The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: b-ONE-b on January 05, 2014, 07:06:46 PM
-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024279549
Jmaxfie1
These would be your choices:
William McKinley (1897-1901)
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)
Harry S Truman (1945-1953)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
George Bush (1989-1993)
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
George W. Bush (2001-2009)
Barack Obama (2009-present)
Pick your Best three and bottom three. If you want pick bottom three democrats also!
My Favorite: FDR, Truman, JFK. Least favorite Democrats: Wilson, Clinton, Carter.
Seriously... I'm trying to understand their logic or lack thereof.
Their choices are poor even from a liberal/progressive aspect.
Let's start.
JFK. I feel bad that he got killed by the leftist. But HOW can he be judged as a great or even above average President? He was President for 2 years and 10 months. What did he do? He gave a nice speech or two. In 1961 JFK made the mistake of getting into a pissing contest with Krushchev over a Krushchev speech that was produced for internal value. JFK inflamed tensions with the Russians at the Vienna summit. JFK wears the "Bay of Pigs" fiasco around his neck. JFK stumbled in the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly starting a nuclear war and had a vague South American policy friendly to some tyrants.
JFK created the Peace Corps so that's cool, I guess. JFK set the stage for the Vietnam War and supported Civil Rights although he tapped MLK's phones. He loosened up fiscal policy and his economy, for 2 years was good. He was the main proponent of the Space program leading to a Moon landing years later. Oh and he was handsome, had a hot wife and cute kids and was banging Marilyn Monroe.
I see about 60% negative stuff, 40% decent stuff... he looks like a slightly below average President.
FDR. I could type for hours but I don't have the patience. FDR created the Parasite class and changed America for the worse. FDR was played like a FLUTE by Stalin during WWII and his WEAKNESS led to the Cold War. He played the first years of WWII about right though assuming the US didn't want to be involved in a European War in 1939.
I'm seeing one of the worst Presidents ever, certainly in the "bottom 10".
Drunken Irishman
FDR, LBJ and Obama
My god the stupidity.
LBJ?? The guy who botched the Vietnam War, said "“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.†Or the guy who signed the worst Gun Legislation in US history? He ran NASA right though... thumbs up there.
I'm seeing another below average President...
Obama. LMFAO. I just can't go on. Obama has done precisely NOTHING other than burying the American economy, weakening the US as a superpower and bowing to foreign dictators. Oh and hatching Health Care for parasites.
I'm seeing bottom 10 President material right there.
Clinton. Look at the numbers, the economy and such... I'm gonna rank Billy Jay as average at best.
-
Mole trap.
-
Don't forget.
Herbert Hoover and J.C. Superstar were hailed as a "Great Humanitarian."
Now we know what it's like, having a humanitarian president.
-
My three favorite:
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Calvin Coolidge
3. Dwight Eisenhower
My three least favorite, tied for last:
Franklin Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson
Barack Obama
-
JFK...
How do they reconcile "ask not what your country can do for you...", out of the mouth of an NRA life member?
If he were alive holding those stances today, he'd be a "tea party extremist racist bigot gun nut" as far as they're concerned.
:mental:
CMD
-
Why did the DUmmies only go back as far as 1900? So they could avoid talking about Honest Abe and the1860s equivalent of Alec Baldwin who killed him?
-
TL;DR
-
JFK would have a better chance of getting the RINO nomination than the Dhimmicrat nomination today.
-
Why did the DUmmies only go back as far as 1900? So they could avoid talking about Honest Abe and the1860s equivalent of Alec Baldwin who killed him?
Exactly.
-
I have an ongoing argument with the libs on my other forum. They want to make out that W is the worst president ever. I say owebuma, and that W isn't even in the 10 worst presidents list. But what I do is document owebuma's failures. All they do is assert.
-
I have an ongoing argument with the libs on my other forum. They want to make out that W is the worst president ever. I say owebuma, and that W isn't even in the 10 worst presidents list. But what I do is document owebuma's failures. All they do is assert.
Fairly typical lib response.
Something is or is not because they deem it so. Any facts that contradict their assertions are brushed off as propaganda.
-
The worst:
Obama
Carter
LBJ
Nixon
Wilson
-
Exactly.
