# What would Grover Cleveland Do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2006, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063 "2006-03-27T09:46:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/1 "2006-03-27T09:46:55Z")
I’ve posted this here because it seemed a little too “topical” for IHMO, but please feel free to move it to wherever it best belongs. Recently there was a very interesting debate on [_The_ Greatest American President](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=363481) and, over the past few years there have been quite a few debates either directly or indirectly regarding President Bush’s conduct of the “war on terror” - some posters have been a teensy bit critical of his policies, others have been more accepting of them. So I got to wondering - it’s very easy to criticize the President over the “war”, but, given the circumstances, how much better would _The_ Greatest American President have done? Or any President? How would George Washington have conducted the war? Kennedy? Martin Van Buren? So the scenario is this - if we could find the “modern day” version of any past American President - one with the same values, the same vision, the same courage (or lack). the same moral character, the same capabilities, the same psychological stability, the same health - exactly the same everything, who would surround themselves with the same kinds of advisors, cabinet and generals as their historical parallels - even down to the same first ladies - how differently would different Presidents have handled the post 9/11 developments. Who would have done better? Who would have done worse? Once again, apols if this is too frivolous for this forum - but I thought it might be interesting… mm ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/2 "2006-03-27T14:09:05Z")
Oooh! Oooh! Can I be first? _He’d make a plan and he’d follow through, That’s what Grover Cleveland would do._ Seriously, though, you’ve misphrased the question by assuming the Iraq war is just a fact of life, something that _happened to_ this President and not something that he _caused_ to happen. “Given the circumstances,” as you put it, does not apply to this discussion. The great, or even average, Presidents wouldn’t have gotten into these circumstances. Not many others of the poor ones would have, either. McKinley and LB Johnson are the only ones who’ve come all that close to it, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/3 "2006-03-27T16:13:11Z")
Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill that would have bought seed for farmers devastated by a drought in Texas. He did this because there was no constitutional warrant for federal disaster relief. I think he’d have big problems with what went down in the Gulf region, and the federal involvement in it, and the massive cost involved. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/4 "2006-03-27T17:42:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Grover Cleveland was perhaps the last lonely survivor of the old days. He had his faults… but no one could have imagined him yielding to the mob in order to make votes. Right or wrong, he was his own man – and never more surely than when, by popular standards, he was wrong H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun, March 15, 1926 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/5 "2006-03-27T19:12:26Z")
He’d probably have taken a four-year vacation and started fresh in 2008. ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/6 "2006-03-27T20:11:26Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Oooh! Oooh! Can I be first? > > _He’d make a plan and he’d follow through, > That’s what Grover Cleveland would do._ > > Seriously, though, you’ve misphrased the question by assuming the Iraq war is just a fact of life, something that _happened to_ this President and not something that he _caused_ to happen. “Given the circumstances,” as you put it, does not apply to this discussion. The great, or even average, Presidents wouldn’t have gotten into these circumstances. Not many others of the poor ones would have, either. McKinley and LB Johnson are the only ones who’ve come all that close to it, for that matter. My position doesn’t assume the Iraq war would have happened - it concers the whole “war on terrorism”, of which the Iraq war has been an instrument (for better or for worse) in pursuing. I asked specifically about the whole post 9/11 scenario. What I DID do wrong, and mods please feel free to help me, was give the thread a silly title - only because I couldn’t think of an apposite one. Taking the broader focus, I think it’s an interesting question. It’s easy to criticize Bush, but who of his predecessors would have done better or different and how? mm ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/7 "2006-03-27T20:23:28Z")
Would you also like to assume that no other President would have decided to ignore the warnings about the threat from Al Qaeda just because they came from his predecessor? You can’t dismiss that this one’s inactions may have contributed to 9/11’s even happening, or that he might at least share responsibility for the “War on Terrorism” even existing in anything like its present form. Had it happened anyway, most likely, most of his predecessors would initially have done the same thing - picked up the ball, pursued Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, pressured anybody who needed pressuring - until Bin Laden was captured. The Iraq invasion, which we have strong reason to suspect was planned even beforehand for reasons he still won’t come clean about but are describable in the PNAC manifesto as imperialistic, would have been greeted warmly only by those of his predecessors who also felt the urge to dabble in imperialism, notably McKinley and LBJ as I mentioned but others have done so too. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/8 "2006-03-27T20:50:22Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > McKinley and LB Johnson are the only ones who’ve come all that close to it, for that matter. I don’t think either McKinley or LBJ were bad presidents, and polls ranking the presidents tend to give them both decent rankings. The C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership ranks McKinley 15th and LBJ 10th. The Federalist Society-Wall Street Journal Survey ranks McKinley 14th and LBJ 17th. