>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
nebuli: Personally, I think that Polk was one of our greater presidents. Kicked Mexican ass over Texas and California (and keep in mind that most European assesments of the war expected the Mexican professional, European-style army to massacre the rag-tag volunteer American army), accomplished nearly all of the goals of his platform, and retired after a single term. Not bad at all.
Narile: What kind of accomplishments did Eisenhower have? Part of the reason I consider him a ‘quiet’ President is, apart from the Interstate Highway Act, I can’t think of much he accomplished. Ike had to be nearly dragged screaming into dealing with the Little Rock situation, felt that the fuss over Sputnik would blow over in a few weeks, sat back and twiddled thumbs when the Soviets re-invaded Hungary.
Actually, there is one other thing I can think of that Ike did pro-actively: when the people of Vietnam honestly elected Ho Chi Mihn as President, Ike and John Dulles stepped in and forced the country to be divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam so that the Communist Mihn wouldn’t take over the whole country. Thank God Ike did that; stopping Communism without a single repercussion like a fruitless eight-year war. Good man.
Excuse me for a minute, if you would- I need to go wipe some of that sarcasm off of my shirt.
JMCJ
Die, Prentiss, Die! You will never have a more glorious opportunity!
Alright! Now we have some real postings! Maybe that will get us past that VP thread! <lol>
Adressing commentary to my post in some sort of coherent order, saving FDR to the last:
By this measure, I maintain that LBJ is a ‘Bland.’ He was president solely by virtue of being VP for Kennedy. He did little in office but shephard through the policies already initiated by the party under Kennedy. He muddled through the growing Vietnam crisis. He was a party policrat who managed to end up in the wrong forum at the wrong time, and managed to get us from 1963 to 1969 without too much damage or distinction. We may remember more of what he did, but only because most of it happened during our lifetimes. For the same reason, I suspect in the long run Reagan will be considered Bland by this definition.
Jefferson was a very good president, much better than Washington was. To Washington we owe mainly the fact that the system works. But Jefferson was the one who managed to show how it could be made to work WELL. His purchase of the Louisiana Territory established that the government could expand the nation (unlike Polk, who merely grabbed land that fell into our hands with little work). He managed to keep us out of the Napoleanic wars for quite a while, no mean feat given that France and Britain had used our Revolutionary War to fight their own battles. His term saw the end of importation of slaves. He managed to win our first foreign war (the shores of Tripoli). In short, he was the first ‘strong’ president, managing almost single-handedly to establish that the President of the United States was no simple paper pusher or bill payer.
Eisenhower was a waste of time. In a period that needed strong leadership, he caretook the executive branch, allowing that idiot in Congress, McCarthy, to carry out a witch-hunt, failing to respond in any forceful way to the rape of Hungary in 1956, and initiating not one single major administrative or legislative effort regarding the nation’s social needs. His sole accomplishments were the nomination of Earl Warren to the Supreme Court (and had he known what his friend intended as Chief Justice, you can bet he never would have done so), and the support of federal Constitutional law with federal troops in Arkansas (ok, significant, but frankly expected). Kennedy in 2 and a half years WAY outdid him.
I will address FDR in a different post.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
FDR initiated and oversaw the biggest change in American politics since the election of the Republicans to the White House in 1860. From 1808 through 1932, virtually all presidents subscribed to some form of hands-off politics regarding economics. Don’t get me wrong, economics was often at the heart of presidential elections (e.g.: ‘free silver!’). But all of the administrations basically let private industry progress as it would without federalizing economic legislation and oversight (anti-trust acts aside).
Roosevelt changed all that, a change that still exists today. Roosevelt established that the federal government had a duty to regulate the national economy, and, by extension, its social programs. This fundamental change led to the conflict that almost forced a change in the composition of the Supreme Court, so important it was to FDR. Social Security, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, the NLRB, etc. all owe themselves to FDR. Washington is now the main source for economic regulation, and exercises this power constantly. To FDR we can give thanks for a national speed limit that long outlived whatever usefulness it had, energy conservation legislation that makes it illegal to sell a toilet that uses more than a certain amount of water to flush, and many other such federal intrusions into our daily lives.
