who was america's best president?

Jimmy Carter doesn't belong on this list, but repellent? he is like an angel, come on.

And the GOP wonders why it can't nominate Rudy Giulani.

if you're talking about the National Security Act of 1947 -- um, you do realize that stalin was still around (and had soviet soldiers all over the place in europe and china) when that thing was signed, yes?

(i haven't read the acheson biography, so i can't comment on that.)

I'm probably forgetting a few, it's been a few years since I cared about recent foreign policy history enough to characterize it as anything but an unending parade of evil.

i think that the soviet occupation of eastern europe was a done deal by 1945, NS Act of 1947 or not. (my crack about FDR and yalta was a bit of a cheap comment on my part -- what COULD he have done at that point?) short of declaring HOT war (as opposed to COLD war) on the soviets & throwing the world (NOT just europe) into another global war -- or just packing up and leaving europe altogether (leaving the rest of europe wide open to the soviets and their supporters over there) -- i don't see what the alternatives would be, for truman or any other president.

I don't think there is any dispute as to who the worst president is, is there?

i think it's all too easy to forget that this was a war fought on american soil, where sedition actually did have the potential to influence the outcome of the war. if you compare lincoln's actions to woodrow wilson's absolutely indefensible attacks on dissent during world war I (a war that took place hundreds of thousands of miles safely away from america, a war that america had virtually NO chance of losing, and a war in which america had virtually no stake to begin with; the overwhelming reason we were even involved was that wilson was a self-righteous "idealist" who believed he'd been appointed by god to save the world from all wars ever - sound familiar?), abe looks like a saint. geoffrey stone, in "perilous times" (a great great book btw) notes that lincoln went out of his way to avoid locking up dissenters whenever he could manage it (compare to, say, the alien and sedition acts, which were passed during peacetime, and you'll start to see how unusual this was).

i agree with alfred that every pres since FDR has been pretty bad. if i had to pick one it'd be LBJ, not just because of his domestic policies (the good done by his civil rights legislation just about balances out the damage done by vietnam) but because he was such a damned fascinating guy, on a shakespearean level - a genuinely tormented character torn between good and evil. ppl talk as if nixon was like that, but nixon was pretty much as shallow and phony and mean as he looked.

and yes, domestically lincoln was a pussycat compared to wilson, FDR, or dubya -- shit, REAGAN was a pussycat domestically compared to any of those three (considering that, IMHO anyway, the soviets were a more grave threat than al-qaeda).

perhaps, but it's easy to say now. it certainly doesn't excuse some of the western excesses during the cold war, but as eisbär says, the sovs were at least a real world power, unlike today's main bogeymen.

it is weird to look back and see claims that indochina or chile or greece would be the fatal domino, though.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/070129crbo_books_crain

my gut answer is truman but i have really no reason!

OTM. What did it say about Wilson that HARDING pardoned Eugene Debs, rotting in jail for being a Red and opposing Wilson for the presidency?

the more i learn about the cold war the more obvious it seems that it was pretty much all our doing. the soviet union had no intention of "spreading communism" to the rest of the world; that was a trotsky notion that stalin had tossed right out the window years before. there's no denying that stalin was a genuinely evil man and that the guys over here were just opportunistic and unprincipled, but that doesn't make the loyalty oaths and the national security act any less a betrayal of america's republican ideals

OTM yet again. This is what I wanted to say but lacked the space, except I would change "pretty much all our doing" to "we allowed Stalin to force our hand."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Andrew_johnson2.jpg

shiroibasketshoes +- guus hiddink

everyone here more or less very much in character

Fantastic discussion here, one of my favorite recent ILE threads:

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

https://radical.town/system/media_attachments/files/002/770/020/original/a24b6b375d03a941.jpg

Eisenhower remains the only president or world leader, so far as I'm aware, that has a jacket style for a namesake.

Surprised designers havent bagged on a Napoleon pocket yet for hoodies. It's a comfortable place to rest your hand, if you've a jacket that allots it.

Dickies Eisenhower jackets rule