People that History has Given a Bum Rap

[LordShiva]

Kissinger

[Bosh]

Eisenhower

Did some good stuff, but mostly avoided doing a lot of remarkably dumb-ass stuff that his successors indulged in.

Presidents spending time golfing

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, Nixon did better than his current reputation is. He 'went to China' and accomplished a number of domestic goals (which would probably have made current Republicans livid).

Ike was better than his rep, Bosh, but I don't think history has given him a 'bum rap'.

[Dinner]

Ike dug deep into the treasury and almost single handiedly created the Interstate Freeway system. He got the idea after seeing the German autobahn after Germany surrendered. Also Ike got the federal government into education big time and that extra federal money really pushed all levels of education to new heights.

[OzzyKP]

In addition, the Finns added the word hoover, meaning "to help," to their language in honor of his two years of humitarian work.

This is pretty cool. Can Finns confirm this?

[RGBVideo]

I can counter-confirm the presumption that it's currently a word in use in Finnish language.

I've never heard of that word.

[SlowwHand]

posted 06 February, 2006 04:18 AM
I'm a native speaker and I've never heard of any word that woold seem to sound remotely like 'Hoover'.

However, I wouldn't consider it unbelievable to consider that the term was adopted briefly as a slang expression. The Finnish spoken language evolves and picks up and discards various foreign influences relatively quickly (whereas the written language is quite different and fairly static).

With that said, a quick Internet search provides no mentions of the topic (though it does confimr that Hoover was responsible for getting a good deal of aid to Finland both after the Civil War in 1918 and during the Winter War).

http://tinyurl.com/y9fk8b

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by LordShiva
[snoopy369]
Genghis Khan
[/snoopy369]

Nixon as well. Frankly I'm surprised some of the anti-bush crowd haven't gravitated toward Nixon. He lost his job not because of the scandal, really, but because he'd pissed the republican party off by having his own agenda and actually pushing it rather than pushing the party line, and often supported 'liberal' policies (in areas he believed in).

Presidents with minds of their own

[snoopy369]

Hoovering the carpet by the way

[RGBVideo]

but because he'd pissed the republican party off by having his own agenda and actually pushing it rather than pushing the party line, and often supported 'liberal' policies (in areas he believed in).

What was the party line if not Nixon's line?

Also, care to name any 'liberal' policies he believed in?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by VJ
What was the party line if not Nixon's line?

Also, care to name any 'liberal' policies he believed in?

Well, 'liberal' in the American sense: Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA); began the first significant federal affirmative action program (Philadelphia Plan); increased the salaries of federal workers dramatically; indexed Social Security for inflation and created the Supplemental Security Income (SSI); and began detente with the Soviet Union.

[RGBVideo]

The question was why don't more 'liberals' (in an American sense) or the "anti-Bush crowd" like Nixon since he "supported liberal policies in areas he believed in". In this context, in order to believe that he didn't just agree with liberal domestic policy in order to keep good relations with the overwhelmingly democratic Congress and in order to score votes in his re-election campaign, the phrase "he believed in" becomes vital, since if he wouldn't have believed in them, he wouldn't have agreed with them and most certainly wouldn't have pushed them in case of a republican Congress and much less hostile media.

So -- you think he believed in all of those? For example you really believe that Nixon believed in affirmative action, for example? That man was a racist, he called black families who received welfare benefits little negro bastards.

[Sava]

Nixon

Nixon's foreign policy in general

He gets props for China, but he made Vietnam much worse before starting the withdrawl. Also, when it came to the Watergate scandal, that is more significant because of his general disregard for the law and abuse of executive power in general. He gets more for that.

That being said, he only looks decent now because lately Presidents have sucked so bad. Today, Nixon would never get elected as a Republican... not with his record.

But IMO, if he wasn't so paranoid and devoid of respect for the law, he wouldn't be such a bad President.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by VJ

What was the party line if not Nixon's line?

Also, care to name any 'liberal' policies he believed in?

Price controls...

[RGBVideo]

Price controls...

You think he enacted price controls because he believed they would help the economy? I think the obvious explanation now is that be enacted price controls so he could manipulate the economy and thus increase unemployement before election season in exchange for increased long-term inflation.

When it came to the good of American economy... Once in office, Nixon didn't care about the budget, he didn't care about the inflation or anything else. He just wanted to get more employement before the election, whatever it cost.