

† John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and George W. Bush are all Harvard alums.

 

† “Obama's Mother-in-Law to Move into the White House”:

 

President-elect Barack Obama's mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, is moving into the White House at least temporarily to join Michelle Obama and the two children, transition officials said Friday. …

 

Ulysses S. Grant's father-in-law, Richard Dent, stayed for several years. Harry S. Truman's mother-in-law, Madge Gates Wallace, lived there, too, and was critical of her son-in-law.

 

† “Obama: The Teacher President”:

 

Before Obama, three other constitutional-law professors have gone on to be elected president: William Howard Taft, who was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati Law School and, after leaving the presidency, taught at Yale Law School and then served as Chief Justice of the United States; Woodrow Wilson, who was a professor of jurisprudence and president of Princeton as well as the first lecturer in constitutional law at New York Law School; and Bill Clinton, who taught constitutional law at the University of Arkansas.

 

† “Ancient Lefties: The History of Obama's Handedness”:

 

From the Latin for left, "sinistra," southpaw Obama is another notch for the column of left-handed presidents, now totaling eight [Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton] — a proportion (out of all 43 men who have been POTUS) that is well above their representation in the total population, which hovers around 10 percent.

(Let's count James A. Garfield as a lefty, although some say he was ambidextrous and others say he was a lefty; many ambis are lefties who learn to do some tasks with their right hands.)

 

† “Obama 3rd American President To Retake Oath”:

 

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts again delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night in the White House Map Room, a day after the president took it in front of more than 1.5 million people on the steps of the Capitol in Washington. …

 

During Tuesday's inauguration ceremony, Roberts said: "that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully."

 

The correct wording is "that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States."

 

Obama joins Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge as U.S. presidents who have had to retake the oath of office because of unusual circumstances.

 

† “Will the Party of ‘No’ Help Democrats Extend their Dominance?”:

 

In terms of appearances, Obama has gone above and beyond to reach out to members of the Republican Party. Problem is, nobody’s reaching back. …

 

Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter all sought a nonpartisan image, reaching out to voters instead of party leaders. And, according to Skinner, who wrote an article about the topic in a recent issue of Political Science Quarterly, Eisenhower openly displayed apathy toward the GOP while Richard Nixon and Johnson actually distrusted their respective national party committees.

 

† “Obama Travel Has State, Regional And Global Economic Aspects”:

 

President Obama visited Capitol Hill to make his case. This is not unprecedented; Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Gerald Ford did the same. However, such a step is unusual in modern times. This did not move Republican legislators, save the three Senators who voted with the White House, but Obama's primary goal probably was communication of a conciliatory image to the public at large. …

 

On Thursday he visited Peoria, home of Caterpillar Tractor Co. Yellow-colored construction equipment made by this great company is visible around the globe. …

 

Peoria is also politically symbolic. “Will it play in Peoria?” was asked by Nixon White House staffers before major decisions.

 

† “The Abraham Lincoln Analogy”:

 

Barack Obama is not the first president to feel a kinship with Abraham Lincoln. Nixon made at least one midnight visit to the Lincoln Memorial for a talk with the great man’s statue. Teddy Roosevelt wore a ring that was made from a lock of Lincoln’s hair. Franklin Roosevelt hired Robert Sherwood, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his play, “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” as his speechwriter.

 

† Liberal women have dreamt about having sex with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as evidenced by the book “Dreams Of Bill: A Collection Of Funny, Strange And Downright Peculiar Dreams About Our President, Bill Clinton” (“The genesis of the book was [Julian] Anderson-Miller's dream that while she was working at her computer, the president appeared and began massaging her neck. The dream felt so real … she could recall the sea-breeze scent of his after-shave - she was convinced others must be dreaming of Bill too.”) and the column “Sometimes A President Is Just A President” (“The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs … Many women - not too surprisingly - were dreaming about sex with the president.”

 

† “Bipartisanship Isn’t So Easy, Obama Sees”:

 

Mr. Obama is the third president in a row to arrive in Washington promising to work across the aisle, only to trip over it instead. Bill Clinton’s economic plan in 1993 passed without a single Republican vote, setting the tone for years of partisan warfare. George W. Bush vowed to change the tone, but his disputed election in 2000 engendered deep bitterness, and though he won some Democratic support on some of his early initiatives, he quickly found himself facing intense opposition.

 

Editorial Note: As far as The Stiletto can tell, Obama has not yet been compared or connected to James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Warren G. Harding. If any reader knows different, please let The Stiletto know (include a link to your source) and she will post an addendum.

 

BTW: During the campaign, Obama was likened to Kennedy more than a few times. As the MSM learned of his (bordering on weird) fascination with Lincoln, “journalists” and columnists sucked up by churning out article after article about on how he was another Lincoln. Now, after people have had the chance to see him in action, the president Obama is compared to most often is Carter. Still, there are worse things: More than one conservative blogger has also compared Obama to several totalitarian and fascistic dictators (click here and here).

 

 

By Their Words You Shall Know Them: Part IV

 

The New Criterion co-editor and publisher Roger Kimball notes, “In the immediate aftermath of November's election, conservatives were called upon to change the way they did business” – which he took to mean “to become more like "liberals," i.e., more like people who want to curtail freedom in order to "spread the wealth around" and promote socialistic programs like nationalized health care.” The road back to relevance, Repubs are told, is to “abandon their hero worship of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, we heard, was yesterday's man. Republicans needed tomorrow's leader,” but Kimaball argues that “The real problem for conservatives today is not their nostalgic admiration of Reagan, but their distance from Reagan's moral clarity.”  

 

This video by blogger Texas Rainmaker (Kimball transcribes a good bit of it in his commentary) that juxtaposes quotes from Ronald Reagan and from Barack Obama that illustrate the timelessness of the 40^th President’s moral clarity:

President’s Day Bonus

† Bet you didn’t know that every president since Millard Fillmore in 1850 has received a free pair of handmade shoes from Johnston & Murphy Co. of Nashville, TN, as an inaugural gift. Check out this compendium of presidential trivia to find out more interesting stuff.

 

† And here is a collection of New York Times op-eds written by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

 

† Finally, The United States Mint is issuing four new penny designs in honor of bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent. Every three months throughout 2009 another of the four designs will be put into circulation. The front of the penny remains the same, but the reverse depict four phases of Lincoln's life:

 

‡ Birth and early childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816)

‡ Formative years in Indiana (1816-1830)

‡ Professional Life in Illinois (1830-1861)

‡ Presidency in Washington, DC (1861-1865)