In the decades immediately after his death in 1923, President Warren G. Harding experienced what may be called the opposite of an image rehabilitation. For most presidents, death brings with it a certain eulogizing tendency to gloss over their flaws, at least initially. In the case of Harding's untimely death, the public instead became fixated on his scandals. Suddenly, the two-and-a-half years of his presidency faded into the background, even though these included historic events like keeping America out of the League of Nations, imposing stringent new anti-immigration policies and granting clemency to the imprisoned anti-war socialist Eugene Debs.
Regardless of one's political stance, these accomplishments are probably more relevant to Harding's legacy than the fact that he cheated on his wife. Yet it is that last detail — along with a series of corruption scandals involving members of Harding's cabinet, but in which Harding was not involved (and to which he never had time in his own life to respond) — that wound up shaping the man's reputation after his untimely death of a heart attack at the age of 57.
