I think this poll sums up why the Republican Party is so remarkably successful (besides gerrymandering)
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In a survey of 1,446 registered voters, 33 percent said Obama was the worst president since World War Two, while 28 percent pointed to his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the worst, the poll by Quinnipiac University found.
Voters were split over which of the two most recent presidents has done a better job with 39 percent saying Obama has been a better president than Bush and, 40 percent saying Obama is worse.
Most voters said Ronald Reagan, who served two terms in the 1980s, was the best president since 1945, the survey showed.
Ignoring the fact Bush is by such a wide margin worse, Reagan the best? Just shows you how low the IQ of the average American voter is, and why Republicans probably won't ever change. Why would they with polls like this?
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Ignoring the fact Bush is by such a wide margin worse, Reagan the best? Just shows you how low the IQ of the average American voter is, and why Republicans probably won't ever change. Why would they with polls like this?
Well they didn't have a lot of choice after they assassinated the best one and then assassinated his brother, who likely would have been the next best one.
But Clinton was very good, minus his marriage issue.
The funny part is every "bad" thing Obama has done has been trying to clean up Bush's mess. That or communism. Either one.
Ignoring the fact Bush is by such a wide margin worse, Reagan the best? Just shows you how low the IQ of the average American voter is, and why Republicans probably won't ever change. Why would they with polls like this?
I don't think Reagan was the best, but he was Top 3 (Clinton, Ike the others) since 1945.
Care to explain why you think folks that think RR was the best have a low IQ?
Reagan was an awful president. He gets credit for "winning the Cold War" and thus is deified, but he helped institute a lot of the #### that has caused the US to get into their current problems.
Also, hilariously enough, if Reagan ran now, he wouldn't even get past the primaries. They wouldn't even elect their god because he's not right wing enough.
Jimmy Carter has been a stellar ex-President to his credit.
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Reagan was an awful president. He gets credit for "winning the Cold War" and thus is deified, but he helped institute a lot of the #### that has caused the US to get into their current problems.
Also, hilariously enough, if Reagan ran now, he wouldn't even get past the primaries. They wouldn't even elect their god because he's not right wing enough.
He also fixed the economy that Jimmy Carter left as a complete disaster.
I think most young people have no idea what RR actually did or was willing to do and has turned into a kind of folk hero to the Republicans
If he were in office now, todays, GOP and TParty would hate him.
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Well they didn't have a lot of choice after they assassinated the best one and then assassinated his brother, who likely would have been the next best one.
But Clinton was very good, minus his marriage issue.
The funny part is every "bad" thing Obama has done has been trying to clean up Bush's mess. That or communism. Either one.
Eisenhower is the best president since WWII in my opinion, not Kennedy, though Ike's legacy is tainted in several significant ways, Cuba, Vietnam, Latin America, 'Red Scare'. He was still the most substantive president of the time period in question though. . Kennedy is a popular pick because of the assassination, but I think the trajectory of his presidency was rocky.
In defence of both men, the privatization of the American political process was by then essentially complete, and the promotion of prominent corporate interests into positions of federal power was deeply influential in the promotion of differing political policies of dubious merit. The other aspect was the intelligence apparatus of the US at the time was an almost uncontrolled separate government entity that in some ways forced the hand of policy makers. Things were reeled in somewhat in the 1970s as the soviet communist threat began to diminish It was essentially an irresistible force that took hold during the presidency of Truman and had solidified itself by the end of Eisenhower's presidency. He'd be the last president that wasn't party to it at the beginning of his presidency.
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Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan
I don't think Reagan was the best, but he was Top 3 (Clinton, Ike the others) since 1945.
Care to explain why you think folks that think RR was the best have a low IQ?
Reagan was perhaps the worst president in US history. An egregious international criminal, a domestic fraud and soothsayer, a caricature of a phoney stuffed suit president who presided over and engaged in treasonous actions as President. His alzheimers while in office made him mentally corruptible, but also gave him plausible deniability in what are clearly criminal actions.
His administration established stronger ties with Apartheid South Africa, for example. He opposed the release of Nelson Mandela. Real stand-up guy.
Millions of lives were negatively affected by the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The course of American politics were irrevocably changed for the worse, and the accountability of the office was forever diminished.
Richard Nixon is the only president who is competitive, but the only caveat for him is that his legacy is forever tarnished. Reagan's celebration is for me, part of his awful legacy. The celebration and normalization of lunatic, immoral politics.
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Originally Posted by nik-
Reagan was an awful president. He gets credit for "winning the Cold War" and thus is deified, but he helped institute a lot of the #### that has caused the US to get into their current problems.
Also, hilariously enough, if Reagan ran now, he wouldn't even get past the primaries. They wouldn't even elect their god because he's not right wing enough.
