According to SDW, McCarthy wasn't such a bad dude. He also thinks Fox is fair and balanced, Coulter isn't a psychobitch, livers grow on trees, I like democrats, and that he makes any sense whatsoever.
Some of the best.....Washington, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt. Worst, well I don't know so much about bad Presidents from way back so I'll go with Nixon, Reagan and Dubya. I was born in 1970 and didn't feel like we had a decent President in my lifetime till Clinton.
I'd say my favorite president was Woodrow Wilson. I haven't seen him mentioned here yet. He was put in a very tricky situation, what with the beginning of World War I, and he managed to delay US involvement for a while even though it was basically inevitable that the US would have to send in troops eventually. His League of Nations and Fourteen Points were excellent forerunners to the modern United Nations. This was a man who really put his entire life into going for world peace.
Strangely, another favorite president of mine is Teddy Roosevelt. I just admire him as a person... a real outdoorsy type, and he created the national park system which I am very thankful for. Even though he was more of a war hawk than I would like, he still seems like quite a character.
My least favorite president is Andrew Jackson by far. Did you know he was the only president who was also a murderer? He killed an Indian in a bar fight, sometime before he was elected.
I don't like Reagan either... not as a person, because he wasn't a mean old bastard like Jackson, but I don't think he was a very good president. He got the country into a HUGE deficit, largest ever. I don't know why people say he did a lot for the economy... I mean, deficit spending is a really easy way to buy lots of planes and bombs and tanks, but I don't think it's very good for the economy.
I'd say my favorite president was Woodrow Wilson. I haven't seen him mentioned here yet. He was put in a very tricky situation, what with the beginning of World War I, and he managed to delay US involvement for a while even though it was basically inevitable that the US would have to send in troops eventually. His League of Nations and Fourteen Points were excellent forerunners to the modern United Nations. This was a man who really put his entire life into going for world peace...
You need to do some more research on Wilson. He was a vicious racist.
Quote:
It was Inauguration Day, and in the judgment of one later historian, "the atmosphere in the nation?s capital bore ominous signs for Negroes." Washington rang with happy Rebel Yells, while bands all over town played "Dixie." The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whose role it was to swear in the newly elected Southern president, was himself a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, "an unidentified associate of the new Chief Executive warned that since the South ran the nation, Negroes should expect to be treated as a servile race." Somebody had even sent the new president a possum, an act supposedly "consonant with Southern tradition."
This is not an alternate-world scenario imagining the results of a Strom Thurmond victory in 1948. It really happened on March 4, 1913, the day Woodrow Wilson of Virginia and Georgia moved into the White House. The portrait of his Inauguration Day is drawn from historian Lawrence J. Friedman?s The White Savage: Racial Fantasies in the Postbellum South (1970)...
... Wilson?s historical reputation is that of a far-sighted progressive. That role has been assigned to him by historians based on his battle for the League of Nations, and the opposition he faced from isolationist Republicans. Indeed, the adjective "Wilsonian," still in use, implies a positive if hopelessly idealistic vision for the extension of justice and democratic values throughout the world. Domestically, however, Wilson was a retrograde racist, one who attempted to engineer the diminution of both justice and democracy for American blacks - who were enjoying little of either to begin with. (In fact, Wilson reportedly struck a racial-equality clause from the League of Nations charter as well.)
Wilson?s racist views were hardly a secret. He was born in 1856 in little Staunton, Virginia. Though his family had recently relocated from famously abolitionist Ohio, his father, a Presbyterian minister, was pro-slavery and a supporter of the Confederacy. Wilson was still a boy when the family moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he grew up amid the Civil War and Reconstruction.
His public career reflected his upbringing: Wilson?s five-volume study of American history was peppered with Lost Cause visions of a happy antebellum South. As president of Princeton, he had turned away black applicants...
You need to do some more research on Wilson. He was a vicious racist.
My goodness... that's pretty bad. I guess I should go tell off my U.S. History teacher from 11th grade . I never really liked her anyway but I assumed she would have told us the truth.
I bet every U.S. president ever has at least one thing that would bring serious pause to my saying that they were the best ever. No one's perfect... FDR seemed like a good one, but on the other hand there were the Japanese internment camps. Jefferson seemed okay as well but he cheated on his wife and was a hypocrite as far as slavery was concerned. I don't really have time to investigate what EVERY president did. I do seem to remember hearing that Madison was very good as well.
A number of presidents seemed like they were good people but not necessarily good presidents, and vice versa. Jimmy Carter is an excellent example of someone who is very intelligent and compassionate, but he just didn't make a great president. Richard Nixon might be seen as the opposite - a pretty good president but not a great person.
