The good and bad (US) Presidents of the last 70 years

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by David Floyd
This makes it moral how?

I thought that you were a strict constructionist.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I fail to see the relevance.

Now it becomes clear.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Roosevelt - 1
Truman - 1
Eisenhower - 1
Kennedy - 1
Johnson - 1
Nixon - 1
Ford - 1
Carter - 1
Reagan - 1
Bush I - 1
Clinton - 1
Bush II - 1

[JohnT]

I would surmise the "1" vote from somebody who's seen this sort of thread before many times. But what goes around, comes around, I guess, and some topics just bear repeating.

I'm just going to rank them based upon my gut feeling. Some Presidents might have a comment, some might not. Note that this is purely subjective and can change tomorrow... though not by much.

Best Presidents

1. Roosevelt. Of course.
2. Truman - Berlin airlift, Marshall Act, integration of military, support of Turkey in 1948, recognition of Israel, carrying through on the UN, Dean Acheson, getting rid of MacArthur. Truman is an unremembered giant, easily the best President since Roosevelt. He was also the last President to have never gone to college.
3. Eisenhower - Highways, NASA, the sort of hands-off kind of guy (like Coolidge and Clinton) that I like. A big Coca-Cola supporter as President, it was rumored that Bob Woodruff had a lot to do with the financing of his election.
4. Reagan. Because I enjoyed the 80s, thank you very much. My immediate family was poor in 1981, by the time Reagan left office we had one budding doctor and one entreprenuer among them. It was not just the rich who got richer in the 80s: I know because I lived it.
5. Kennedy - Sometimes it's not how you live, but how you die. Other than Jesus Christ and Lou Gehrig, no person's reputation has been enhanced by the manner of their death than JFK. Not a bad President on the domestic front, though very sloppy on the international scene. Kennedy definitely had a bit of a problem dealing with Communism: he liked to put troops in hot spots, but he never deployed enough of them and at the right places. His continual buildup of forces in Vietnam allowed Johnson to go all Cowboy, much to the detriment of hundreds of millions around the globe. I just remembered that it was Kennedy who brought Robert MacNamara into the political arena, and that doesn't bode well for his reputation either.
6. Clinton. And you thought Reagan was an actor! Bill Clinton accomplished not a single important thing as President, kept us all entertained with tales of his dalliances and excesses (remember when he tied up LAX for 2 hours just to get a haircut), and looked good while doing it. His ineffectiveness as a leader was both a good thing (investor confidence and the lack of laws regulating the internet) and a bad thing (investor over-confidence, Kosovo.)
7. Bush I. But I'm holding my nose while ranking him this high. Made the mistake of lying on his most widely quoted campaign pledge: "Read my lips: No New Taxes." A person that stupid doesn't deserve re-election. But, dammit, he just didn't cause the damage to America that the rest of these people did, so he kind of gets this rank by default: he just didn't suck enough.
8. Johnson. You want to rank him higher because of the Civil Rights Act and the War on Poverty, but you can't because of the escalation of Vietnam and his continued use of Robert MacNamara.
9. Carter. Carter actually believed that the American people wanted fundamental change in the way that Washington works. That was his undoing. That, and his indecisiveness. Since I can't think of one true benefit Carter has brought to the American public as President (The Egypt/Israeli peace, perhaps?), I have to rank him below Johnson who at least signed the Civil Rights Act.
11. Nixon. I don't care about ideology, I don't care about China, Nixon is the worst President of the twelve by such a large margin it isn't even funny. The damage he caused just to the Public Trust is immense, and that doesn't even begin to touch upon the failures of Richard Nixon. Not only that, but the sob was in Dallas on 11-22-1963, and that's just a little too coincidental if you ask me.
NR. Ford. Wasn't in long enough to matter, had no mandate to do anything, and therefore doesn't really count. I mean, this guy got shot at twice in the same month, and yet nobody remembers.
NR. Bush II - He finished one term yet. In all fairness, all the other Presidents had 4 years (except Kennedy and Ford) to show their stuff. So far he's in the bottom half, probably bottom third

[David Floyd]

I thought that you were a strict constructionist.

Sure, in a sense.

But that doesn't mean that every Constitutional exercise of power is moral. At one point, it was a Constitutionally protected that blacks were not as good as whites and could be enslaved. That didn't make slavery moral.

[Ned]

Shi, Truman f*cked up in Korea. He should not have fired McArthur. He should have done what was necessary to win that war. What he did, however, set the pattern of half war that Kennedy and Johnson adopted for Vietnam. Tens of thousands of GI's lost their lives in both wars for a draw. I think Truman, Kennedy and Johnson should be lynched for getting us into wars without any hope for victory.

[Jaguar]

I averaged my ratings for Republicans and Democrats, and they are about equal. Just thought that was interesting.

[David Floyd]

I think they should be lynched for getting us into wars, period. Same as FDR and every other President who has gotten us into a war.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Roosevelt - 9
Truman - 6
Eisenhower - 7
Kennedy - 3
Johnson- 3
Nixon - 5
Ford - 5
Carter - 2
Reagan - 8
Bush I - 6
Clinton - 7
Bush II - incomplete

Shi, Truman f*cked up in Korea. He should not have fired McArthur. He should have done what was necessary to win that war.