And the Dummies don't want to include the Founders of the country in their lists either since their beliefs about limited government would cause liberals to label them as anarchists and right-wing nut jobs.
-
I thought the DUmmies would love Wilson, so I'm very confused. Then again, I'm not a DUmmy...hard to understand their mindset.
-
I thought the DUmmies would love Wilson, so I'm very confused. Then again, I'm not a DUmmy...hard to understand their mindset.
I always rated Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson fairly highly; in fact, Johnson was the best Democrat president in my lifetime, although he can't hold a candle to any of the (R) ones.
Wilson was a closet totalitarian, a know-it-all, and an open segregationist, but I never paid attention to those sides of him; I've always been rather more impressed by his commitment to bring democracy to the oppressed and downtrodden in the world.
Johnson surely has to stand heads above any Democrat presidents since himself; surely he ranks higher than J.C. Superstar, the Impeached One, and the doofus currently in the White House.
I will admit however that sentimentality plays a part in my perception of Johnson; I was young, but not too young, when he was president. Even as a kid, I was shocked at the ingratitude of those for whom he did so much (admittedly, with other people's money)--college students, the poor, minorities, the young, the aged.
The more stuff he gave them, the more they loathed him; they should've been kissing his ass, not kicking it.
For a kid, that was an awesomely powerful lesson; that there actually are people who bite the hand that feeds them
-
I always rated Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson fairly highly; in fact, Johnson was the best Democrat president in my lifetime, although he can't hold a candle to any of the (R) ones.
Wilson was a closet totalitarian, a know-it-all, and an open segregationist, but I never paid attention to those sides of him; I've always been rather more impressed by his commitment to bring democracy to the oppressed and downtrodden in the world.
Johnson surely has to stand heads above any Democrat presidents since himself; surely he ranks higher than J.C. Superstar, the Impeached One, and the doofus currently in the White House.
I will admit however that sentimentality plays a part in my perception of Johnson; I was young, but not too young, when he was president. Even as a kid, I was shocked at the ingratitude of those for whom he did so much (admittedly, with other people's money)--college students, the poor, minorities, the young, the aged.
The more stuff he gave them, the more they loathed him; they should've been kissing his ass, not kicking it.
For a kid, that was an awesomely powerful lesson; that there actually are people who bite the hand that feeds them
If I had to pick my favorite Dem president in that time-frame, I'd go with Truman. But I understand what you are talking about.
-
Father detested Wilson (he detested all democrats but some more then others) and told me how Wilson when running for reelection made his major campaign theme that "he kept us out of war".
Almost immediately after being reelected he pushed the US into WWI.
Regardless of what one thinks of the policy it just proves that the modern democrat party he fathered has always had to campaign on lies.
-
Father detested Wilson (he detested all democrats but some more then others) and told me how Wilson when running for reelection made his major campaign theme that "he kept us out of war".
Almost immediately after being reelected he pushed the US into WWI.
Regardless of what one thinks of the policy it just proves that the modern democrat party he fathered has always had to campaign on lies.
IIRC, Wilson campaigned on an isolation policy and vowed never to get involved in foreign wars.
-
IIRC, Wilson campaigned on an isolation policy and vowed never to get involved in foreign wars.
Correct because that was the popular sentiment of the day,he could never have been reelected vowing to enter the European war so flat out lied about his intent.
-
JFK...
How do they reconcile "ask not what your country can do for you...", out of the mouth of an NRA life member?
If he were alive holding those stances today, he'd be a "tea party extremist racist bigot gun nut" as far as they're concerned.
:mental:
CMD
JFK is a particularly hard guy to classify. He did a lot of good but also fathered a lot of totally unmitigated disasters, thanks in part to him letting his national intelligence apparatus get completely off the leash in the foreign affairs arena. His appointment of the utterly-unqualified RFK as AG (Rubber-stamped by a Senate his party controlled, in a total partisan abdication of their proper role), and then RFK's over-the-top illegalities in pursuit of his headliner targets, set the tone for most of the problems that still plague the DOJ today. Yet he was also personally courageous beyond question and had a sincere concern for equal rights. He may well be the guy who belongs on both the best AND the worst list.