Somehow, it's much easier to think of presidents who were really bad rather than presidents who were really good. Andrew Jackson seems like one that many (including me) have mentioned.
No....This is definitely NOT intended as a flame bait...
well, yeah, i know it's not intended to be flame-bait, but i also know a few choice members around here who salivate when they see thread titles like this as a chance to start talking out their @sses. they know who they are.
anyway, i more just wanted people to qualify their choices a bit more than a top 5 list.
Aquafire, why do you call Clinton USA's worst president?
Slick Willy, had too many pretensions towards being seen as a new version of Kennedy.. As a keen student of photographic history, I was all too aware of how he used to stage manage his Whitehouse images to make him look like Kennedy...
But even if I can look past his own self serving vain glory, the man was ( along with his wife ) alleged accomplices in some very shady real estate dealings in Little Rock.
His ecomonic " successes " hinged more on luck than by virtue of any of his policies. Things more or less were going great guns anyway...without his having to do anything to bolster the economy...
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
Then there is the question of terrorism... He could have killed Al Quaida off before it even realy got rolling, but he let Bin Laden out of the hole..& the rest is history.
The man desrved the sobriquette..Slick Willy..& for good reasons...
Howard Zinn's "A people's History of the United States" contains a lot of stuff about who did what....and when...which doesn't get an airing in the more regularly quoted history texts.
Of 'modern times' one of the best presidents was FDR: and of the worst, take your pick from Nixon, Reagan, and whichever Bush.
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
hit the nail right on the head.
Our armed forces are suppossed to go to field with a ROE (Rules of Engagement) card, under the Clinton admin more often than not there was not a ROE card issued by direct order of the White House. These rules of engagement are very neccessary for the average soldier, it outlines, the aims of the deployment, how to engage particular situations to meet the aims, w/o these our soldiers had no clear objective and were hamstrung
Slick Willy, had too many pretensions towards being seen as a new version of Kennedy.. As a keen student of photographic history, I was all too aware of how he used to stage manage his Whitehouse images to make him look like Kennedy...
But even if I can look past his own self serving vain glory, the man was ( along with his wife ) alleged accomplices in some very shady real estate dealings in Little Rock.
His ecomonic " successes " hinged more on luck than by virtue of any of his policies. Things more or less were going great guns anyway...without his having to do anything to bolster the economy...
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
Then there is the question of terrorism... He could have killed Al Quaida off before it even realy got rolling, but he let Bin Laden out of the hole..& the rest is history.
The man desrved the sobriquette..Slick Willy..& for good reasons...
I am not convinced. I mean, I look at your examples and I hardly see any that say something about his presidency.
Vain glory? Hm, strange thing to encounter in someone having taken all the steps to be the most "powerful man in the world".
Inability to act forcefully? They did wait a long time to start actions, and when they did, they only did airstrikes. I remember myself and plenty others being outraged. Yet I don't think he handled the turmoil that was given him worst of all presidents.
Terrorism? Call me a kitten (to avoid the nasty word), but I don't believe unearthing the structures of Al Qaeda is the way to go. What I do believe is that solving the problems that might cause an Al Qaeda can be fruitful. So, one plus: his efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One minus: bombs over Baghdad in 1998.
In all this, I see nothing that makes him stick out on the wrong end. In any case, I don't think of myself familiar enough with the presidency to be making claims to who was the worst.
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
Just one of many things Clinton did to alienate the military. Needless cuts in quality of living for soldiers(not the big contracts), pushing too hard, too early, on the gays in the military issue (many gays and military agree don't ask don't tell is worse policy than before), trying to exercise the soldiers and sailors act to save his own hide (didn't work)
Probably why so many carreer military love Bush, they were dying for someone who would give them proper respect after 8 years of Bill
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
This is nitpicking of course.
Clinton was a snivelling peace-nick from wayback, who wouldn't give a tinker's cuss over the military....
And then there was his little episode with that famous funny cigarette..did he inhale or did he not ?
Like Monica...did she s***ck or did she just fool around...?
The man was as maliable with the truth as he was with reprehensibly lax morals...
In answer to Der Kopf..regards Bin Laden & Al-Quaeda
I aplogise for the stupid pop-ups.. but the points are succinct & valid..
And one final point, Clinton ( I shudder to call him President ), probably more than any other president before him or since, utterly eroded America's standing in the world community...
He made the USA look like it was constantly firing blanks or otherwise shooting itself in the foot..
Comments
Originally posted by BR
Coulter that hateful psychobitch. I bet she's a riot in bed though.
hahahaha... ???????????????????? WTF!
Originally posted by Eugene
hahahaha... ???????????????????? WTF!
