Speaking of Presidential rankings by professional scholars … In a previous thread I linked to a page by a U.K. think tank that no longer seems to exist: http://americas.sas.ac.uk/research/survey/overall.htm
It seemed an excellent Presidential ranker. (It’s the USPC column in the Wikipedia article.) In addition to overall ranks, about 12 facets were assessed. (For example, Nixon was near the top on foreign policy, but at the very bottom for moral leadership.)
Now I can’t find the page at the Wayback Machine, or anywhere else. There’s a chance I saved a copy; I’ll hunt for it if anyone says “Pretty please”, but shortage of proper USB ports means I can’t access Internet and external drive simultaneously from this laptop. :smack: )
I’m very curious now why the Institute for the Study of the Americas took the page down.
JFK learned a great deal between The Bay of Pigs and The Cuban Missiles Crisis. Enough to do it so differently that it certainly avoided a war, quite possibly a nuclear war. He trusted the CIA and Pentagon for TBOP, and did not for TCMC. He thoroughly analyzed the screw ups in TBOP and did not repeat them. Hard to imagine anyone else doing an about face on toadying to the CIA and Pentagon, even Eisenhower.
Well, you aren’t alone, but I don’t agree. Kennedy did not have the chops to get it passed. Johnson worked Kennedy’s martyrdom and his own arm twisting skills like a rented mule to get it passed. It would not have passed if Kennedy were not killed and also if Johnson didn’t want it to be his legacy.
JFK and Kruschev were both always willing to do the Cuba for Turkey missile swap. That the crisis was allowed to escalate was strictly due to JFK’s unwillingness to lose face.
Nevermind that JFK changed bimbos as often as he changed his shirts; one was an East German agent, another a Mafiosi moll. The way this man is kept on a pedestal is astounding. (When I asked a fellow Doper if he’d read Dark Side of Camelot, he didn’t answer but asked me if I’d read Thousand Days. :smack: Yeah, I read it … probably before that Doper was born.)
Very well put-the “image” crafted by JFK’s handlers was all smoke and mirrors-the man was unprepared, and intellectually, ill-equipped to be president. The Bay of Pigs fiasco illustrated this-Kennedy could have saved the operation-had he ordered carrier based fighter planes to destroy the Cuban air force. He didn’t, and condemned the invaders to capture and death. Later, he saved face by having private charities pay Castro’s ransom demands! What a chump! Later, his propaganda machine spun this as a victory. Vietnam is another big disaster-but Kennedy had been clearly warned by Eisenhower-he walked in , with both eyes open.
As for his bedroom activities-suffice to say that his “marriage” was a joke-JFK was banging hookers while his wife was in labor with a son-who died in childbirth.
A real hero!
TBOP was strictly a Eisenhower gang holdover project that JFK didn’t have the experience to turn down or put off indefinitely. As for saving face, I suppose that you could interpret it that way, but it really ignores the reality that opposing partisans want the US President to lose face so they can use it politically. That was what the idiocy about Taiwan and Vietnam was all about. The modern day equivalent is Benghazi. You also seem to be painting the missile crisis very simplistically, even laughably so.
I’ve edited your post to emphasize the part where you help me make my own case Every President is a relatively inexperienced “freshman” President once. Some have the humility and wisdom to cope, others fall victim to gullibility and/or arrogance.
And please do laugh all you want at my comment about the missile crisis, deliberately terse just to emphasize the key point you ignored.
I don’t think we disagree on that. Eisenhower didn’t okay Dulles’ nutty scheme, or in fact kill the scheme. It was a doomed scheme. After the success of Tehran, which was ripe for such a scheme, it was repeated all over the world, never with as strong a measure of success. Despite all the nutty schemes of the CIA over the years, some guy named Castro still runs Cuba.
I am not a psychologist but lately I’ve seen a bit of the theory that Kennedy was a sex addict. I read that sex with him was described as unsatisfying, short, and mechanical.
It is very disappointing to me when large swaths of the population blame the great depression on Hoover, when clearly that trap was set by the government under Coolidge. Hoover was in about six months when the market crashed. I know of no policy changes that he made that would have changed the economic trajectory we were on.
Best: Ronald Wilson Reagan, because he was such an incredibly effective con artist who still has people hoodwinked
Worst: Reagan, of course, for [tl;dr flood of pit-worthy invective], as well as setting the country on a course for an epic economic collapse. And I personally loathe his bones for pointlessly killing my friend Ben Linder, a person who was actually trying to do good for folks.
Just noticed you didn’t mention he killed bin Laden, fought an intransigent congress to bring healthcare to millions, stabilize an economy in free fall when he first walked into the oval office, dissolved DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (both choices made on the right side of history, bet) and shuffled off our responsibility for said cluster fuck in Iraq with dignity.
I’m not saying he’s the best, your highlights just seem specifically selected is all. It’s as if you’re pissed at the mechanic for not fixing the car your son crashed into a tree fast enough.
Every President is a relatively inexperienced “freshman” President once. Some have the humility and wisdom to cope, others fall victim to gullibility and/or arrogance.