-
JFK is a particularly hard guy to classify. He did a lot of good but also fathered a lot of totally unmitigated disasters, thanks in part to him letting his national intelligence apparatus get completely off the leash in the foreign affairs arena. His appointment of the utterly-unqualified RFK as AG (Rubber-stamped by a Senate his party controlled, in a total partisan abdication of their proper role), and then RFK's over-the-top illegalities in pursuit of his headliner targets, set the tone for most of the problems that still plague the DOJ today. Yet he was also personally courageous beyond question and had a sincere concern for equal rights. He may well be the guy who belongs on both the best AND the worst list.
Another issue is that he was in office for less than 3 years. And the supposed glamour of "Camelot" has obviously enhanced his reputation.
-
Another issue is that he was in office for less than 3 years. And the supposed glamour of "Camelot" has obviously enhanced his reputation.
If Nixon had won (which I believe he did) there would not have been a Cuban Missile Crisis. If there had been with the exact same results it would have been all Nixon's fault. The end result of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the removal of our missiles out of Turkey. Kennedy delivered a blow to our defense and reputation. The left is smart in that they have had a monopoly on the media for a good long time.
-
Johnson was the best Democrat president in my lifetime. . . .
frank, I love ya, man, but here I must heartily disagree. My lifetime is just about the same as yours, but until Ubama recently pulled even with him (if not overtook him), I would have to rank LBJ as the worst president of my lifetime! This is the man who gave us both the Great Society and Vietnam! A double whammy! Two disasters of epic proportions!
-
My three favorite:
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Calvin Coolidge
3. Dwight Eisenhower
My three least favorite, tied for last:
Franklin Roosevelt
Lyndon Johnson
Barack Obama
H5! :cheersmate: Mine are, more or less, the same.
-
I always rated Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson fairly highly; in fact, Johnson was the best Democrat president in my lifetime, although he can't hold a candle to any of the (R) ones.
Wilson was a closet totalitarian, a know-it-all, and an open segregationist, but I never paid attention to those sides of him; I've always been rather more impressed by his commitment to bring democracy to the oppressed and downtrodden in the world.
Johnson surely has to stand heads above any Democrat presidents since himself; surely he ranks higher than J.C. Superstar, the Impeached One, and the doofus currently in the White House.
I will admit however that sentimentality plays a part in my perception of Johnson; I was young, but not too young, when he was president. Even as a kid, I was shocked at the ingratitude of those for whom he did so much (admittedly, with other people's money)--college students, the poor, minorities, the young, the aged.
The more stuff he gave them, the more they loathed him; they should've been kissing his ass, not kicking it.
For a kid, that was an awesomely powerful lesson; that there actually are people who bite the hand that feeds them
Frank as someone who was making money repairing section 8 housing I have learned this truth, people who are given something have no respect for the gift or the person giving it to them, especially when they did not ask for it. The fact is that Johnson could have capped income at $20,000 and required anyone who made more than that continue to work and have required every one be given housing and food, and they would have hated him even worse. It would have been because the federal government didn't offer free train rides or something.
-
frank, I love ya, man, but here I must heartily disagree. My lifetime is just about the same as yours, but until Ubama recently pulled even with him (if not overtook him), I would have to rank LBJ as the worst president of my lifetime! This is the man who gave us both the Great Society and Vietnam! A double whammy! Two disasters of epic proportions!
I have to disagree with the both of you.
"Best democrat president" is a grouping of words that do not belong together.
And the worst president of the entire twentieth century is the boob from Plains.
He was in office for only a single term, but after nearly forty years he continues to afflict us with constant embarrassing incompetence.
The current muslim is more destructive, but a little over five years ago he was just a South Side organizer, and longevity has to count for something.
-
Remember, I guess I'm looking more at Lyndon Johnson the man than at Lyndon Johnson the president.
It had a great impact on my young mind, watching the guy give certain groups everything they wanted.....and the more he gave them, the more they loathed him.
I always thought that Johnson's birthday should be a religious holiday for old hippies, during which time, say in San Francisco for example, they'd pull out a great big golden Buddha-like statue of him, big round pot-belly with surgical scar evident, carrying it on a platform on their shoulders as they circled around some sort of Buddhist-like temple, some of them in front strewing flower-petals, chanting Buddhist-like mantras of praise honoring the Great Giver.