I maintain that FDR’s shift in how the federal government works is central to our growing national lack of personal responsibility. Prior to 1932, Washington was rarely the source of a remedy for social ills. Now, we look straight to our congressman or president whenever something bothers us. Not smart enough on our own to invest our money wisely? Get Washington to make it so we can’t do so unwisely. Can’t buckle our own seat belts because we are too lazy? Get Washington to make the states make us do so. Tired of airlines that treat us badly? Get Washington to pass regulations making them treat us well. Sick of drug dealers on our streets cause as a community we won’t pay enough for the needed police to properly patrol the area, and won’t do anything on our own to keep our neighborhood from being run down? Go to Washington and get a grant, and engage in a war on drugs. Planted the wrong crops this year and now the price isn’t enough to pay for them? Go get Washington to dole out money.
Now, I am not saying that this is wrong. I AM saying that it is a totally different way of governing our country, and is almost totally due to the 13 years that FDR ran the country. If you think that a strong central government is a good idea, then FDR is your hero. If you think that a strong central government upsets the balance established in 1787, then FDR is anathema. You can’t consider his efforts to have been positive unless you like his results. 
DSYoungEsq: I have to take exception to you regarding a few of your statements.
First: Johnson’s first term was acheived solely as a result of being Kennedy’s vice-president. If you wish to extrapolate that Johnson won the Presidency in 1964 as a result of incumbency and, ergo, it was Kennedy’s death that directly put Johnson in the presidency from 1963 through 1969, I can understand that. But you imply that Johnson had no intention or ability to seek the presidency on his own; in fact, Johnson was Kennedy’s main competetor for the 1960 nomination, and had Johnson not underestimated the importance of the primary contest in the coming convention, very well might have been the Presidential nominee.
Second: As for shepherding Kennedy’s programs through Congress: the only major program Johnson passed through Congress that had been associated with Kennedy was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nearly every other major program was part of Johnson’s “Great Society”, which he initiated. And as for the Civil Rights Act- Kennedy may have proposed it or something like it several times before, but it was not until Johnson (a master of PR and of wrangling the Senate) took over that the bill even had a chance to pass.
I respectfully request you move LBJ into the “Idealist” catagory.
I believe a great deal of it is; but credit needs to be given where credit is due. The populist reformers of the early 20th century- Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and to a lesser extent, William Taft- paved the way by busting up trusts and monopoloies, enacting and enforcing legislation regarding standardizing work weeks and outlawing child labor, and creating government agencies to regulate businesses (such as the FDA). FDR may have taken the ball for a touchdown, but it was TR and Wilson who started the run.
JMCJ
Die, Prentiss, Die! You will never have a more glorious opportunity!
I think the best presidents are those who do the elast harm. As another poster pointed out, JFK remains immensely popular, yet he launched the US into a disastrous war in vietnam, and turned the presidency into an “Imperial” office. But because he was young and handsome, people attach much more to him than the record warrants. Eisenhower was one of the best presidents-he was extremely cautious, and di not go in for expensive things like the space program, etc.
Writing in America at the end of 1999, I think the results speak for themselves. In the post-Roosevelt era, we’ve done rather well. It’s hard to see that this would be that much better a country if we’d had Hoover stay in office for sixteen years instead of four, and it could have been a damned sight worse.
Thanks, John, for addressing LBJ for me. While LBJ’s personality wasn’t bland (by any stretch of the imagination), I had in mind his activism as President, which you made an even stronger case for than I could have.
