The President Elimination Game

[Stowed_Bob]

@Gyrate

Don’t forget the “Herbert” - GWB was Bush Jr, GHWB was Bush Sr.

My apologies, I do mean Bush Sr. I hate how people forget names are supposed to be unique labels, not proclamations of your desire for your child to be your clone.

[John_DiFool]

Bush Sr. then.

[ToeJam]

I’ll vote to trim the Bush from the list.

[Skammer]

@ToeJam

I’ll vote to trim the Bush from the list.

I see what you did there.

[Sternvogel]

@Leiko

Chester A Arthur, because he’s next on my list.

He’s been on my list for a while, and I can’t stop voting for him now. At this rate, though, he might well end up the last occupant of the White House left (Washington never lived in the Executive Mansion, and John Adams only spent a few months there).

[Algorithm]

JFK, again, though I’d like to hear more arguments to keep him over, say, GHWB, LBJ, or JQA.

[John_DiFool]

Alright. Straight from Wikipedia, little to no embellishment:

He created the Peace Corps.

Got the US, UK, & USSR to all sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

He did raise and push the issue of civil rights, even if most of the progress occured after he died. Immigration reform as well, meaning more Latinos than Europeans than before. Then again you have the wiretaps, most notably of MLK-but Hoover probably took that ball and ran much farther with it than the Kennedys intended (as was his wont).

I’m unclear on his Latin-American strategy (Wikipedia is using too many weasel words here), as the general post-WW2 US strategy there was to support right wing dictators so that left wing revolutionaries couldn’t take over, but the article seems to indicate a more enlightened view. I will note that the US-initiated Iraqi coup was more par for the course (Saddam himself was involved with the murders of many “elites” suspected of being Communists, skilled professionals like doctors and lawyers).

Space program gets a big thumbs-up from me, but YMMV.

The only real negatives I see are Bay of Pigs, Iraq, & maybe Vietnam, if you think that the guy who started the war is to blame for others FUBARing it later (I really don’t).

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Elendil_s_Heir

I agree. One of the members of ExComm (the executive committee of the NSC), I think it might’ve been Paul Nitze, said shortly afterwards that, if any of the other candidates for President in 1960 had been in charge in October 1962, World War III would have broken out.

Not really, had Richard Nixon been elected in 1960 Khruschev would not dare try to test him with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Richard Nixon in '60 would have like JFK fought for civil rights, continue New Deal programs but not get extreme like LBJ did with the Great Society, not escalate in Vietnam, continue a hard line against communism, and be far less corrupt than the Kennedy administration which made JFK’s BROTHER a cabinet member and extensive Mafia connections. Indeed it was probably the most corrupt administration of modern times.

[ToeJam]

More corrupt than Nixons?

[gonzomax]

@Curtis LeMay

Not really, had Richard Nixon been elected in 1960 Khruschev would not dare try to test him with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Richard Nixon in '60 would have like JFK fought for civil rights, continue New Deal programs but not get extreme like LBJ did with the Great Society, not escalate in Vietnam, continue a hard line against communism, and be far less corrupt than the Kennedy administration which made JFK’s BROTHER a cabinet member and extensive Mafia connections. Indeed it was probably the most corrupt administration of modern times.

What kind of right wing enclave do you live in. Nixon was not a civil rights kind of guy. He was another feed the tax money to the rich kind in an era that had little use for him. Nixon did escalate in Viet Nam after promising not to. He got elected by promising to end the war. He escalated.
You must have been in a coma during Bush the very juniors corrupt giveaway of American wealth.

[StusBlues]

@gonzomax

What kind of right wing enclave do you live in. Nixon was not a civil rights kind of guy. He was another feed the tax money to the rich kind in an era that had little use for him. Nixon did escalate in Viet Nam after promising not to. He got elected by promising to end the war. He escalated.
You must have been in a coma during Bush the very juniors corrupt giveaway of American wealth.

That’s painting Nixon with a broad brush. His domestic record was in fact very progressive for a Republican. See Paul Boller, *Not So *(Oxford, 1995) --hardly a right-wing source, I might add.

