DUmmies pick the best/worst Presidents since 1900

[GOBUCKS]

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.

[franksolich]

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.

[Skul]

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.

[franksolich]

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.

[Big Dog]

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.

[GOBUCKS]

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.

[DumbAss Tanker]

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.

[delilahmused]

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

[franksolich]

.....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.

[DumbAss Tanker]

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.

[obumazombie]

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.

[MoshMasterD]

Best presidents:
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Ike Eisenhower
3. Harry Truman (yeah, shoot me please!)

[franksolich]

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.

[Big Dog]

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.

[Carl]

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".

[DumbAss Tanker]

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.

[franksolich]

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.

[DumbAss Tanker]

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.