U.S. Presidents - Cold War and New Millennium Edition

I don't consider this a virtue when the thing is a very bad thing!

The only 'virtue' here is that at least he was more a leader than a panderer.

Pelosi by a huge, undisputed lead over Hastert, Gingrich, Wright, O'Neill, etc.

OTFM I am so proud of Nancy

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3579/3823648109_ae39805082_o.jpg

l-r

america, reagan

http://underwhelmedcomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/newnixon2.jpg

I mean this is very similar logic to why many people voted bush over kerry! I'm fine w/ a panderer, hell, that should probably be in the job description.

panderer to the american people

x-post: yeah, the thing is that (understandably enough) historians tend to rate presidents based on how "effective" they are, so they rate someone like james k. polk highly regardless of what one might think of polk's imperialism, etc. on the other hand, when it comes to domestic stuff presidential effectiveness depends largely on how willing congress is to work with them -- congress caved in to reagan repeatedly, whereas they were tough on clinton.

alfred: i'd never argue that carter was anything special as a leader, but judging him against these other characters, he seemed like the 'least bad' option. for all his incompetence, i sometimes wonder what his legacy would've been if the hostages had been released a little earlier in 1980 and allowed him to squeak through; i think we tend to automatically see one-term presidents as "failures" and two-termers as "successes" regardless of what they actually did. (surely the same thing would have happened to reagan if he'd been kicked out in 1984.) speaking of one-termers, i was actually tempted to rate bush I higher, since i can't think of any specific reason not to, but tbh i'm probably less informed on the nuts and bolts of his administration than any of these guys so i just left him in the middle.

first Gulf War basically gave us Gulf War II so he can fuck right off imho

"he tried to kill my dad!" etc

Polk's considered the most effective one-term president of all.

yeah, it's often forgotten that until the week before the election Reagan and Carter were neck and neck. It might've sprung the other way had the hostages been released. Not to mention considerable evidence suggests that Bill Casey, Richard Allen, and Poppy Bush reached a deal with the Iranians to refrain from releasing them until after the inauguration, in exchange for weapons.

Morbs likes Bush I best, right? I can't think of another president w ho did less an office. Let's see what I remember: Bush holding up a bag of cocaine warning kids to stay away, he hated broccoli, signed the American Disabilities Act, hated by George Will and religio-cons, first Gulf War, raised taxes, and, uh, what else?

puking in Japan

*who did less in office

puking in Japan

Graham Parker?

feud with homer simpson

^^literally the first thing that came to mind

at the very least, he's the worst parent on the list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJHCRVs4AY

Doh! I should've voted JFK.

He was a weasally evil man and he has just caused me to calumniate weasels.

I've read and thought about Nixon a fair amount. One of the most perceptive things I've heard anybody say about him was something from Carl Bernstein (around the time of Mark Felt's coming out, I think): that of anyone who was ever president, Nixon was in a universe all his own as far as being the most temperamentally unsuited person ever to hold the job, and that instead of beginning each day by saying "What problem should we focus on today?", he would literally begin by saying "What score can I settle today?" But--and here's where my fascination comes in--there was also this deeply sentimental side to him (inexorably bound up with his endless self-pity) that would see him call up some reporter after 25 years to express sympathy over the death of his wife.

yeah it's sorta astounding that the most powerful human being on the planet could still have that big a chip on his shoulder.

Dubya had even bigger chips

at least Nixon didn't just bomb cambodia cuz he hated his dad, knowhutimean

Ike is probably the least hate-able, would have voted for "Fuck The Lot Of Them."

Carter's probably the most frustrating, for the way 'progressives' have whitewashed his foreign policy - just as brutal and inhumane as Reagan was.

huh? nobody likes carter

"if it was fave person i would vote carter though <3"
"probably the most 'decent' dude on this list outside of Carter maybe."
"An immensely decent man imho."
"i'd never argue that carter was anything special as a leader, but judging him against these other characters, he seemed like the 'least bad' option."

That's just in this thread!

I guess it helps when he's put in a list with dubya and nixon

but I don't think progressives in general embrace him

"An immensely decent man imho."

I don't necessarily mean just as President.