I still don't understand their ingratitude to him; the rest of us have little or no reason to be grateful, but these ageing assholes surely do.
-
I happen to like Nixon.
His only problem was not listening to Franksolich's advice, and come clean.
There are a few DUmprimitives that have learned that the hard way.
-
I happen to like Nixon.
Lyndon Johnson probably had a more profound effect on my politics than any Republican president did, but I was at the most-impressionable age at the time.
And what was going on in the country was going on in my own family too; my parents had given all my older brothers and sisters much, but they were all turning out ungrateful hippies anyway.
Thus the genesis of my political evolution; if someone's not going to be grateful for what they're given, then damn it, don't give them anything at all.
And thus my impatience with Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush.
Republican presidents have a compulsion to be president of all the people, of all Americans, while Democrat presidents are interested only in serving certain constituencies, at the expense of other people.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush in their statesmanship gave Democrats, liberals, primitives, and old hippies a great deal, because they saw themselves as president of all the people, not just those who voted for them. And they gave these people--who wouldn't like them no matter what--stuff at the expense of those who liked them.
I think it would be good for future Republican presidents to reward their friends and deprive their opponents.
-
And the worst president of the entire twentieth century is the boob from Plains.
In my opinion, FDR, Obama, Wilson, and LBJ did more damage to the United States than Carter. Jimmuh was the 5th worst, in terms of our nation.
-
In my opinion, FDR, Obama, Wilson, and LBJ did more damage to the United States than Carter. Jimmuh was the 5th worst, in terms of our nation.
I'll concede that when the history is written the jug-eared muslim may be the worst. If not, it won't for lack of effort on his part.
I just don't believe that there's ever been a horrid president like Jimmeh who has continued to actively add to his damaging, embarrassing legacy for decades after leaving office.
-
Well, Frank, I have to say LBJ has never ranked all that high on my list, other than when he was actually in office and I was a completely naive teenager, but as the 'Cone of silence' about his psycho behavior fell apart after he was safely out of office and I acquired more mature judgment and experience, it took a huge slide. A bully, coward, liar, and old-school corrupt self-enriching bastard if ever there was one.
And as far as Wilson goes, his idea of bringing democracy and self-determination to the downtrodden of the world was considerably different than what that concept means nowadays. To modern eyes he was such an arrogant technocrat that he could have been been the character study for a disaster-creating government official in a Thunderbirds episode.
-
Well, Frank, I have to say LBJ has never ranked all that high on my list, other than when he was actually in office and I was a completely naive teenager, but as the 'Cone of silence' about his psycho behavior fell apart after he was safely out of office and I acquired more mature judgment and experience, it took a huge slide. A bully, coward, liar, and old-school corrupt self-enriching bastard if ever there was one.
You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his dogs.
Cindie
-
.....and I acquired more mature judgment and experience, it took a huge slide. A bully, coward, liar, and old-school corrupt self-enriching bastard if ever there was one.
You must've read the best-selling biographies of Lyndon Johnson by the character assassin Robert Sherill, who was about as nasty and mean-spirited and bitter as that old hate-filled hag the late Molly Ivins.
For balance, I always recommended biographies of Johnson by Robert Caro, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Michael Beschloss.
What you've said about him's true and undeniable, but it ignores his human qualities.
One of the most-enduring memories of my childhood was watching a lively, energetic, youthful Lyndon Johnson turning old, weary, and melancholy--and not because of the grief any Republicans were giving him, but because of the sheer ingratitude of those he sought to help (again, with other people's money).
It would be good for future Republican presidents to remember the lesson--Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush didn't--of Lyndon Johnson. Reward your friends, screw your opponents; and above all, don't take from your friends to give things to people who won't appreciate it anyway.
<<<if were president, wouldn't give Democrats, liberals, primitives, and old hippies a damned thing; especially not if I had to take from my friends to give stuff to my enemies.