Um... I prefer not to have nuclear armeggedon set off because of some wacked out general .

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Shi, Truman f*cked up in Korea. He should not have fired McArthur. He should have done what was necessary to win that war.

Um... I prefer not to have nuclear armeggedon set off because of some wacked out general .

I concur, your excellency! [/civ2 mode]

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Ned
Shi, Truman f*cked up in Korea. He should not have fired McArthur. He should have done what was necessary to win that war. What he did, however, set the pattern of half war that Kennedy and Johnson adopted for Vietnam. Tens of thousands of GI's lost their lives in both wars for a draw. I think Truman, Kennedy and Johnson should be lynched for getting us into wars without any hope for victory.

We haven't broken that pattern yet I'll remind you. Support W.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Ned
Shi, Truman f*cked up in Korea. He should not have fired McArthur. He should have done what was necessary to win that war. What he did, however, set the pattern of half war that Kennedy and Johnson adopted for Vietnam. Tens of thousands of GI's lost their lives in both wars for a draw. I think Truman, Kennedy and Johnson should be lynched for getting us into wars without any hope for victory.

I don't recall lauding Truman for his efforts re: the Korean war. But I will always respect the man for upholding the principle of civil control of the military, especially during a time when the military was possibly the most revered institution in America. It took guts and political courage to sack MacArthur, the sort that hasn't existed for over a decade.

[Sava]

Roosevelt (Teddy or Franky?) - I give both a 10 (without their reforms, this would be 1880 all over again... massive poverty, no social care whatsoever)

Truman - 6 (he had a lot of sh1t to deal with)

Eisenhower - 6 (a war expert trying to lead during peacetime... did decent on civil rights issues...)

Kennedy - 8 (faced some tough times, his time cut short)

Johnson - 5 (followed the wave of social change, but ultimately got us stuck in Vietnam)

Nixon - 2 (the only reason I didn't give this ******* a 0 is because he did some mending in SE Asia)

Ford - 0 (a complete boob)

Carter - 6 (good man, not a good leader)

Reagan - 2 (set the country back socially about 70 years, was responsible for many, many, many foreign policy atrocities, is probably the root cause of 9-11... a 2 for uniting Germany although I think he got more credit than he deserved)

Bush I - 0 (a continuation of dumbass Reaganomics... was forced to fix his predecessor's problem i.e Saddam... but didn't even finish the job)

Clinton - 7 (fixed the economy, tried to repair damage done to social programs, but simply was a bucket emptying water from a sinking ship... did his best with foreign policy... Kosovo a mistake, didn't help in preventing terror)

Bush II - 0 (sending the economy down the tubes, getting rid of civil rights and political freedoms, attempting to enact archaic, theocratic style of government, making the rest of the world hate us with his cowboy diplomacy... and might start WW3... I'd pray for a Lee Harvey, but he'd have to take out about 30-40 people before getting to a decent candidate... I might take up Christianity again just to pray for his departure in 2004)

[DuncanK]

I decided to judge them according to their leadership qualities instead of the things they did or didn't do for the country. the Scale is 1 to 10.

Roosevelt-10
Truman-4
Eisenhower-5
Kennedy-9
Johnson-4
Nixon-5
Ford-2
Carter-3
Reagan-8
George Bush-5
Clinton-6
George W. Bush-5

I may have been tough on the ones before Ford since they were before my time and I never experienced their leadership personally.

Oh, and just so you know, this is not a scale of how I particularily like the president or agree with his actions.

[Ramo]

They're all universally bad, but here's my synopsis on their terms:

FDR - Fascist bastard who tried to unite labor and capital into the gentle grip of the state. Luckily, some of that stuff was struck down by SCOTUS such as the NRA. However most of it wasn't. The Wagner Act and the NLBR gave the state authority to break strikes, and managed to de-militarize labor by turning Unions into bureaucratic undemocratic organizations. His AAA screwed over half of the country's farmers, the poorest ones - migrant workers and sharecroppers, through subsides to landed farmers to get them to produce less. And so forth. Also, his welfare programs didn't allow true liberty for the workers and effectively prevented liberation. He passed the Smith Act, which was the precursor to McCarthyism, and probably would've cleaned house of dirty subversives as Truman eventually did, but the war came. He never attempted to do anything when Hitler came to power, not even verbal criticism. When the Nationalists revolted in Spain, he not only refused to help the Republicans, he embargoed them. He'd done jack to help the Chinese, despite horrible things like the Rape of Nanjing, except when it threatened to take over US markets in China and threatened to take over the precious resources in SE Asia in '41. He'd attacked civilians on a massive scale in both theatres. He gave the army power to detain innocent Japanese civilians on the West coast, and they were promptly thrown into internment camps. He
implemented a draft, taking away the freedom of millions. I think I covered most important things.

Truman - He... oh **** it. This is taking to long. Needless to say, he did lots of bad things, and so did the leaders who followed him.