Realpolitik
Banned
Hm... some comments and musings. I don't believe in rankings much, it depends on what you want to rank.
Lincoln is the first for me, than FDR. Lincoln is the closest to any President that I will believe a "myth" about-he overcame so much personally(in a way even FDR with polio didn't), he stepped into the greatest crisis, and I truly believe could have healed the nation, in a way that didn't happen when he was shot. Truman and TR are very high up as well. In my opinion, Truman did more than any other President to help end the Cold War-weird as that may sound. TR is the most personally appealing to me, in an intellectual sense. He was truly a Renaissance man.
Like usertron says, Washington is up there by virtue of the fact that he kept it all together. The other Founders must be given their dues. I think John Adams is underrated.
I just think Grant was too corrupt to merit a top spot... but granted, I need to study him more.
Poor LBJ. Did so much, tried so much, yet is always remembered for his (admittedly huge) mistake, and was always never accepted or loved like the Kennedy family. Just as Nixon happened to be around when the bill of the "Imperial Presidency" was due, so was LBJ when it came to Vietnam and the simmering cultural/racial tensions bubbling beneath the surface of "happy America". With the exception of FDR, NOBODY handled Congress better-he turned it into an art, lawmaking. Unfortunately, his woes in foreign policy(not just Vietnam) prevent him from being in the tip-top rung, but he is up there in my book. Those little brats on the streets(I understand the race riots that year and can't be too irrationally mad at that, but for some reason the Yippies and their ilk really anger me.), with the "hey, hey" comments killed him-he committed slow motion suicide when he went back to Texas. He was so aware of what he did, and what could have been... When he did far more for the oppressed than they ever did. I'm glad Obama did that speech at the library, he is getting some long overdue love.
I'm not a Kennedy hater. Neither am I a Camelot believer. It seems that those are the only two options, if you look around(like Reagan, really). I think JFK was good. Cuba will guarantee him a good rank. I think JFK had the potential to be great-and also had the potential to be bad-before he was killed. I think he was becoming a better President as time went by. But he made his mistakes, could be as flat out amoral/cruel as LBJ or Nixon was at times, and was no demigod either, looking back on it. In the end, we need to judge on what was, while taking into account what could have been. Sort of like Nixon, I feel that this is something that I cannot truly understand on the emotional as posed to intellectual level-and I understand the fact that I DO NOT understand it.
Bush II is lower in my book, believe it or not. I do think his response to 9/11 was commendable. And I don't-like other Presidents-believe or can debunk the more "fantastic" claims about him made by his enemies-that he was racist in response to Katrina, that he fought Iraq simply for oil rather than being simply naive(his associates are a different matter), or that he knew about 9/11 beforehand... He was like a kid who destroyed everything he was given, and what he was given was a LOT. I'm sure he is a decent enough guy, but... *ugh* Buchanan is the worst though, for me. Pierce too.
Bush I and Clinton deserve their dues, in my opinion, as I have mentioned earlier.
Reagan... I have very mixed feelings about him. He wasn't as bad as what his detractors say and did some very important things-the most important of which was making America believe in itself again, which was sorely needed-but what he spawned domestically... He isn't top 10 in my book, but neither is he bottom 10. Like JFK-he had the ability to "make people see the stars", which although I will confess to sometimes getting irritated at the sheer importance this takes, I will acknowledge, insofar as importance. I think its important to know that certain ideologies or approaches work well at certain times. Times change. In the 70s, the New Deal consensus and economic policies were becoming hopelessly outdated. Reaganism, in turn, worked very well in the 80s and 90s, but not so well in 2008. These things go in cycles.
I've explained enough about Nixon. I could go on for a long time, given how I've studied him. It's a sense of overwhelming sadness really, considering what could have been, with that mind if he had used it for some more good, if his lighter side won out. Not to mention that Nixon's fall also corresponded, to varying degrees, with the annihilation of the moderate wing of the GOP, polarization of politics, and the watchdog media. I understand how people who were around might feel. But I cannot share the feelings. I wasn't there, I wasn't betrayed, and I'm just way too used to both studying past "dirty laundry" through a variety of administrations and seeing the present-the reality I know-to get overly morally outraged like people were over Watergate. The reasons why Watergate became "big", when it did, were very complex, and not all of it even tied to Nixon directly.
Does this excuse him? No. Watergate forms a huge part of his legacy, and deservedly so-in the end, it was his fault for ripping the nation apart. He, and only he, put us through such a thing. But it should be taken into account when discussing him. There is more to Watergate than Nixon, and more to Nixon than Watergate.
