Presidents I’m surprised that haven’t gotten a vote in 12 pages now (unless I missed some):
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
James Polk
William Howard Taft
George HW Bush
You’d really throw JFK under the bus before any of these guys?
I stay with McKinley
Of those men James Polk was one of the greatest American President after I feel Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts.
Also Clinton again.
Fine.
I’ll change my vote to Bush.
Happy?
OK, I’ll stick up for JFK, too. GHWB, Taft, J.Q. Adams and Monroe were all his inferiors in the Presidency.
For all his personal faults, Kennedy firmly committed the nation to desegregation and civil rights for all, set an ambitious and stirring national goal of a Moon landing by the end of the decade, established the Peace Corps, masterfully handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, laid the groundwork for detente with the Soviet Union, brought Big Steel to heel, cut taxes, helped trigger the economic boom of the early-to-mid-Sixties, restored style and grace to the White House, inspired a generation to public service, and gave one of the most stirring inaugural addresses of U.S. history.
Still Taylor.
How do you think Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts would react to being felt in this manner?
GHW Bush
Campaigned and won on a grand total of two promises: to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day and “No New Taxes”*. He still managed to break the second (although I blame this more on it being an unrealistic promise than Bush’s incompetence) and the first was completely irrelevant. There was also his Council on Competitiveness which went about quietly gutting safety and environmental regulations for industrybehind the scenes. And of course there was the small matter of Dan Quayle…
*It says a lot about Michael Dukakis that he lost against this, even considering the Willie Horton issue.
Missed the edit window, but I wanted to add:
Of course, let’s not forget the (first) Iraq War, the massive S&L bailout (including Silverado) and the economic downturn that Clinton was eventually elected to fix (“It’s the economy, stupid”). What is it about Bush administrations and Gulf wars, banking sector bailouts and recessions?
I have to switch my vote to Bush for gutting industrial safety policy.
I think the first Gulf war was a wise decision (we’re gonna let Saddam have Kuwait in perpetuity?), in that it was fought by two conventional forces, and thus was easily winnable. I was actually on board with Bush Sr. after that, but his subsequent decisions, and seeing all the wingnuts getting places of honor at the '92 convention, made me flip towards Clinton. I’ll switch my vote to him IF I need to do so to save JFK, but sticking with Taylor for now…
Bush I was kind of the flip side of LBJ - a great foreign-policy president with a poor domestic record. He did a good job of managing through the collapse of the Soviet empire, and though I’d give Gorbachev the lion’s share of the credit for that transition being peaceful, Bush deserves some kudos as well.
JFK set a positive tone for the Civil Rights Act, but it took LBJ to actually push it through.
GWB wasn’t that bad. I mean, yeah, he was a free-market conservative, so if that’s a problem for you, you won’t like him. But the Gulf War was a pretty good war: it had a legitimate purpose (liberating Kuwait), global multi-national support, and was limited in scope and duration. In hindsight, leaving Saddam in power looks a lot wiser now than it did in the mid-90’s.
Bush also presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union and was a master diplomat.
He lost in '92 for three reasons: the Democrats had a charismatic populist candidate, he was seen to have broken his “no new taxes” pledge, and the economy was in the shitter. Only one of those was even kind of his fault.
Still Kennedy for me.
GWB was Obama’s immediate predecessor; GHWB was GWB’s dad.
Arguably, the economy being in the shitter had a fair amount to do with the S&L collapse/bailout, which could have been less severe if it had been dealt with earlier. (And also arguably, it was not dealt with earlier because there was a presidential election coming up, and no one wants to acknowledge bad news at a time like that).
Also not a fan of Bush’s pardon of Caspar Weinberger.
:smack:
I was talking about the first one, though, just forgot the H. I have no stomach to defend the second.
Monroe was nominated in Post #375:
John Quincy Adams was named on the first page, in Post #9:
Ol’ James Knox got the “thumbs-down” from Reloy3 in a one-word Post #140:
Four messages later, Curtis declared Polk to be “one of our greatest presidents”, an assertion he recently reiterated.
Taft does seem to have escaped unscathed so far.
George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush is, of course, suddenly gaining momentum.
No argument about leaving Saddam in power - regime change at that time would have been disastrous (or more disastrous, depending on your view of the current situation). But Bush Sr has also been accused, with some justification, of both failing to give Saddam a strong enough message ahead of time that an invasion of Kuwait would not be tolerated (such that Saddam thought he could get away with it) and with encouraging Iraqi dissidents at the end of the war to provoke regime change and then hanging them out to dry with no support (with the result that they were arrested, tortured and killed). Not so good on the diplomatic front there.
Of course, the Kuwaitis also lied their asses off in order to goad the US into action. Remember the testimony before Congress about Iraqi soldiers stealing incubators and leaving babies to die? Lies, lies, lies…
But still Bush, although I’m casting a hairy eyeball at LBJ next…
Current vote count:
Taylor 6
Kennedy 4
Bush 3
Arthur 2
McKinley 1
Clinton 1
Going forward, could people please say who they’re switching their vote from, as well as to, if they switch votes?
Forgot to mention the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress, too.