One reason that Kennedy is so well-remembered is that Johnson and Nixon carried through on much of his rhetoric. If Fillmore had carried Zach Taylor’s free-soil program through, he’d be better thought of today. Likewise, Bush Jr. destroyed most of what Bill Clinton had built (budget surpluses, moderate foreign policy) within his first year, so there’s really no legacy there, either. Johnson brought through the Great Society and Civil Rights Act reforms, and Nixon signed Affirmative Action into law. To an extent, Kennedy gets residual credit for both.

[John_DiFool]

He was in pull-up pants.

[gonzomax]

Well Curtis claimed that an administration that lasted 2 years was the most corrupt in modern times. That would be pointillism.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@gonzomax

What kind of right wing enclave do you live in. Nixon was not a civil rights kind of guy. He was another feed the tax money to the rich kind in an era that had little use for him. Nixon did escalate in Viet Nam after promising not to. He got elected by promising to end the war. He escalated.
You must have been in a coma during Bush the very juniors corrupt giveaway of American wealth.

I think the fact is you’re in a left-wing enclave that treats Richard Nixon as if he’s Satan, Adolf Hitler, and Machiavelli all rolled into one! Here’s his actual views and actions on civil rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon

He supported statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, voted in favor of civil rights for minorities, and supported federal disaster relief for India and Yugoslavia.

Civil rights

The Nixon years witnessed the first large-scale integration of public schools in the South.[92] Strategically, Nixon sought a middle way between the segregationist George C. Wallace and liberal Democrats, whose support of integration was alienating some Southern white Democrats.[93] He was determined to implement exactly what the courts had ordered— desegregation — but did not favor busing children, in the words of author Conrad Black, “all over the country to satisfy the capricious meddling of judges.”[94] Nixon, the Quaker, felt that racism was the greatest moral failure of the United States[95] and concentrated on the principle that the law must be color-blind: “I am convinced that while legal segregation is totally wrong, forced integration of housing or education is just as wrong.”[96]

Nixon tied desegregation to improving the quality of education[95] and enforced the law after the Supreme Court, in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969), prohibited further delays. By fall of 1970, two million southern black children enrolled in newly created unitary fully integrated school districts; this meant that only 18% of Southern black children attended all-black schools, a decrease from 70% when Nixon came to office.[89] Nixon’s Cabinet Committee on Education, under the leadership of Labor Secretary George P. Shultz, quietly set up local biracial committees to assure smooth compliance without violence or political grandstanding.[97] “In this sense, Nixon was the greatest school desegregator in American history,” historian Dean Kotlowski concluded.[98] Author Conrad Black concurred: “In his singular, unsung way, Richard Nixon defanged and healed one of the potentially greatest controversies of the time.”[99] Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nixon’s presidential counselor, commented in 1970 “There has been more change in the structure of American public school education in the last month than in the past 100 years.”[100]

In addition to desegregating public schools, Nixon implemented the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program in 1970.[101] Nixon also endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment after it passed both houses of Congress in 1972 and went to the states for ratification as a Constitutional amendment.[102] Nixon had campaigned as an ERA supporter in 1968, though feminists criticized him for doing little to help the ERA or their cause after his election, which led to a much stronger women’s rights agenda. Nixon increased the number of female appointees to administration positions.[103] Nixon signed the landmark laws Title IX in 1972, prohibiting gender discrimination in all federally-funded schools and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. In 1970 Nixon had vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, denouncing the universal child-care bill, but signed into law Title X, which was a step forward for family planning and contraceptives.

It was during the Nixon Presidency that the Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion. First Lady Pat Nixon had been outspoken about her support for legalized abortion, a goal for many feminists (though there was a significant pro-life minority faction of the Women’s Liberation Movement as well). Nixon himself did not speak out publicly on the abortion issue, but was personally pro-choice, and believed that, in certain cases such as rape, or an interracial child, abortion was an option.[104]

He also enlargened social services, took the US off the gold standard, and was a Keynesian.

@gonzomax

Well Curtis claimed that an administration that lasted 2 years was the most corrupt in modern times. That would be pointillism.