According to SDW, McCarthy wasn't such a bad dude. He also thinks Fox is fair and balanced, Coulter isn't a psychobitch, livers grow on trees, I like democrats, and that he makes any sense whatsoever.
Strangely, another favorite president of mine is Teddy Roosevelt. I just admire him as a person... a real outdoorsy type, and he created the national park system which I am very thankful for. Even though he was more of a war hawk than I would like, he still seems like quite a character.
My least favorite president is Andrew Jackson by far. Did you know he was the only president who was also a murderer? He killed an Indian in a bar fight, sometime before he was elected.
I don't like Reagan either... not as a person, because he wasn't a mean old bastard like Jackson, but I don't think he was a very good president. He got the country into a HUGE deficit, largest ever. I don't know why people say he did a lot for the economy... I mean, deficit spending is a really easy way to buy lots of planes and bombs and tanks, but I don't think it's very good for the economy.
Worst: Nixon.
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
I'd say my favorite president was Woodrow Wilson. I haven't seen him mentioned here yet. He was put in a very tricky situation, what with the beginning of World War I, and he managed to delay US involvement for a while even though it was basically inevitable that the US would have to send in troops eventually. His League of Nations and Fourteen Points were excellent forerunners to the modern United Nations. This was a man who really put his entire life into going for world peace...
You need to do some more research on Wilson. He was a vicious racist.
It was Inauguration Day, and in the judgment of one later historian, "the atmosphere in the nation?s capital bore ominous signs for Negroes." Washington rang with happy Rebel Yells, while bands all over town played "Dixie." The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whose role it was to swear in the newly elected Southern president, was himself a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, "an unidentified associate of the new Chief Executive warned that since the South ran the nation, Negroes should expect to be treated as a servile race." Somebody had even sent the new president a possum, an act supposedly "consonant with Southern tradition."
This is not an alternate-world scenario imagining the results of a Strom Thurmond victory in 1948. It really happened on March 4, 1913, the day Woodrow Wilson of Virginia and Georgia moved into the White House. The portrait of his Inauguration Day is drawn from historian Lawrence J. Friedman?s The White Savage: Racial Fantasies in the Postbellum South (1970)...
... Wilson?s historical reputation is that of a far-sighted progressive. That role has been assigned to him by historians based on his battle for the League of Nations, and the opposition he faced from isolationist Republicans. Indeed, the adjective "Wilsonian," still in use, implies a positive if hopelessly idealistic vision for the extension of justice and democratic values throughout the world. Domestically, however, Wilson was a retrograde racist, one who attempted to engineer the diminution of both justice and democracy for American blacks - who were enjoying little of either to begin with. (In fact, Wilson reportedly struck a racial-equality clause from the League of Nations charter as well.)
Wilson?s racist views were hardly a secret. He was born in 1856 in little Staunton, Virginia. Though his family had recently relocated from famously abolitionist Ohio, his father, a Presbyterian minister, was pro-slavery and a supporter of the Confederacy. Wilson was still a boy when the family moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he grew up amid the Civil War and Reconstruction.
His public career reflected his upbringing: Wilson?s five-volume study of American history was peppered with Lost Cause visions of a happy antebellum South. As president of Princeton, he had turned away black applicants...
http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030729143608.ehe.shtml
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,258983,00.html
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
You need to do some more research on Wilson. He was a vicious racist.
My goodness... that's pretty bad. I guess I should go tell off my U.S. History teacher from 11th grade
I bet every U.S. president ever has at least one thing that would bring serious pause to my saying that they were the best ever. No one's perfect... FDR seemed like a good one, but on the other hand there were the Japanese internment camps. Jefferson seemed okay as well but he cheated on his wife and was a hypocrite as far as slavery was concerned. I don't really have time to investigate what EVERY president did. I do seem to remember hearing that Madison was very good as well.
A number of presidents seemed like they were good people but not necessarily good presidents, and vice versa. Jimmy Carter is an excellent example of someone who is very intelligent and compassionate, but he just didn't make a great president. Richard Nixon might be seen as the opposite - a pretty good president but not a great person.
Somehow, it's much easier to think of presidents who were really bad rather than presidents who were really good. Andrew Jackson seems like one that many (including me) have mentioned.
Originally posted by aquafire
No....This is definitely NOT intended as a flame bait...
well, yeah, i know it's not intended to be flame-bait, but i also know a few choice members around here who salivate when they see thread titles like this as a chance to start talking out their @sses. they know who they are.
anyway, i more just wanted people to qualify their choices a bit more than a top 5 list.
Worst: G.W. Bush, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan,
Originally posted by der Kopf
Aquafire, why do you call Clinton USA's worst president?
