Harding is another good call. But wasn't Johnson pretty impotent from the get-go? I thought Congress decided not to let him choose his own cabinet, he resisted, and they pretty much two-thirds majority'd him on everything else the rest of the term.
Wilson is definitely up there. Harding has to be the worst though. Kennedy without question in my mind has to be the most overrated
My personal sentiments force me to lodge a dissent to the JFK comment, but admittedly, the point is largely true.
You can fit JFK's accomplishments as president in a thimble. He gets credit for a whole bunch of things on which LBJ did the actual heavy lifting.
Yes. He was impeached on violation of The Tenure of Office Law. It was a power struggle between the branches. The Senate said that since they must approve Cabinet members, they must approve the firing of Cabinet members. Johnson argued that he didn't seek the approval of the current Cabinet; thus, he wasn't bound by the law when he tried to replace a Radical that wanted to undo Lincoln's "Malice towards none" plan of re-uniting the nation that Johnson wanted to continue. It was a huge pissing contest between the executive and legislative branches. Lincoln was powerful enough to keep the radical crazies in line; Johnson wasn't. End result was radicals like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner (along with Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, the leading radical newspaper- seems like the liberal media was loved by Republicans back then....) took the reins of power perpetuating the hard feelings of Reconstruction that furthered the destruction of the Civil War. It was a failure anyway with the Black Codes, Segregation, etc.
Gotta disagree. Kennedy dealt with so much shit during his 2 1/2 years in office, it's crazy. He had The Bay of Pigs at the very beginning. While he carried the burden of the fiasco, the plan was a CIA operation hatched by the Eisenhower Administration. He was young, and a lot of arm twisting went on to goad him into carrying the operation out, yet the buck stopped with him as it was his call to go or not. It was an unmitigated disaster. This experience actually served JFK well later on in his Administration. When the Berlin Crisis arose, he stood in solidarity with West Berlin. "Ich bin ein Berliner" is still used as a synonym for solidarity and standing by one's promises. Khrushchev thought he could bully the young President. JFK showed mettle and balls in not backing down. He won that battle. Then the biggie hit, The Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev didn't learn from Berlin and once again tested his young adversary by placing missiles with nuclear capability in Cuba, an impossible situation in many regards. It is during this crisis that his experience in The Bay of Pigs operation really paid off. He refused to be bullied by CIA/military brass into perpetuating a nuclear WWIII. He had found his backbone, and despite debilitating spinal injuries suffered in WWII, it was a strong one. He worked tirelessly to find an alternative to all out nuclear war at the great displeasure of national defense "experts". He handled that situation with as much grace, intelligence, savvy, and moxie as I can imagine. He helped spare the world from nuclear winter when so many powerful forces were begging for it. The nation should be eternally grateful for what he did during this time, if for nothing else he did. He also managed to champion Civil Rights allowing for a true beginning of the real process of eradicating one of this nation's most ugly sores (others tried as well- Truman & Eisenhower- but lacked the ability to get it done) during all of that. His untimely death did facilitate the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he kept the ball rolling during his short term. He also help set the tone for and funded America's space program, NASA. He threw down the challenge to land on the moon and return our astronauts safely. That's a big deal. I don't think JFK is overrated. In fact, he did a helluva lot more in 2 1/2 years than most Presidents accomplish in two terms of office. That makes him under-appreciated given his limited time in office, imo.
No. It would have cost jobs...lots of them. It would have had an effect on our entire economy at a time it couldn't handle any more devastation. You believe in trickle down effects, right? They can work the opposite way as well. Your bias against unions is clouding your ability to look rationally at the situation.
because it prolonged the problem and screwed some investors in the process. The unions are at the heart of the auto industry's problems and were only saved for their votes. This amounted to nothing but a vote buying.
do what? trickle up works? bad decisions are better ones in rough economic times? That makes no sense whatsoever. It was a stupid financial decision and we get to pay for it for longer now, rather than just ripping off the band aid.
I disagree with the union hate. A contract involves two parties coming to an agreement, but that doesn't fit the evil union narrative. So we bail out banks, but can't help the auto industry? I will never understand that. And what if investors got screwed? It's a risk with no guarantees. So burn the house down to show those unions something? I just see this as a narrow view. Non-union jobs would have been collateral damage quite possibly leading to a full blown depression. We come from two different worlds, I guess.
It would have been worse than ripping the band-aid off, imo. You may disagree with it, but without demand and the ability to purchase, everyone fails. I don't think supply side is the only way. You see it as a bad decision; I don't.
Missed the point completely. You guys bash the hell out of unions when the company agreed to the deal. Where's their culpability? I guess you would tell your boss to hold on to any raises/incentives they might agree to give you because you feel like it's too much. Bashing folks for getting what they can through negotiations that the company agreed to is a denial of reality and telling of one's bias. I think the wages paid in the auto industry were crazy, but responsibility for that doesn't rest solely on unions.
