The final episode examines presidential leadership in an era of an increasingly divided government. The American presidency was conceived as one part of a larger system of institutions, and its effectiveness rests in part upon a good measure of cooperation among the branches. The presidents arrayed in this episode (James Madison, James Polk, William Howard Taft, Bill Clinton) suggest four different conceptions of governance within a constitutionally structured balancing act.
Walter Cronkite
George Washington
Morley Safer
John Adams
Andrew Young
Thomas Jefferson
George Will
John Quincy Adams
James Carville
Andrew Jackson
Mario Cuomo
Martin Van Buren
Charlie Rose
John Tyler
David Gergen
James Buchanan
Norman Schwarzkopf
Ulysses S. Grant
Billy Graham
James Garfield
Lowell Weicker
Grover Cleveland
William F. Buckley Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt
Colin Powell
William H. Taft
Bob Dole
Herbert Hoover
Jimmy Carter
Self
George H. W. Bush
Self
Bill Clinton
Self