Ballad of the Presidents: Kennedy to Carter

Kennedy stumbled first out of the blocks
By heeding advice of the Washington hawks
Giving approval to covert invasion 
Compounding folly with dissimulation 

A second nail-biter soon tested him further 
When missiles in Cuba his spy planes discovered
To Khrushchev he sent a severe ultimatum 
Withdraw all the missiles or face devastation

Death is a tragedy, killing a crime
Worst are the ones that come long before time 
He started quite shaky, got better, and then
Left everyone asking, “What might there have been?”

Southerner, Westerner, Texan clean through
Johnson soon did what no others could do
Cajoling the Congress to bend to his will
He banished Jim Crow with a civil rights bill

On home front alone Johnson might have been great
Winning reforms at times early and late
Yet a faraway war drew him deeper and deeper
The path to success growing steeper and steeper

Dick Nixon did make a most flummoxing jaunt
To China and Moscow en route to detente
It almost appeared that the Cold War had ended
With Yankees and Russkies quite nearly befriended

The Greeks called it hubris and others mere pride
But something drove Nixon from deep down inside
To crave more than much, to insist on it all
And thereby produce his own Watergate fall

Ford was a good guy, a Washington mensch
The kind of sound soldier you'd want in your trench
Sincerely gave Nixon a pardon’s protection
And paid with a loss in ensuing election

A prez who appears to be acting too godly 
Will pay for his virtue, undoubtedly oddly
Carter in Plains was a Sunday school teacher
Washington mocked him for playing the preacher