Similarly with Reagan. Along with LBJ, he didn’t exactly get into office to sit around and do nothing. (OK, he took more than a few naps, but his people were busy carrying out the program while he slept.) I don’t think highly of his presidency, but that’s my opinion. There’s no disputing that the Reagan administration was an activist administration. Mammoth tax cuts for the rich, reversals of course on environmental protection and use of federal lands, gargantuan deficits, and, most significantly, the bringing of an anti-government philosophy from the political periphery to the mainstream. Good for the country? We can argue that down the decades. But bland? I don’t think there’s a case.
I obviously disagree with regards to Eisenhower. Much of his presidency was spent trying to keep the arms race from getting out of hand as it did under Kennedy and LBJ.
W/Regards to Sputnik, if you read much on the history of the space race, it comes out that the Van Braun(sp) had wanted to put a package into orbit six months earlier, but was told to lessen the high of the arc because Ike didn’t want to cause a confrontation with the USSR at the time amongst other things.
It should be pointed out that McCarthy started in Trumans term. But if you read Ike’s memoires, you would find that he admitted that he made a blunder with McCarthy in thinking he would self destruct earlier than he did, Truman obviously made the same mistake. (Truman was also one of the great presidents, but was also human.)
With vietnam, the cutting of the country in half was a preferred response to the invasion that the French were pressing for. Oh, and in asking many of my vietnamese co-workers…most don’t feel Mihn was exactly honestly elected…most of the presidents of vietnam weren’t, he just managed the corruption a bit better.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
To me the trouble with the question is that every good president even GREAT president did some bonedheaded things while in office. In some sense the GREAT FOUR on Mt. Rushmore made some mistakes. As a Native American I have always found it insulting that they carved the STUPID thing where they did. We as Native Americans believe it was done as a slap in our face to show us that the White Man had conquered us. Notice that it stands where the Sioux could look at it approx. 80 miles from where the White Man slaughtered us at Wounded Knee! The project was started about 35 years after the slaughter jsut so we would forget. Would the Four Greats wanted it carved there? I have no idea. Each of those men accomplished great things with the help of others during (and sometimes before) his Presidency.
I think that the question of greatness regarding the Presidency is fraught with error in any event due to the fact that it seems to attract men (and women) who hunger for power. Not that the hunger for power in itself is a bad thing, it could be a hunger of the power to do good. Most of the time I think it is for self aggrandizement more than anything.
Our current President tried to restore the legality of our using peyote with his support of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT OF 1993 and AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1994.
Even very unpopular Presidents like Nixon did things like running the country in the black, a feat none have performed since he was “runout of town”.
FDR gave took us off the Gold Standard which in my mind was a short term fix for something that required a long term solution.
Which Great Father was Great? I find it hard to answer.
My personal favorites are John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Ross
Sorry I accidently hit send before I was done.
Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman.
Just an opinion from a Native, that’s all.
Yours,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Actually, Nixon only managed that feat in 1969; his deficits far outweighed his lone surplus.
In that category, he has been far outperformed by Clinton, who took office when $200+ billion dollar deficits had become the norm (thanks to the guy who was almost as good a politician as he was an actor), and looked like a permanent fact of life on the American scene - yet managed to turn that all around in just a few years.
I’m not a big Clinton fan, but you’ve got to give him credit for this. Sure, circumstances were good, but times were almost as good in 1983-89 as in 1993-99, so it’s hard to argue that his predecessors couldn’t have made similar choices. But, due to differences in political philosophy, they didn’t.
I don’t know if he was the “best” president, but James K. Polk was certainly the most “successful”. He fulfilled every campaign promise he made in just one term. I don’t think any other president can boast that.
PS-Just to clear up something said earlier: Monroe did NOT author the Monroe doctrine. His Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams did. JQA, like his father, can be added to a long list of presidents who are best remembered for their accomplishments before they took office: T Jefferson, WH Harrison, Z. Taylor, US Grant, H Hoover, DD Eisenhower.
RTFirefly: Yes it is true that Nixon only managed it once, loan surpluses notwithstanding, yet my point was that he did do it once and no president since has done it.