-
Not really so much any of those on either side, my friend, I don't fully trust biographies written by people removed by a mere generation from their subject because their own minds and agendas tend to still be clouded by the political issues contemporary to their subject. The political issues of the subject's life are far too likely to still be alive in the mind of a near-contemporary biographer, and far too many skeletons remain hidden in the closet. The contemporary and near-contemporary biographers do serve a useful purpose in bringing to light many incidents that did not occur in the public eye (Often negative ones in the case of LBJ) that can be put into sound perspective later, when living memory and living politics cease to play their part in bending the arc of the work (As one world-renowned author might characterize it), but they tend to be works more like the Aenid in placing an agenda before facts than The Peloponnesian War in recounting history.
While LBJ had some odd mix of real Populist and paternalist motives for his social agenda, I think you give him too much credit, because he also had equally real motives that involved turning the impoverished beneficiaries of the largesse into indentured servants of the Democrats.
-
I'm not so sure about Doris Kearns Goodwin. Anytime I ever saw her interviewed she seemed to be revising history in favor of libs like Bill Clinton, and slanted against conservatives.
-
Best presidents:
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Ike Eisenhower
3. Harry Truman (yeah, shoot me please!)
-
Good points, and I disagree with not one of them.
But when "ranking" presidents, in the case of Democrats only, surely Lyndon Johnson rates ahead of J.C. Superstar, the Impeached One, and the bozo currently in the White House.
I'd rank Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush heads above Johnson, but at the same time, among Democrats only, in my lifetime, I'd put Johnson far above the other three. No way was Johnson "worse" than Carter, Clinton, or 0bozo.
-
Best presidents:
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Ike Eisenhower
3. Harry Truman (yeah, shoot me please!)
I won't shoot you.
Harry Truman had balls as big as church bells.
-
Barry Goldwater was never one to sugar coat words and in an interview of him once late in his life he spoke with genuine respect and admiration for JFK.
He said they had planned to run a joint campaign where they would appear in the same place and speak one after the other.
When the subject moved on to LBJ there was nothing but contempt in his eyes.
In fairness he was on the losing end of one of the most vile and dishonest campaigns ever (see my previous statement about Wilson and how dems always have to campaign on lies to win) but he stated that Johnson was the most corrupt man to ever be President.
"He came to Washington dirt poor and left 30 years later a multi millionaire".
-
But when "ranking" presidents, in the case of Democrats only, surely Lyndon Johnson rates ahead of J.C. Superstar, the Impeached One, and the bozo currently in the White House.
I'd certainly have to give you that one, crooked and other things that he may have been, at least LBJ wasn't a complete incompetent like the first and last of those, or an outright high-functioning sociopath like the second.
-
I'd certainly have to give you that one, crooked and other things that he may have been, at least LBJ wasn't a complete incompetent like the first and last of those, or an outright high-functioning sociopath like the second.
And that was my point from the beginning; among Democrat presidents in my lifetime, he was the best of a very bad lot.
I guess I kind of got untracked, suddenly talking about how no good deed goes unpunished; about how much he gave (with other people's money) certain groups--the young, the college students, the minorities, the poor, the aged--much, but they ended up disliking him anyway, the ungrateful asses.
You and I of course understand why that was; Johnson did all those wonderful things Kennedy was supposed to have done, and to upstage one of their icons was offensive.
-
You're quite right on the social agenda issues, yet JFK did have his strong points unique to himself that merit credit of their own and he did set the wheels in motion that allowed LBJ to pursue that aggressive social agenda. He is really the key man responsible for the space program and Moon landings, because IMHO LBJ just lacked the vision to do those things, and JFK's martyrdom was really what propelled them forward as a legacy as well as giving LBJ a martyr card to play on the social issues. I do believe JFK had a much more accurate and somewhat more subtle understanding of foreign affairs than LBJ ever did, and had a somewhat greater potential to figure out that the Dulles brothers and their minions were creating more problems than they were solving. Still, I don't think he'd have done a better job of figuring out what a disaster McNamara was than LBJ did, some things just have to be learned experientially. Like I said, I think JFK might well make both my Best and the Worst lists.
I'm not a native Show-Me Stater, but I do admire Truman's steel and sense of personal responsibility, the latter of which attributes has been steadily declining to the point of invisibility in Democrat Presidents since his time, the last shred of it disappearing with LBJ's announcement of his decision to refrain from running for re-election. The actual quality of Truman's decisions and judgment in office, unfortunately, not so much.