Flawed, sure, but certainly not minor. Ending wars and health care reform are, to quote the magnificent Joe Biden, a big fucking deal.
I notice you have no problem with the equally partisan poster I’m arguing with, which makes you look partisan as well. Which you are of course.
He didn’t end the wars, he pulled out US troops and the wars go on. As long as there are no attacks on the mainland, it looks like a pretty good idea.
As for health care reform, like you said, it’s flawed. Which means as soon as something better comes along, it will be forgotten. There’s a reason Eisenhower isn’t the Civil Rights Act President despite signing two civil rights bills. The one that gets the job done is the one that gets remembered. And that’s assuming this doesn’t go down in flames due to his mismanagement and politicization of its implementation.
I don’t recall claiming not to be. There’s a difference, though, between “partisan” and “delusional”.
Yeah, that’s why Social Security is totally forgotten. You might want to read up on that program’s history. It was VERY flawed and compromised when it began.
Obama’s approval is at 43%. If you think that’s the stuff great Presidents are made of, it’s not me who is delusional here.
Now social security, it’s still Social Security. If ACA is replaced by something else, either by the Republicans repealing it or the Democrats replacing it with single payer, no one will remember ACA. Does anyone remember the health care programs for the aged that existed before Medicare?
Which puts Obama 21-points ahead of Harry S. Truman, who in various ‘rate the president’ surveys since 1962 has ranked between a high of 5 (C-SPAN polls in 1999 and 2009) and a low of 9 (Arthur Schelssinger poll of historians, 1962). To anyone other than adaher, this would probably suggest that a president’s end-of-term popularity and his long-term reputation have little to do with each other.
Truman is an exception. Bush, Carter, Ford, Nixon, and LBJ are the rule.
Somehow, a “rule” that stretches from 10th best (LBJs highest ranking) to 39th best (Dubya’s low) strikes me as a little too broad to be useful. But I’ll defer to your legendary expertise in all things political.
Yes, I’m aware of that but my point is more about the possibility of some R’s being emboldened by getting control of BOTH houses. That could encourage Issa, or some “jerks like Darrell Issa.”
Maybe sensible people don’t but it didn’t stop the Republicans from doing just that following the midterm elections in 1998.
If LBJ is ranked 10th, then there’s a problem with historians’ opinions on the matter. But I’m not surprised, liberals routinely forgive killing 2 million foreigners and 50,000 Americans. I mean, it’s Medicare for GOd’s sake!
I actually agree with this one (and I almost never agree with adaher). Not the cross any Dem should choose to die on.
Medicare AND the Civil Rights Act. Getting either passed would make for a successful presidency. Getting both passed is greatness. No, I don’t forgive Vietnam any more than I forgive Iraq or Afghanistan.
It could be argued that Medicare and Civil Rights were historical inevitabilities. After all, the Eisenhower administration was working on both of those and it’s hard to imagine that Kennedy wouldn’t have done both had he survived.
But Vietnam, the way it was handled, that was a choice LBJ made and no one else would have made it that exact way. Nixon fought the war differently, and arguably a lot more successfully. Other Presidents might have not gone further than advisors.
Congress passes laws. A President runs the government and handles foreign policy. If the best you can say about a President is that Congress happened to pass some really good laws while he was screwing up a war he should have never committed 500,000 troops to, then he wasn’t all that good. George Bush could have done that.
Telling us “peace is at hand” before an election and then setting up your successor to lose the war on his watch- that’s “arguably a lot more successfully”?
LBJ did more than sign the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. He twisted arms. Nobody else could get things done in Congress like LBJ did. Eisenhower may have supported both measures, but he didn’t get them passed, did he? Take away Vietnam, and we make room on Mt. Rushmore for LBJ. Even with Vietnam, he still rates #2 (behind FDR) on my list of 20th century presidents.
LBJ was continuing the course of action set by JFK. Eisenhower had sent advisors, guns, and money. Truman had sent guns and money. Kennedy put boots on the ground.
