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

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

I think Shakey's a Contra

I'd add Truman to your list for sure, maybe also Ford; the doddering aside (exaggerated thanks to Chevy Chase), he seemed to be fairly comfortable with who he was.(I still remember getting my issue of Sports Illustrated with him on the cover--Jerry the college football star--right after he took office.) Psychologists might point to JFK's obsessive womanizing as betraying some deeper issues, but I look at Marilyn Monroe and I say count me in. I think we'd all agree that Nixon's way at the bottom; I don't think I'd want to cross LBJ, Carter, or Clinton, either. Bush II...beats me. Palin would be off the charts; she'd be Nixon all over again. I thought Hillary had lots of Nixon in her during the campaign, but she seems to have settled down.

I approve of this colloquial usage of the term "Nixon" ("he's okay, he's just got a little nixon in him")

HRC does have some Nixon in her, actually.

Absolutely agree--it spilled out all over the place during the campaign. (One of many examples: her own mini-version of the Southern Strategy, in her case more of a White Working Class America Beer-Drinking Strategy.) But she's stayed surprisingly low-key in her current post--I thought for sure she'd start making mischief from within, but nothing of the sort yet.

McCain had, and continues to have, a lot of Nixon in him. By all accounts, he's still really bitter about losing, and doing whatever he can to gum things up for Obama.

her presidency would have been even more nixon than her campaign, I think

McCain is a cretin.

HRC seems genuinely interested in doing something w/her job, learning, moving on. I think her cynicism was ill placed compared to the groundswell of idealism Obama's campaign generated but I wouldn't rule out her using it again. That kind of cynicism worked well for her husband.

Though I think Bill isn't as mean as she can be.

her presidency would have been even more nixon than her campaign, I think

I think you're probably right. She's acquitted herself well as SOS, but I'm still inclined to go with my initial sense of her as a president: disaster. I'm sure that's not fair, but it's a gut instinct.

HRC seems genuinely interested in doing something w/her job, learning, moving on.

This too. She really is fascinating; she was like fingernails on a blackboard to me at the start of the '08 campaign, now I'm of two minds on her.

i believe that her failures and betrayals would be roughly similiar to the ones we've seen from obama anyway... the only wildcard for me is whether she would be as adroit or standoffish (or manic in wanting to appear adroit and standoffish, if you like) in dealing with the right-wing freakout.

I think it's easy to forget how much the right-wing hated her before she temporarily became the one they hated less. she was the most evil woman in the world! and that was before there was even the idea of her maybe becoming president.

I think it would be much nastier, much more personal

it would be so much worse. right-wing more comfortable with being sexist than racist

I wonder if the right-wing freakout would have been as severe. I really don't know--would Republicans have reverted to their visceral Clinton loathing of the '90s, or would Hannity and Limbaugh and the like have been so relieved that the terrorist-loving black guy didn't win that they would have taken a step back. She seemed to earn some of their approval during the campaign, but I don't know if that was just smoke and mirrors.

average americans are too xp

absolutely smoke and mirrors. these people didn't just suddenly forget about a decade of their lives.

yup, that was one of my primary reasons for supporting obama -- the right wing has been practicing for 20 years on how to take down HRC. i really didn't want to live through that, and i doubted her administration's ability to govern through it. my reasoning seems a little pallid now, considering what we're dealing with vis a vis "the one" etc.

the tea party and birther jamboree has retained a kind of madcap incompetent quality that allows me to laugh at it enough to retain hope, if that makes sense. i still believe the psychotic reaction to a President Hillary would have been much more focused and lethal. it's shitty to think that way i guess, but there it is.

xp he seemed to earn some of their approval during the campaign, but I don't know if that was just smoke and mirrors

these people have the memory of a goldfish and motivation of a venus flytrap. they'll turn on a dime as soon as they have to, and the primaries would be forgotten instantly.

There is no reason to believe Limbaugh and what is now the tea party would have given HRC a break. None.

and considering how she responded to attacks when she was First Lady and during the campaign, I'm sure we would've been in for an ugly four years.

I basically agree with all that you say--just thinking aloud. I'd listen to Hannity during the campaign, and it was insanely funny. He started with the "Stop Hillary Express," smoothly transitioned to the "Stop Obama Express," took credit for the first working, tried at the same time to prop up her candicacy so that the second would work...it all got very confusing. Trains were pulling in and out the station left and right.