I am not here to say that Reagan was a bad or a good President. But the greatest? No Way!
JFK came in second and Lincoln came in third. I think it is a matter if empirical evidence and not just opinion that Lincoln blew the doors off of Reagan as Presidents go (JFK isn’t even in the same ballpark with Lincoln).
Even more disturbing, however, is Bill Clinton coming in fourth ahead of presidents such as FDR (another President who cheated on his wife but no issue was ever made of it at the time).
Jimmy Carter beating out Thomas Jefferson? I don’t think so! Jimmy Carter has made a great ex-President but I think most people in touch with history agree that his actual Presidency was pretty miserable.
Americans in general really are out of touch with their history. It’s no wonder other countries shake their head in wonder at us sometimes.
Well, if you’d read the fine print under the results, you’d see a bit more explanation: the poll was taken the weekend after Reagan’s 90th birthday, meaning the guy got a lot more media coverage than he had probably since leaving office. There are also some pretty well-defined divisions by age group: the youngest polled voted mostly for Clinton, somewhat older voters went more for Reagan, while those older still went for Kennedy, and finally Roosevelt. Perhaps the better question for the poll should have been “who was the greatest president in your lifetime?”
Hell, I think it has more to do with people not paying attention in Social Studies than anything. I’d guess a lot of them would be hard pressed to name 10 Presidents much less formulate their own opinion about whether or not the guy did a good job.
Albeit, I’m still disturb that Reagan and Clinton beat out George Washington, who I would have figured would have being the first president thing going for him if not anything else.
Or maybe I should at least be happy Ben Franklin didn’t make the list. (“What d’ya mean he wasn’t president?”)
What amazed me more than anything is that Democrats chose Bill Clinton as the greatest president ever. They picked him over FDR and Kennedy, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Well, Kennedy didn’t do all that much, what with getting shot and dying and all. (Well, I guess averting WWIII with Russia is an accomplishment, but why bring history into this discussion?)
And FDR? Why bring history into the discussion?
I’m hardly ignorant, and resent the comment. This is ignorance:
This is something the libs have been throwing around for years, failing to take into account that calling it the ‘Star Wars Project’ was coined by a liberal columnist for the LA Times who wanted to make fun of it. Reagan liked the name, took it to heart, and pissed everybody off. I can appreciate that.
Yeah, he had some bad ideas (trickle down economics didn’t quite work out the way he expected, although the idea sounded good too me), but overall, I agreed with damn near everything he did, including deficit spending to buff the military.
Sorry about the toned down mini rant. Back to the subject. No, I don’t think he was the greatest president of all time, although I’d have a tough decision to make deciding who was. FDR and Lincoln would both be up there. I would agree, however, the Reagan was the best in my lifetime.
Hey, SPOOFE was just funnin’ you. He knows even Reagan wasn’t enough of a doofus to name a multibillion-dollar space ray-gun facility after a Saturday Matinee Sci Fi flick. And if he was, he’d probably have called it “Buck Rogers” or something more in tune with his own mindset than “Star Wars.”
I’m sure Spoofe was just kidding, but I’ve heard that used a great number of times to make fun of Reagan by people who did think it to be true. I was just taking this as an opportunity to rid the world of a little more ignorance.
Perhaps a Duck Dogers of the 21st and 1/2 century project could be put underway.