*October 1961 — Following successful NLF attacks, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara recommends sending six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam.
August 1, 1962 — Kennedy signs the Foreign Assistance Act of 1962, which provides “…military assistance to countries which are on the rim of the Communist world and under direct attack.”
November 1963 — By this time, Kennedy had increased the number of military personnel from the 900 that were there when he became President to 16,000 just before his death.[5]*
*Wiki notes reference a Swarthmore College and the Peace Collection article that appears to offline at the present time.
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS STORED OFF SITE WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE BETWEEN JANUARY 13, 2014 AND APRIL 15, 2014*.
Programs prior to Medicare were strictly limited on a need basis. I had to search and found one major piece of legislation that has been thoroughly forgotten.
This became the predecessor to Medicaid. It was an amendment to the Social Security Act. It is mentioned in some Wikipedia articles but does not have its own. Does anyone remember the
Kerr-Mills act of 1960
Indeed, if the ACA is repealed and replaced with something that works better then the ACA may become a bit of a footnote in history. Albeit it would be a footnote with an extensive Wikipedia page, having been passed in the internet age.
As to the importance of the Senate control… think SCOTUS. Ginsburg has had serious medical conditions but hasn’t retired yet and has bucked suggestions she do so. Kennedy and Scalia are into their upper 70’s already.
This election cycle will elect Senators who will serve through the end of the term of the president elected in 2016.
I think it is highly likely that Ginsburg and Kennedy will retire (or die) prior to 2020. If the Senate is in Republican control then I would anticipate that a Democratic president might have difficulty getting a preferred appointee approved.
If all three are replaced in the coming six years then it is a potential -1 for the liberal wing of the court if the Senate is in Republican control.
One might have hoped* that the 2012 election would have cured you of the delusion that your opinion is the default one.
(*Yeah, I know, way too optimistic of me.)
The Korean War was probably more unpopular even than the Vietnam War in the 20th century, it’s just not remembered as much. People didn’t do the same type of protest but no Vietnam war President saw his approval ratings plunge like Truman’s did, and Truman’s largely plunged because of the Korean War although economic issues also were at play.
The only reason Nixon’s ratings went so low were because of Watergate, he otherwise would not have seen his ratings get anywhere near as low as Truman’s.
But a few things have happened historically since that time. For one, people recognized the importance of Truman’s first term. Specifically his decision making at the end of WWII and how he much more assertively handled the peace and dealings with the Soviets than feeble Roosevelt did. Truman probably deserves a significant amount of credit for the Iron Curtain being where it was instead of perhaps hundreds of miles further to the West.
Truman also had a pretty decent legislative history throughout his term as President. Finally, while the consensus at the time was that Korea was a waste of American blood for no discernible reason, it’s recognized by modern historians South Korea and its current economic strength is 100% because of Truman. Certainly if Dewey had been in office there would not be a North/South Korea today, just one DPRK living under a Stalinist government. For many years after the Korean war South Korea was a dictatorship that had a pretty terrible economy, but from the 80s on it became much easier to put Truman’s saving of South Korea down as another feather in his cap instead of a failure.
I honestly don’t see any similar situation in which President Obama has acted. Instead his low approval rating is due to prolonged and steadily developing disillusionment with him as a President. If Nixon can rehabilitate his image (and he largely had by his death), then anyone can, but the biggest issue for Obama is his accomplishments are so limited there’s not much to build. To me it’s more likely Obama goes down as a Calvin Coolidge style President. Filter out the issues of race and the coalition that elected him and that’s a more apt comparison for Obama than Coolidge.
It’s arguable Obama is actually a worse President than Carter. Carter wasn’t actually all that bad on domestic policy, and his weakness at foreign policy at least showed that he had some backbone. Carter took much more forceful and rapid political actions against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan than Obama has done against Crimea–Carter at least realized when “consensus building” no longer had any place in his foreign policy decisions.