Lincoln is the first for me, than FDR. Lincoln is the closest to any President that I will believe a "myth" about-he overcame so much personally(in a way even FDR with polio didn't), he stepped into the greatest crisis, and I truly believe could have healed the nation, in a way that didn't happen when he was shot. Truman and TR are very high up as well. In my opinion, Truman did more than any other President to help end the Cold War-weird as that may sound. TR is the most personally appealing to me, in an intellectual sense. He was truly a Renaissance man.
Like usertron says, Washington is up there by virtue of the fact that he kept it all together. The other Founders must be given their dues. I think John Adams is underrated.
I just think Grant was too corrupt to merit a top spot... but granted, I need to study him more.
Poor LBJ. Did so much, tried so much, yet is always remembered for his (admittedly huge) mistake, and was always never accepted or loved like the Kennedy family. Just as Nixon happened to be around when the bill of the "Imperial Presidency" was due, so was LBJ when it came to Vietnam and the simmering cultural/racial tensions bubbling beneath the surface of "happy America". With the exception of FDR, NOBODY handled Congress better-he turned it into an art, lawmaking. Unfortunately, his woes in foreign policy(not just Vietnam) prevent him from being in the tip-top rung, but he is up there in my book. Those little brats on the streets(I understand the race riots that year and can't be too irrationally mad at that, but for some reason the Yippies and their ilk really anger me.), with the "hey, hey" comments killed him-he committed slow motion suicide when he went back to Texas. He was so aware of what he did, and what could have been... When he did far more for the oppressed than they ever did. I'm glad Obama did that speech at the library, he is getting some long overdue love.
I'm not a Kennedy hater. Neither am I a Camelot believer. It seems that those are the only two options, if you look around(like Reagan, really). I think JFK was good. Cuba will guarantee him a good rank. I think JFK had the potential to be great-and also had the potential to be bad-before he was killed. I think he was becoming a better President as time went by. But he made his mistakes, could be as flat out amoral/cruel as LBJ or Nixon was at times, and was no demigod either, looking back on it. In the end, we need to judge on what was, while taking into account what could have been. Sort of like Nixon, I feel that this is something that I cannot truly understand on the emotional as posed to intellectual level-and I understand the fact that I DO NOT understand it.
Bush II is lower in my book, believe it or not. I do think his response to 9/11 was commendable. And I don't-like other Presidents-believe or can debunk the more "fantastic" claims about him made by his enemies-that he was racist in response to Katrina, that he fought Iraq simply for oil rather than being simply naive(his associates are a different matter), or that he knew about 9/11 beforehand... He was like a kid who destroyed everything he was given, and what he was given was a LOT. I'm sure he is a decent enough guy, but... *ugh* Buchanan is the worst though, for me. Pierce too.
Bush I and Clinton deserve their dues, in my opinion, as I have mentioned earlier.
Reagan... I have very mixed feelings about him. He wasn't as bad as what his detractors say and did some very important things-the most important of which was making America believe in itself again, which was sorely needed-but what he spawned domestically... He isn't top 10 in my book, but neither is he bottom 10. Like JFK-he had the ability to "make people see the stars", which although I will confess to sometimes getting irritated at the sheer importance this takes, I will acknowledge, insofar as importance. I think its important to know that certain ideologies or approaches work well at certain times. Times change. In the 70s, the New Deal consensus and economic policies were becoming hopelessly outdated. Reaganism, in turn, worked very well in the 80s and 90s, but not so well in 2008. These things go in cycles.
I've explained enough about Nixon. I could go on for a long time, given how I've studied him. It's a sense of overwhelming sadness really, considering what could have been, with that mind if he had used it for some more good, if his lighter side won out. Not to mention that Nixon's fall also corresponded, to varying degrees, with the annihilation of the moderate wing of the GOP, polarization of politics, and the watchdog media. I understand how people who were around might feel. But I cannot share the feelings. I wasn't there, I wasn't betrayed, and I'm just way too used to both studying past "dirty laundry" through a variety of administrations and seeing the present-the reality I know-to get overly morally outraged like people were over Watergate. The reasons why Watergate became "big", when it did, were very complex, and not all of it even tied to Nixon directly.
Does this excuse him? No. Watergate forms a huge part of his legacy, and deservedly so-in the end, it was his fault for ripping the nation apart. He, and only he, put us through such a thing. But it should be taken into account when discussing him. There is more to Watergate than Nixon, and more to Nixon than Watergate.
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