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/9 "2006-03-27T22:43:27Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > I don’t think either McKinley or LBJ were bad presidents, and polls ranking the presidents tend to give them both decent rankings. I think **ElvisL1ves’** point was that McKinley and LBJ were distinctly **imperialist** presidents, so they might have handled the post-9/11 situation exactly the way Bush did – i.e., aggressively, and badly. Carter’s inability to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis made him look hopelessly indecisive at the time. But then, he had a limited range of options, all unpalatable. At least he didn’t get any of the hostages killed. Nor any Iranians either. (The only casualties from the crisis were those who died in the failed rescue attempt, and I don’t see how Carter can be blamed for its failure.) In hindsight, he might have been a better man to have at the helm after 9/11/01. At any rate, he would not have gone to war with Iraq. And he probably would have overcome his temperamental pacifism and invaded Afghanistan. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/10 "2006-03-27T22:59:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I think **ElvisL1ves’** point was that McKinley and LBJ were distinctly **imperialist** presidents, so they might have handled the post-9/11 situation exactly the way Bush did – i.e., aggressively, and badly. They weren’t, though. McKinley was against the Spanish American war until the Maine blew up, and was against the US acquisition of the Phillipines until enough public pressure was put on him that he gave in. LBJ was just sort of trapped into carrying on Kennedy’s policies in regards to Vietnam. And **ElvisL1ves** said: > [@](#): > > The great, or even average, Presidents wouldn’t have gotten into these circumstances. Not many others of the poor ones would have, either. then mentioning LBJ and McKinley, thereby suggesting that they were poor presidents. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/11 "2006-03-27T23:04:30Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > LBJ was just sort of trapped into carrying on Kennedy’s policies in regards to Vietnam. He was by no means “trapped” into the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/12 "2006-03-27T23:20:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He was by no means “trapped” into the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. He was trapped into sending and keeping Americans in Vietnam, due to Kennedy policy, SEATO, and established US policy to stop Communist aggression, and he was sort of “trapped” into the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. As far as he knew, our ships had been attacked on both August 2, and August 4. He was ignorant of the fact that the August 4 attack never had happened. The NSA gave LBJ bad information about it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/13 "2006-03-28T01:41:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I think **ElvisL1ves’** point was that McKinley and LBJ were distinctly **imperialist** presidents, so they might have handled the post-9/11 situation exactly the way Bush did – i.e., aggressively, and badly. Right, and that fact puts them irrevocably into the “poor” category, since we are after all talking about foreign policy. Thanks for jumping in. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > As far as he knew, our ships had been attacked on both August 2, and August 4. He was ignorant of the fact that the August 4 attack never had happened. The NSA gave LBJ bad information about it. “The intelligence agencies ate my homework”. Now why does that sound familiar? The Navy people right on the scene reported only a single bullet fired on the Maddox, and a false alarm on the Joy. Did it take really 2 days for that information to reach Washington? Even if that’s true, Johnson was by no means trapped into escalating the situation into a full-blown war. But that’s the only option he considered, and it leaves the impression that it’s what he wanted anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-grover-cleveland-do/350063/14 "2006-03-28T04:11:37Z")
With all of this talk about imperialist presidents I’m suprised that no one has mentioned Teddy Roosevelt yet. He seems to be similar to Bush in some respects. He was born to wealthy parents, he was an advocate of American involvement in world affairs, and he greatly expanded executive powers. That said there are plenty of differences. Roosevelts’ military record has never been called into question (though his competance as a comanding officer has), he was no friend of big buisness (in fact he earned a reputation as a trust buster), he dealt with personal problems much bigger than any of Bush’s (his wife and mother dying on the same day, and sickness as a child), and his enviromental policies were almost antithetical to those of bush. I also think he was much more intelligent and competent than Bush could ever hope to be. From what I know of him he would have definitely invaded Afghanistan. I think nearly any president would have. I think he would have built up Afghanistan a bit more than Bush did after he had accomplished his objective, like he did in Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Canal Zone. I’m not sure if he would have made so much use of the anti-Taliban rebels as bush did, but I have a feeling that he would not have. As to invading Iraq, I’m not sure if he would have gone that route. He certainly would have gotten involved, in the Middle East in general, and probably Iraq specifically, most likely because of oil (and I think he would have been fairly straight foreward about that being his objective). He certainly would have put pressure on Iraq to open up to US inspectors and oil companies. There would definitely be US troops statione somewhere in the Middle East if TR was in charge, but if he would have gone so far as to invade Iraq, again, I can’t say. Also, somewhat tangential to the GWOT, is the issue of Isreal/Palistine. I think TR would have been a much better man to assist negotiation in that “dispute”, although the problems, IMO, are much too deep for any one man to completely fix.