I’m not a Clinton fan myself yet I have to acknowledge the good things he did. As far as his lightening the budget, yes he did that, and he did it without loan surpluses. He accomplished it by placing a tax burden on the American people that was the largest in the United States history. I think I’d take loan surpluses for a 100 Alex. It’s just my opinion but I think that the tax increase gave us the first Republican Congress in 50 years. I know in my district the incumbent was beat because of the tax increase and because it was rumoured that he was of a different sexual orientation. I knew him well when he was in ofice and had many meetings with him because I was in office myself at the time. He was a freshman too I might add and I think THAT had as much to do with it.
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Phaedrus - what exactly did Nixon do that Clinton didn’t? I’m puzzled.
If you mean a one-year surplus, Clinton has Nixon beat; he’s got two of those now. If you mean running a budget surplus for the length of his administration, neither managed that trick; not sure who’s the last President that did.
With respect to Clinton’s tax increase (you’re correct, that’s what balanced the budget), that affected only the very high income brackets. Down along the VA/TN border, where I was in 93-94, it was a nonissue; not enough rich people down there to get riled about it.
In '94, the 900-lb. gorilla with respect to political issues was health care. It seemed at the time like the HMOs and health insurers (plus Limbaugh et al, who had more influence then) being able to tar Clinton as the guy who’d drown you in red tape before you could see any doctor, let alone your own, was what took the '94 elections down the tubes. That, a low turnout, and an extremely well-organized effort by the Christian Coalition.
If I recall correctly, the only president to have managed to eliminate the national debt during his term in office was Old Hickory. Likely that means he never ran a deficit.
Now all of you can run to the web and check. 
RTFirefly: You have some good points during the first three paragraphs of your last post. I would have to agree. But the last paragraph is just your opinion. I know you probably have good reasons for holding to it as I have for mine. I was in political office in 1994 and was privy to things in gov’t others weren’t aware of. To me your opinion sounds like the rehashing of the events from some newscasters and political analysists that I have heard before. I am NOT saying that my opinion is more valid than yours. I am just saying that from my vantage point it is different. Viva la Difference! Thanks for your insight.
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Given that the question of what political issues were significant, and what issues weren’t, is ultimately a matter of what made a difference to the voters when they went to the polls (or didn’t) in that election, I don’t see how behind-the-scenes-in-gov’t stuff might add to your insight here. Now, behind-the-scenes stuff in the in-depth polling business might well constitute significant evidence.
Like many off-year elections, turnout (and the reasons for it) was the main story of the 1994 election. Who voted on which side was less of a surprise than the relative turnout numbers. Why did so many potential Democratic voters stay at home? Why did the Limaughistas and the people who read the CC’s voter guides show up in such numbers?
Given its effect on both the Christian Coalition people and the Limbaugh audience, I’d have to say the gays-in-the-military flap from Clinton’s opening weeks in office had more effect on the '94 election than his tax increase. But health care was there, right in the middle of things. The potentially affected industries ran serious ad campaigns that moved the public significantly on the issue, and did it by framing it as a ‘big govt v. ordinary people’ issue.
I was teaching at a conservative Christian college in central Appalachia in 1994. I got to see the fire and intensity of my students on this one - many of those kids never cared, and will never care, about an election as passionately as they did about 1994. I didn’t need the help of analysts to see that, or to read the letters to the editor at the local paper, which pretty much printed everything it got. I don’t watch much TV, so I miss a lot of the analysis. But why the side that turned out, turned out - I think I saw that with my own eyes.
RTFirefly: Well, for one thing I knew some of the candidates personally and knew what THEY considered to be their biggest obstacles. Our congressman, Eric Fingerhut, was a Jewish Freshman and a bachelor. When the tax increase came up he didn’t “Rush” (pardon the pun) to Clinton’s aid. He received many phone calls from Clinton himself trying to strong arm Eric into voting for it. I see nothing wrong with that per se, but Eric didn’t tell me what kind of “deal” Clinton was trying to strike. There are ALWAYS deals, I know, I was offered many, one of the reasons I left office, for I decided to withdraw in the middle of my second campaign for office. Eric did not regret his decision, he made it thoughtfully and in the end thought it was the best thing for the American people as a whole, his District felt otherwise.