Slick Willy, had too many pretensions towards being seen as a new version of Kennedy.. As a keen student of photographic history, I was all too aware of how he used to stage manage his Whitehouse images to make him look like Kennedy...
But even if I can look past his own self serving vain glory, the man was ( along with his wife ) alleged accomplices in some very shady real estate dealings in Little Rock.
His ecomonic " successes " hinged more on luck than by virtue of any of his policies. Things more or less were going great guns anyway...without his having to do anything to bolster the economy...
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
Then there is the question of terrorism... He could have killed Al Quaida off before it even realy got rolling, but he let Bin Laden out of the hole..& the rest is history.
The man desrved the sobriquette..Slick Willy..& for good reasons...
Of 'modern times' one of the best presidents was FDR: and of the worst, take your pick from Nixon, Reagan, and whichever Bush.
Best: Lyndon Johnson (Great Society, War on Poverty, Civil Rights, Affirmative Action)
Worst: Definitely GWB. Even Nixon, his father, Harding or Reagan weren't as bad.
(Interesting by best and worst are Texans, although GWB technically isn't a Texan since he wasn't born in Texas)
All US history
Best: George Washington
Worst: Andrew Johnson
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
hit the nail right on the head.
Our armed forces are suppossed to go to field with a ROE (Rules of Engagement) card, under the Clinton admin more often than not there was not a ROE card issued by direct order of the White House. These rules of engagement are very neccessary for the average soldier, it outlines, the aims of the deployment, how to engage particular situations to meet the aims, w/o these our soldiers had no clear objective and were hamstrung
Originally posted by aquafire
Slick Willy, had too many pretensions towards being seen as a new version of Kennedy.. As a keen student of photographic history, I was all too aware of how he used to stage manage his Whitehouse images to make him look like Kennedy...
But even if I can look past his own self serving vain glory, the man was ( along with his wife ) alleged accomplices in some very shady real estate dealings in Little Rock.
His ecomonic " successes " hinged more on luck than by virtue of any of his policies. Things more or less were going great guns anyway...without his having to do anything to bolster the economy...
But his greatest sin was his inability / unwillingness to act forcefully & decisively in any theatre of war around the world..Yugoslavia is a prime example of his hamstrung..sit on my hands policy...
Then there is the question of terrorism... He could have killed Al Quaida off before it even realy got rolling, but he let Bin Laden out of the hole..& the rest is history.
The man desrved the sobriquette..Slick Willy..& for good reasons...
I am not convinced. I mean, I look at your examples and I hardly see any that say something about his presidency.
Vain glory? Hm, strange thing to encounter in someone having taken all the steps to be the most "powerful man in the world".
Inability to act forcefully? They did wait a long time to start actions, and when they did, they only did airstrikes. I remember myself and plenty others being outraged. Yet I don't think he handled the turmoil that was given him worst of all presidents.
Terrorism? Call me a kitten (to avoid the nasty word), but I don't believe unearthing the structures of Al Qaeda is the way to go. What I do believe is that solving the problems that might cause an Al Qaeda can be fruitful. So, one plus: his efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One minus: bombs over Baghdad in 1998.
In all this, I see nothing that makes him stick out on the wrong end. In any case, I don't think of myself familiar enough with the presidency to be making claims to who was the worst.
Originally posted by LiquidR
hit the nail right on the head.
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
This is nitpicking of course.
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
Just one of many things Clinton did to alienate the military. Needless cuts in quality of living for soldiers(not the big contracts), pushing too hard, too early, on the gays in the military issue (many gays and military agree don't ask don't tell is worse policy than before), trying to exercise the soldiers and sailors act to save his own hide (didn't work)
Probably why so many carreer military love Bush, they were dying for someone who would give them proper respect after 8 years of Bill
Originally posted by Eugene
Another thing Clinton didn't do that every president I can remember did is salute soldiers...whether stepping out of Marine 1 or just walking by a guard house.
This is nitpicking of course.
Clinton was a snivelling peace-nick from wayback, who wouldn't give a tinker's cuss over the military....
And then there was his little episode with that famous funny cigarette..did he inhale or did he not ?
Like Monica...did she s***ck or did she just fool around...?
The man was as maliable with the truth as he was with reprehensibly lax morals...
In answer to Der Kopf..regards Bin Laden & Al-Quaeda
This little site will explain..
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/Ldotvets/Bubba_6.html
If you are interested in a more expansive coverage..then link to
:http://www.angelfire/md2/Ldotvets/Bubba.html
I aplogise for the stupid pop-ups.. but the points are succinct & valid..
And one final point, Clinton ( I shudder to call him President ), probably more than any other president before him or since, utterly eroded America's standing in the world community...
He made the USA look like it was constantly firing blanks or otherwise shooting itself in the foot..