Which administration is more corrupt: an administration that simply approved one break-in at a hotel without any links to organized crime or business interests or an administration which used the Chicago machine to steal the election in Illinois, and had extensive links to the Mafia?

[ToeJam]

@Curtis LeMay

Which administration is more corrupt: an administration that simply approved one break-in at a hotel without any links to organized crime or business interests or an administration which used the Chicago machine to steal the election in Illinois, and had extensive links to the Mafia?

Wow, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound so bad at all…

Are you just choosing to ignore the actions of CREEPand the tactics of ratfuckingto win an election? Including such fun tactics as forgery:Canuck Letter.

There was more to Watergate and the Nixon administration than just a single hotel break-in, dude. If you look up “Dirty Tricks” on wikipedia, there’s a reason why the best example they’ve got up there is the Watergate scandal.

[Skammer]

I don’t care how qualified he is, it just doesn’t look right making your brother the Attorney General. It’d be like putting the First Lady in charge of health care reform.

[Tom_Scud]

Current voting totals:

Adams 5
Bush 5
Kennedy 3
Arthur 2
Polk 1

[Damuri_Ajashi]

At this point all the low hanging fruit is gone so I’ll go with George H.W. Bush For being George W. Bush’s father.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Skammer

I don’t care how qualified he is, it just doesn’t look right making your brother the Attorney General. It’d be like putting the First Lady in charge of health care reform.

Heh.

Even though his appointment today would be banned by the anti-nepotism law, Bobby Kennedy was one of the best AGs the country has ever had, IMHO. He had courage, commitment, and the President’s implicit confidence. Just about every AG since has paid homage to him in one way or another, and rightly so.

[Tom_Scud]

The sins of the son are visited upon his father, as George Herbert Walker Bush is voted out.

George Washington (None, 1789-1797)
Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican, 1801-1809)
James Monroe (Democratic-Republican, 1817-1825)
John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican, 1825-1829)
James Polk (Democrat, 1845-1849)
Abraham Lincoln (Republican, 1861-1865)
Chester Arthur (Republican, 1881-1885)
Grover Cleveland (Democrat, 1885-1889, 1893-1897)
William McKinley (Republican, 1897-1901)
Theodore Roosevelt (Republican, 1901-1909)
William Howard Taft (Republican, 1909-1913)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat, 1933-1945)
Harry S. Truman (Democrat, 1945-1953)
Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Democrat, 1961-1963)
Lyndon Baines Johnson (Democrat, 1963-1969)
William Jefferson Clinton (Democrat, 1993-2001)

Eliminated Presidents:

1. James Buchanan (Democrat, 1857-1861)
2. Franklin Pierce (Democrat, 1853-1857)
3. Andrew Johnson (National Union, 1865-1869)
4. Warren Harding (Republican, 1921-1923)
5. Millard Fillmore (Whig, 1850-1853)
6. Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican, 1969-1974)
7. Herbert Hoover (Republican, 1929-1933)
8. Ronald Reagan (Republican, 1981-1989)
9. Andrew Jackson (Democrat, 1829-1837)
10. Rutherford Hayes (Republican, 1877-1881)
11. Ulysses Grant (Republican, 1869-1877)
12. John Tyler (Whig, 1841-1845)
13. James Earl Carter (Democrat, 1977-1981)
14. James Madison (Democratic-Republican, 1809-1817)
15. Martin Van Buren (Democrat, 1837-1841)
16. Woodrow Wilson (Democrat, 1913-1921)
17. Calvin Coolidge (Republican, 1923-1929)
18. John Adams (Federalist, 1797-1801)
19. Benjamin Harrison (Republican, 1889-1893)
20. Gerald Ford (Republican, 1974-1977)
21. Zachary Taylor (Whig, 1849-1850)
22. George Herbert Walker Bush (Republican, 1989-1993)

I’ll stay with John Quincy Adams, who, while his intentions were not bad, was so unsuccessful politically that his party basically ceased to exist after his presidency.

I’m going to speed things up a little, going to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. Voting on this round closes at 2 PM on Wednesday.