In the end Eric succumbed, something he placed at the top of the list as to why he wasn’t re-elected. Maybe his ideas about why we (Democrats)lost were erroneous, maybe he was wrong and so am I, somehow I don’t think so. Inside the party, the Democratic candidates that I knew blamed two things as a rule. One, Limbaugh, two the tax increase. Eric blamed the tax increase and his lack of experience.
A note on Eric Fingerhut: I knew him personally and liked him. He had a district that stretched from the heart of Cleveland to the boondocks where I live (60 miles away). Eric came to visit us more than any other congressman in my memory. He felt deeply about the issues and was a good person. Yet, at the end, my county turned against him, they thought he was gay and he voted for the tax increase and that was enough for them. My county is heavily Democrat so their shift was a significant one.
The Democrats stayed home because that is what they always do. It’s in the stats, man, the stats. Repubicans (deliberately mispelled)always vote more consistently. The best voter group for always voting are blue-haired Republican little old ladies. It is a demographic paradigm that has been unshakable for quite some time.
By the time 94 came around, gays in the military was a dead issue to most, true some Christian Coalition people would remember it, but the American people have the attention span of a gnat. The ONLY thing they remember is what DIRECTLY affects them, beyond that, they simply (as a rule) don’t care. It’s the economy, stupid (read money in MY pocketbook).
I am sure that Health care was an issue like you said. But if I were to list the things that were important in deciding I list list them like this:
the tax increase (this was the single most important thing as the Democrats ran from the President and tried their level best to disassociate themselves from Clinton because of his tax increase among many other topics)
Health care ( again Americans looking out for themselves and their own best interest)
Limbaughistas (Rush was/is VERY powerful on the American political scene) Bush actually showed up on his show when he was in New York
Ignorance ( the American voter is ill-informed and for the most part uninvolved)
Some Democrats would blame anything or anyone rather than face their own failings. I knew some people who thought Rush was solely responsible. He was a factor, no doubt, but the American people make up their minds with their pocketbook. End of story.
Perhaps the fact that I was on the inside has colored my thinking, perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps your situation colored your thinking, perhaps you are wrong, I can’t say with certainty. I do know though that your reasons and your reasoning was a part of the “spin doctors” story as to why we lost.
A note on William Jefferson Clinton: I was a campaign chairman for him in 1992. I believed as many did that JFK had reincarnated. I have never been so disappointed politically in my life with one exception, January 21st 1969, I believe. Richard Milhous Nixon took office and I was incensed! Yet, Nixon ran the country in the black and got us out of Vietnam, two things that to me are very important.
“The Democratic Party has blood on its’ hands.” Jerry Rubin
I was/am sorely disappointed with Clinton, it was his Presidency and my own dealings with the Democratic Party that caused me to leave it, forever. I was not the only one. In our city, in 1993 or 4, I can’t remember which, the Republican Party increased 110% in membership after the tax increase. I wasn’t alone.
Maybe I had Clinton on too high of a pedestal, I dunno. But his actions while in office were just a tad below JFK’s in my book.
Good posts RTFirefly!
Yours,
Phaedrus
For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
It is impossible to measure the achievments of presidents so recently in office as Clinton, Bush and Reagan against the results of presidents prior to them. Indeed, we only now are seeing the total result from the change in our governmental institutions instituted by FDR. Thus, for now, I think we have to reserve judgement about Reagan, Bush and Clinton as to how ‘good’ they were as presidents.
DSYoungEsq: You have brought up a good point, however, I feel that though we may not know the full impact a particular presidency has on our gov’t and way of life I still think that some things can be pointed to. People will always “Rush” to judgement, it is their nature.