Can anyone recommend a good solid account of the Carter presidency, or a biography that focusses on his time in office? Something along the lines of Maraniss's book on Clinton, or (though obviously shorter) Ambrose's on Nixon. I bought Douglas Brinkley's book, not realizing it documented Carter's time out of office. That was such a wild four years--I was in high school--but my sense of Carter as a person is hazy. I see him as a very morose character, with a dark side not nearly as pronounced as Nixon's but there nonetheless, and I'm not sure why.

(inexorably bound up with his endless self-pity)

Don't know what if it's significant tbh, but his eldest and youngest brothers both died of tuberculosis. Might have been his father's love of raw milk, too.

I can't help you with Carter, but I can recommend other Nixon bios besides the Ambrose.

Those booklength interviews with courtier Monica Crowley published in the mid nineties are fascinating. In the first one, Nixon fulminates against Poppy Bush for never having the statesmanship to call him for advice about Russia, then lavishes praise on Clinton because Clinton actually returned his phone calls, after which he turns on him as soon as the prez is distracted by Whitewater. The guy was such a sucker for praise -- it's embarrassing.

The second volume, meanwhile, is Nixon Reads The Classics. To read this man's thoughts on Hegel, de Toqueville, Rousseau, Marx, and Tolstoy must be seen to be believed. Nothing particularly original -- he draws the sorts of conclusions that a clever undergrad might make in an A paper -- but it shows the truth in Garry Wills' conclusion about Nixon: no man ever did more to undermine his own considerable intelligence.

Thanks--I've got Nixon books enough for a lifetime; I wrote about them on my page last year. Ambrose's trilogy is one of the best things I've ever read. It was disappointing to see him mixed up in some plagarism scandal not too long before his death.

Are people ranking Eisenhower over LBJ because he had greater accomplishments or because he didn't do anything as bad as LBJ's actions in Vietnam? (The latter would be a good reason. I'm just curious and interested.)

jonathan schell's 'the time of illusion' is a great book that focuses just on nixon's presidency, mostly first-term. some of the best political writing i've ever read, brilliantly and hilariously dissecting the nixon/agnew rhetoric and comparing it to what was actually happening. the section where he shows how nixon went back and forth from virtually announcing the end of the vietnam war to calling for all-out war on a weekly basis is almost laugh-out-loud funny.

I don't have that, but I've got Schell's Observing the Nixon Years. Haven't read it--I'm wondering if it's the same book retitled.

Are people ranking Eisenhower over LBJ because he had greater accomplishments or because he didn't do anything as bad as LBJ's actions in Vietnam?

the latter mostly (altho I ranked them as tied)

LBJ is still my first pick, but Eisenhower had the best temperament for the job (even if personally he's a nullity).

Also, let's remember the heaps of assistance Ike gave Nixon in '60.

I don't want to sidetrack this into an Obama discussion, but whatever you think of his job performance, I think he'll be up near the very top of the temperament list when he leaves office. Beyond the standard carping about the press that's part of a president's DNA, he seems to be largely without neuroses or vindictiveness.

sometimes I think it's his biggest flaw

I deduct points from Obama for the "beer summit" and his occasional prickliness about criticism. If we're grading temperament, it'd be:

Eisenhower
Bush I
Reagan
Obama
JFK
fuck the rest

sometimes I think it's his biggest flaw

Interesting...I hear you.

I always thought Bush I was an asshole but I was heavily influenced by music and the music press at the time. Why so high up in terms of temperament? I found him deeply creepy.

i have a hard time getting what motivates obama. unlike all the haters i don't think it's narcissism. but, what? i'm disinclined to believe its love of country or commitment to ideals or anything like that (lol cynic). frustration with bullshit? can frustration be an epic quality?

My response to Bush I in high school and early college mirrored Nixon's: a colorless bureaucrat, the CEO of a reasonably successful company resisting a merger, but he looked like a "leader."

can't believe you left off jailing Noriega from his list of accomplishments *tsk* *tsk*

Whatever the black helicopters/anti-UN crew thinks now, Bush Sr., and Baker were magisterial in putting together the Gulf War UN coalition, suppressing the Israeli (Shamir's) determination to always repond to attacks and defending limited goals in that war (contra Shakey, I still think he was right and that it didn't necessarily lead to the 2003 confrontation).

PS., I almost just called Shakey a Contra. Funding (and arms) are in the mail, dude.

viva la revolucion, comrade