***Just walk away, Rummy . . . ***
That reminds me of what Bob Dole said at some event awhile back where all the then-living ex-Presidents were together. He pointed out Carter, Ford, and Nixon together, and wisecracked, “See no evil, hear no evil, and evil.”
Dole said that? Shit, can we make him President? And his wife VP?
Or even vice versa. I don’t care. Just please can we get somebody up there with a working organ inside his skull?
Dole… working organ… somebody has to come right out and reference the Viagra joke and it might as well be me.
That said, I’m on board with Bush Sr. at the bottom of the list of Evil. I remember thinking at the time that as either an active participant in Iran-Contra, a willfully blind bystander or an incompetent who ought to have known about it he wasn’t Presidential material, but age, increasing cynicism and exposure to how organizations actually work have lowered my thresholds.
I’d put Nixon in third spot. He was, as far as I can tell, the most out front and deliberately evil of the pack, but from a distant perspective (I think somebody once said something about a third rate burglary…) it all seems so small-time. I’ve grown up well after anybody was expected to have any faith in a government to lose in the first place. That alone might qualify him for first place, but not, IMHO, if you consider it from an historical perspective.
Dubya and Reagan I really have trouble with. Part of it is, of course, that the recent seems important. Ask a hundred people at random to name the most important written fiction of the last millennium and it’s going to be pretty light on the first five centuries.
They both seem, not to put too fine a point on it, stupid. With Reagan I could at least believe that it was a stupidity with a certain shine, unalloyed by base motives and propelled by an ideology that, however much it might grind your face into the dust at least didn’t discount the idea that you could get back up. Indeed, I suspect that Reagan did believe, in his heart, that any one of those schoolchildren who were getting ketchup as a vegetable could one day have his job if they just worked hard enough. He shaped events around him.
Dubya, on the other hand, doesn’t even seem to be really there. He is the President 2.0 interface for his handlers, through which they interact with the world.
At which point I will Godwinize myself as a means of argumentum ad absurdum, for those who actually plowed through the above. Yes, both of you.
The last century saw enough of charismatic madmen, but it also gave rise to the phrase “the banality of evil”. I have a hard time picking between them.
Seriously? Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever laughed at a Bob Dole joke, then. 
That’s just what I was thinking. He even used the same words…wierd.
RTF, that’s one of my favorite political apocryphal stories ever! (And yes, I was thinking of that story when I did the ™ thing.)
I’m betting that it’s not apocryphal, xeno; not only do I remember Dole quoted in the papers at the time, but here’s Bartleby:
During Reagan, there was plenty of coverage of Iran/Contra and Nicaragua, but I think the prevailing attitude at the time was that Reagan was too senile to have been given credit for masterminding the whole thing. Speaking for myself, as I read articles and books on the arms-for-hostages deal, my feeling is that there was no massive conspiracy to trade arms for hostages. Instead, there was a conspiracy to cover it up once it started getting out of hand. The whole thing started with mavericks who made deals on their own, managed to get financial support from capitalist types who thought they were getting in on something profitable and non-taxable, and then drew the attention of like-minded politicians and their bosses. I’m thinking Reagan’s underlings only told him good news, and he gave them their blessing. It drives home the point of never attributing to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence.
Also, the preceding Carter administration saw America besieged by humiliation from the hostage situation in Iran, and impotency on part of the most powerful country in the world in trying to remedy the situation. The interest rate got up to 18% IIRC. Carter was a great man, but a lousy president.
When Reagan took office, the hostages were released during his inauguration. Wow, he’s a godsend! We got the impression that he may be senile, but other countries were scared of him. Better watch out, or he might mistake the big red button that opens up all the missile silos in North Dakota for the TV remote. His administration reorganized the tax structure so that the kinda rich were now considered really rich in terms of collecting tax money. He lowered taxes, but made it to where more wage earners were being taxed, and collected more tax money. America became prosperous again, and Reagan’s Hollywood background helped endear him to the public. He, like Clinton, had a high “like” factor, so people couldn’t really hold a grudge against him for all the atrocities going on during his administration.
And then, our great enemy, the USSR, collapsed during Reagan’s administration, because they ran out of money trying to match the US in the arms race. Is that a feather in Reagan’s cap or what? He won a war without firing a shot.
As far as the Elder Bush goes, his major scandal was the Savings & Loan bailout, and it didn’t cause a major tidal wave of outrage because nobody really understood what was going on. It all had to do with weird ephemeral economic stuff, not easily understood commies and drugs. He didn’t get re-elected anyway.
Actually, when not campaigning, Bob Dole is pretty freaking funny. His election commentary a few years ago on the Daily Show was absolutely inspired.
It’s somewhat scary when people find great meaning in US partisan politics. Would anyone like to revisit Clinton’s bombng of Iraq during impeachment, or letting inspections collapse? Nah.
Iran-Contra really pissed people off because of the “Contra” part. Selling or providing arms is so pro forma it’s laugable to make a big deal out of it, but for the “arms to terrorists part.” Problem with that is conceding the Iran is a terrorist state aimed at destroying the US as a required premise to the argument for it to have any teeth (hypocrisy looms).
The Boland Amendment was clearly unconstitutional, and Congress knew it. Moreover, the Democrats loved the Sandinista murderers. The Pubs loved the Contra murderers. Remember the SNL skit with …eh… what’s her name pronouncing all the Spanish words with great specificity?
The Boland Amendment was a clear usurpation of Executive foreign policy authority which is plenary. Reagan did not need to challenge it in court because he simply dared the Congress to investigate or impeach him. They did it. He retired both revered and reviled. This is a game we seem to play with increasing frequency.
The Boland Amendment’s legitimacy is not as clear an issue as you’d like to think, but that means nothing compared to your other drooling in that post. “Loving murderers” is enough of a statement to throw your basic sanity into doubt.
Yeah, those murderous Sandanistas! How dare they rebel against a government legitimately installed. And you know what happened after the scoundrels won, don’t you? This is where it gets really disgusting! They held an election! Gasp! But thats not even the worse part, not yet. They lost the election to a center-right coalition and the lying scoundrels handed over the government to the winners!
Oh, the perfidy!
I’ll agree that George Bush I was the least of recent evils, but I do want to remind everyone that when he was the head of the CIA he paid a generous salary to Manuel Noriega. Then a few years later, as president, he declared Noriega public enemy number one and dramatically sent in troops to take him out.
Sandinistas as murderers. Wow. Just wow.
Once again, Beagle proves his singular authority in history and civics.
Hey, elucidator…you want I should change the title of this thread?
It seems to me we’d be getting a lot more views and commentary with “Nixon…Reagan…Bush…Who’s the Evillest?”
C’mon Uke, swing with the zeitgeist. It should be something like ‘who is the most evil evil-doer’
Freak freely, Ike. Cant’ really see much to debate there. I mean, seriously folks…more evil than Nixon? C’mon. Get real.
It certainly makes my life easier having ** xeno ** around. Takes the words right outta my mouth, spruces 'em up and makes 'em look real purdy, lays 'em out and leaves me to have my nap.
There. I dood it.