8 Stunning Photographs of Presidents Before and After Their Term in Office

Many would give anything to become President. It is the highest office in our nation and a role highly regarded around the world. But being President is no easy task and can really wear on the person who is in the position. Here are eight stunning photographs of presidents before and after their term in office. You can see from the images that they have suffered a noticeable physical deterioration, most likely as a result of their high pressure role. Apparently, being President is not easy; they are always stressed, they deal with a lot of pressure and endure many economic and social problems for an entire nation. Look at the accelerated rate in which these men have aged.

A recent study has shown that stress shortens a person's life span. After looking at these images and their high-pressure positions, you may not be the first person raising your hand to take on this role.

George W. Bush

Wikicommons

George W. Bush held presidential office from January 20th, 2001 until January 20th, 2009.

In March 1999, George Bush took the final step and announced his candidacy for President of the Republican Party and won the primaries against John McCain. During the campaign, Bush was not able to hide his faults, and his alcoholism and his lack of knowledge related to international politics came out. He was able to correct this with his cordial but direct mannerism and convincing idealism associated with the conservative politics and defended traditions, religious values and nationalism; also known as “compassionate conservatism”.

Although the manual counting of votes and the democratic claims, the Supreme Court voted in favor of Bush on December 13th.

The suicide attacks of September 11th, 2001 attributed to Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden, placed George Bush before the first important international crisis of the century.

On December 2003, Bush announced the arrest of Saddam Hussein, which compensated the political damage suffered before public opinion.

Barack Obama

Wikicommons

In 2007, Barack Obama took his major step toward the presidency of the United States and presented his candidacy during the primaries of the Democratic Party. His rival was senator Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, who showed favorably in the polls. The campaign was tight until the end when Obama won with 1,952 delegates before 1,770 of his adversary.

On June 3rd, 2008, he was nominated as the democratic candidate for President of the United States. Republican John McCain was his rival. During the campaign, McCain tried to mark a distance between his predecessor, but his speech turned out erratic and unconvincing. However, Obama's message of renewal and hope won the hearts of the electorate as he increased his advantage before McCain in the polls, winning the elections on November 4th with 64.9% of the votes, a landslide victory.

Ronald Reagan

Wikicommons

The economic achievements of Ronald Reagan's presidency were very important. In January 1981, when he took office, the economy of the United States suffered greatly, including low growth, high inflation; the increase of unemployment and the highest interest rates in the country's history. The economists predicted that it would take several decades for these problems to improve and the political cost would be impossible to achieve in a democracy. However, before taking office in 1988, Reagan was capable of reversing all the inherited problems, placing the USA in a road toward a strengthened economy without inflation.

Reagan never wavered off his mission toward ending inflation, even during the darkest days of the 1982 recession, when the Republican Party was declining precipitously, Reagan stood firm convinced of the outcome and because there was so much at stake.

Other less visible successes of Reagan also made a difference. Along with Margaret Thatcher, he restored the idea that individuals and private companies are the real source of prosperity, not the government. For many, Reagan was a great leader who changed positively the course of history.

Abraham Lincoln

Wikicommons

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most beloved and respected presidents. He maintained the American Union and abolished slavery before he was assassinated. What many don’t know about President Lincoln is that he suffered from depression all his life, including his time in the White House when he faced the death of this son William. His son Edward had died previously at the age of three. He is known as an honest man and the same can be said of his wife Mary Todd, who was accused of spending too much as First Lady and of trying to hide her spending in an unethical manner. He was also a great speaker, a result of his education as a lawyer. He was famous for telling stories, metaphors and known to call the attention of many.

Lyndon Johnson

Wikicommons

After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Lyndon Johnson became president automatically, the same way that Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln in 1865. In 1964 he was re-elected by a large margin. Johnson further developed Kennedy's reforms, launching a program for The Great Society: He abolished the last racial discriminations; he extended the Public Sanitary Aid and adopted measures in favor of the poor.

He maintained an aggressive interventionism in Foreign Policy that started with the invasion of Santo Domingo (1965) and deeply compromised the United States in the Vietnam War (1965). A war that would cost the country many years. Aware of this failure, Lyndon stepped down from re-election in 1968.

Bill Clinton

Wikicommons

In 1992 he was nominated by his party as presidential candidate against Republican George Bush; during the electoral campaign he linked his image to the memory of assassinated president John F. Kennedy. He was also young, had good public speaking skills, had a great education, friendly mannerism filled with energy and a confusing program of “change” capable of securing votes.

After winning the presidential elections in 1993, he counted on two brilliant partners both during his campaign and during his term in office, Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Hillary Clinton. She was in charge of developing the star program and the implementation of a national health system. However, she was not able to put it into practice due to the growing opposition from the conservatives even after obtaining the majority of the republican votes in both electoral legislations in 1994.

Both the social benefits budget cut and the Cuban blockade (1966) changed his conservative politics. He found, however, a way to regain popularity overcoming a number of personal accusations. He was re-elected a second term in office in 1996 but the accusations of sexual harassment from the extreme right wing continued throughout his presidency.

George Herbert Walker Bush

During his first term in office he recuperated the savings and loans system and his fought against illegal drugs in the United States. He offered economic help to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland and encouraged the unification of East and West Germany. He met with Mikhail Gorbachov, president of the Soviet Union in December 1989 in Malta, where they agreed to limit conventional forces in Europe; he negotiated the end of chemical weapon production and long-range missiles by 50 percent. The following month he sent troops to Panama in order to overthrow the government of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, accused of drug trafficking.

Bush and the U.S. Congress were involved in the prolonged dispute over the amount of the federal budget in 1990. At the end he retracted his request about not applying any more taxes and he signed a bill on deficit reduction in order to stop growth spending, which increased taxes.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, a concentration on arms began in Saudi Arabia, which would be the beginning of the Gulf War. It started with five weeks of aerial bombardment before the attack on the ground of a multinational UN force that brought the Iraqi army from Kuwait in less than 100 hours. His popularity increased after the victory and held steady.

Bill Clinton defeated him during the next general elections. During his last weeks in office, he sent troops to establish order and distribute food in Somalia.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Wikicommons

During the 1912 presidential elections he won by a landslide.

During his two terms as president (1913-1921) he carried out the New Liberty program and reorganized the banking system of the United States with the creation of a central bank (the Federal Reserve in 1913). He developed a progressive federal tax on personal income, introduced the direct elections, used the power of State in order to fight against monopolies and tried to stop alcohol prohibition.

But it was in foreign policy where he had to face the biggest challenges. Before the attacks in the southwestern United States by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, he sent a military expedition to Mexico in 1916, but he failed to regain it.

In 1918, President Wilson formulated a program of fourteen points that would inspire peace treaties and post-war order marked by the revenge and territorial ambitions of the victors.

Disappointed by the commitments, he was forced to accept the return of the United States without the creation of the League of Nations.

At that time, the republican opposition obtained a majority in Congress and the disapproval of Wilson's politics.

Wilson launched a campaign in order to win over public opinion but a collapse distanced him from political activity leaving him crippled for the rest of his term. In 1919 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.