THE last year or so has not been kind to Warren G. Harding, who was the 29th president, from 1921 to 1923. Last summer the Library of Congress released his steamy love letters to his neighbor Carrie Phillips. More recently, some of Hardingâ??s descendants had their DNA tested, to see if there was any truth to the claim of Nan Britton, the author of the tell-all book â??The Presidentâ??s Daughter,â? that she had borne Hardingâ??s child. They released the results last month. It turns out she had.
Hardingâ??s reputation wasnâ??t doing well to begin with. From the first poll of historians ranking the presidents, conducted in 1948 by Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., to the most recent one in 2015, Harding has always come in either at the very bottom of the list, or one above James Buchanan, thanks in large part to the scandals that rocked his administration, which tarnished his reputation even though he had nothing to do with them.
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