Sarah Palin is the Ronald Reagan of the 21st century. Reagan would absolutely get elected, he was far more of a fringe candidate in many respects than he is remembered for.
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Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan
Clinton best. Carter worst.
That's my opinion.
Jimmy Carter has been a stellar ex-President to his credit.
I think Carter gets an unfair rating because it's almost become the celebrate chorus. It's the known punchline. In practical terms though I think history looks back on Carter far more favourably than Reagan, Ford, Nixon or H.W. Bush, his historical contemporaries.
In fact, Carter is an Island in an otherwise scum-sea of political operatives, criminals and establishment political royalty.
Maybe that's why he's perceived popularly as a 'bad' president.
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Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan
He also fixed the economy that Jimmy Carter left as a complete disaster.
There's a comparable to Obama and Jimmy Carter, and the disaster in which they took office. Post Vietnam, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, domestic nuclear power accident, the Iranian Revolution, and then manipulation behind the scenes by his political opponents to actually delay the release of American hostages for political gain...
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Eisenhower is the best president since WWII in my opinion, not Kennedy, though Ike's legacy is tainted in several significant ways, Cuba, Vietnam, Latin America, 'Red Scare'. He was still the most substantive president of the time period in question though. . Kennedy is a popular pick because of the assassination, but I think the trajectory of his presidency was rocky.
ehhh ... there's just way too much negative to Ike for him to be the best. He did have the "military industrial complex" speech, which people love. But you have the things you listed and the absolute explosion in the number of nuclear weapons on the planet. Ike kinda built the blueprint for the "lets #### with everyone's #### covertly" MO that continues to this day.
ehhh ... there's just way too much negative to Ike for him to be the best. He did have the "military industrial complex" speech, which people love. But you have the things you listed and the absolute explosion in the number of nuclear weapons on the planet. Ike kinda built the blueprint for the "lets #### with everyone's #### covertly" MO that continues to this day.
There's 2 things consider regarding Ike's negative legacies that I listed.
First, when Eisenhower became president, the Truman doctrine, containment of communism where it reared it's red little head, was in full effect. The intelligence apparatus had already been running with impunity in an effort to destabilize east germany and the soviet union. The Korean War etc are all descendants of that. I don't know if Eisenhower had the power to change course even if he wanted to, but I think many of these judgements are made with the benefit of hindsight. You are right, though, clandestine terror really began under Eisenhower.
Second, there was a global power vacuum from the end of european imperialism during the second world war. With the benefit of hindsight there are many criticisms, but I don't think the criticisms create some kind of broad explanation for international policy from Eisenhower. Some of the other guys, you see that things are pretty black and white, one size fits all diplomacy. Eisenhower, while maybe waging covert wars in some area, was preventing them in others. He threw a lot of weight around in the 50s that kept other nations in line, and not two-bit nations either, historical allies and world powers.
Positives, though, included a very prominent civil rights record, including desegregating the military and public schools.
He's more the best because everyone else is worse.
Last edited by Flash Walken; 07-03-2014 at 12:01 AM.
All I remember of Ike's time in office was his point man, John Foster Dulles the Secretary of State. This guy made Ronald Reagan look like a panty waist with his rhetoric. Newspaper headlines of the day seemed to ramp up the cold war tension to breaking points. Tense times although I was young and believed news sources of that day were accurate and reasonable.
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As secretary of state Dulles was often portrayed as the stern Presbyterian moralist who made speeches condemning atheistic communism and threatening massive retaliation. For many historians he was the very model of the ‘cold warrior,’ a reductionist whose rhetoric intensified the ideological gulf between East and West. Moreover, since Eisenhower was perceived as a chief executive who reigned but did not govern, Dulles was regarded as the architect of American foreign policy.
Truman is a underratedly bad president. He was the crap sandwich between FDR and Ike. Truman's legacy on geopolitics is perhaps the deepest and most pervasive which is just a tragedy.
How the cold war would have unfolded if the moron that was Truman wasn't in the oval office could have been one of the 20th century's defining achievements.
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Eisenhower is the best president since WWII in my opinion, not Kennedy, though Ike's legacy is tainted in several significant ways, Cuba, Vietnam, Latin America, 'Red Scare'. He was still the most substantive president of the time period in question though. . Kennedy is a popular pick because of the assassination, but I think the trajectory of his presidency was rocky.
Yeah I can get behind that. My thought process was more along the lines of that it seemed like JFK had the US headed in a good, useful direction (Space race, civil rights, didn't seem as afraid of the "communist threat", etc...) before he was murdered and his policies were likely to be follow by RFK, before he was also murdered.
I just think the whole historical outlook would have been different, and for the better, if Kennedy hadn't been shot. I could be off on his policies though, as my dad was 3 when he was shot.
