Paul Johnson said, back in the 1990s, that Warren G. Harding and his era should be rehabilitated by historians (along with the rest of the 1920s). Calvin Coolidge has already received this rehab treatment, at least among conservative intelligentsia, but Harding has not. Maybe because Coolidge never had the taint of scandal (even I learned about Teapot Dome in K-12) and adultery (the DNA proving he fathered Nan Britton's child means her book must all be true, right?). In this book, historian Ryan S. Walters makes a step-by-step and roughly chronological attempt to rehabilitate Harding. Was he dumb? No. A louche? No. Picked in a "smoke-filled room"? No. A do-nothing president? No. Corrupt? No. Were his policies ignorant and bad for the country? No. I was particularly heartened to reads his evidence for taking down Nan Britton's scandalous book (pp. 183-184). Yes, he may have fathered her child in a tryst, but he wasn't gadding about in the Oval Office. A good book and an amuse-bouche to the much-hoped-for biography by the Radoshes. Think of the upcoming Radosh biography like Shlaes's bio of Coolidge, and this book by Walters like Why Coolidge Matters by Johnson. A must for any thinking conservative with a historical bent. ( )