Honest question... when was the last time we had a President that was worth a shit? i’m 53 and can’t remember a single one (with the possible exception of Reagan, who was pretty flawed to be sure...) that I could say of his time in office, “for the most part he was a pretty good President!!” Johnson? -meh Nixon?- no comment. Ford?- incomplete, but not a complete success or failure either. Carter? -horrible. Reagan?- mixed bag, generally decent. Bush 41?- again, mixed bag. Good man, not a good President. Clinton?- probably fun to drink beer and chase poon with but as President? No thanks. Bush 43?- see above. Obama?- neither as good or as bad as people have made him out to be. Trump?- sorry, but even as a fairly conservative guy, he’s been an almost complete disaster.
I like Ike & FDR. When you look at history, there's more meh to bad than good. Lots of reasons for that, but today very few folks can even attempt a run. It's a reality TV popularity contest now, substance be damned.
Ike was before my time but other than his handling of Guatemala (the effects of which are still being felt today...) I can’t find much fault with him. FDR was in office so long he couldn’t help but do plenty of stuff both right and wrong...
Nixon was actually a good President policy and actual work wise. He was, however, a paranoid and vindictive man that won the 72 election with 525 electoral votes and STILL felt the need to hedge and break into the DNC. Ford was in an impossible situation. Carter, same. Coming off the Nixon thing and in the middle of 70s funk the country was in. Just not a great President, either. Fantastic (for the most part) ex-POTUS. Reagan. Great President. Had his issues, and as I have gotten older, I have fallen less in favor of some of the stuff he did. But overall, a great President HW. The fact he even got elected based on history is amazing. Just Reagan lite and not that great of a President over all. Clinton. He was a very good President, imho. The scandal stuff hurt him, but the 1994 Republican House was going to get their pound of flesh. W. I think he is going to fall further and further down the scale as his legacy is remembered. Obama. Very Meh. Sharp dude and I would love to hang with him, but I am disappointed in his administration. Trump. dear god. I think we have had some decent Presidents overall and a few stinkers and one or two really good Presidents.
Carter’s policies sunk him. I can’t think of a single thing of substance that he did right. Propping up Arafat as a legitimate player on the world stage was a huge mistake... one of many. In short, in the “Worst President Ever” sweepstakes, he the odds on favorite... or at least he was until the current occupant came along...
It's important to view presidential administrations via the context of the time. Hard to judge FDR with today's eyes. He presided over both the biggest economic disasters & wars in US history. People were terrified. The US was coming off a terrible Hoover Administration that was too hands off helping cause The Depression. The people of the US weren't going to stand for another guy like that. Sure, he like all presidents made mistakes, but FDR was very much a pragmatist. If it worked, do it. Folks assume today's hyper-partisanship has existed forever. It hasn't. Without bipartisanship, the New Deal never exists. FDR didn't have super majorities, and had a healthy number of Republican cabinet members. http://rooseveltinstitute.org/bipartisanship-made-new-deal-possible/
Carter pissed off both sides in Congress by attacking pork barrel spending. Also pissed them off by demanding the power to restructure the Executive Branch, power that had been recently stripped by Congress in the aftermath of Watergate. As a result, he couldn't get anything passed. Add in Stagflation that hit due to policies before he ever took office, & his presidency, any presidency, was doomed from the start. I'll say this about Carter. He wasn't as bad as he is remembered. He wasn't effective, but that die was cast before he took The Oath. You'll be hard pressed to find a more decent, moral man that has occupied The Oval Office. That didn't do him any favors either.
I have mixed emotions on Arafat. I feel a 2 state solution is the only thing that has a chance to produce any chance at Middle East Peace. But, Arafat had lots of blood on his hands. On the flip side, Israel's hands weren't bloodless either. It's an almost impossible situation as evidenced that we're facing the same issues almost 50 years later. Also, you can't condemn Carter on the Palestinian front & not give him props on the Israel/Egypt front. Carter helped broker an Egypt/Israel peace that is still in effect today. It came at a big price in that Anwar Sadat was assassinated for signing that peace. We lack folks of that conviction today, it seems. Doing what is right despite huge unpopularity is and endangered trait. It's all about expediency today.
Funny story involving Carter... a few years ago, I was in Panama with a group of folks and we were visiting the Canal. One of the guys had on a Georgia Tech hat and another had on a Braves cap... the guy at the ticket counter asks us “Are you from Atlanta?”... we said “yes!” and the guy says “If you see Jimmy Carter, tell him the Panamanian people says (sic) THANK YOU!!!”...
The Devonian Shale program that Carter launched was the beginning of the technology that unlocked US shale gas and oil and has lead the US to being the largest energy producer. And soon largest exporter of energy commodities/products.
Carter did his fair share of deregulation. That's why I said past events can't be clearly seen through the eyes of the present.
Being president is the type of job those who would be good at doing the job don't really want to do it. The fund raising, all the bullshit, drives people away. However, as far as the presidents go, I think some have been good, some so so, some really bad. FDR was a decent president and the first real master of the modern media to his benefit. He had the most challenging presidency outside of, maybe, Lincoln, and should get the most amount of credit for providing stability to the country as it was heading off the rails. There were a lot people really questioning who we were and the systems in place, exploring alternate ideas like communism, and avoided the chaos happening in a number of European countries. His actual policies were a little scattershot and his New Deal will be argued over for years. What's a little lesser known about his presidency is this is when black voters began switching over to the Democrats in large numbers. Ike was a fairly good president in a time when the Cold War was accelerating and whose warnings about the military-industrial complex should have been better heeded. Nixon was a piece of shit who sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks in order to gain an advantage in getting himself elected. The fact that Watergate isn't the worst example of him trying to manipulate elections for himself says everything. War criminal, liar, traitor. Don't even get me started on his drug actions to punish "blacks and hippies" for political reasons. Ford may be the most forgettable president since the late 1800s. Carter gets somewhat of a bad rap, but he suffered from trying to micromanage everything and also came about at a rough point in the Cold War which would have been challenging for most any president. Reagan was the most overrated president in my lifetime, which saves Bill Clinton. There's zero doubt he knew about the illegal arms deals which he sold to terrorist groups in Nicaragua, not to mention supporting various groups who used death squads in their "anti-communist" activities. This is not to mention his administration had a hand in the explosive drug trade of the 80s, again, in the name of "anti-communism". He also began this era of massive wealth disparity, huge deficit, indifference to the poor (Jump started by a racist lie of a "Welfare Queen" in Southside Chicago) and a tone deaf response to the AIDS crisis. That's just a start. Hopefully, he's given more of a critique as the years go and not seen as anything more than the beneficiary of the Soviets taking down their own system of communism. Now, Bush the Daddy, in my opinion, is underrated. I have my issues with him, but he was actually the guy in charge when communism fell apart and his foreign diplomacy skills were as good as any president I've seen. Him raising taxes in detriment to his chances of winning re-election is the definition of public service, to me, as well. Not that he necessarily raised taxes, but that he did it at cost to himself because he felt it was the best thing for the country. Clinton, as I get further from his time, enamors me less and less. His crime bill, which he even regrets, may be one of the most damaging actions of a president in recent history. He's saved by a .com boom and serious skill in charisma. Bush the Son was a disaster. He may be even worse than Trump as he's at least competent in his terribleness whereas Trump often runs into roadblocks because of his impulsiveness and refusal to listen to people who actually know how to navigate the system. The tax cut and Iraq, especially, are bills my grandchildren will be paying for. Obama, unfortunately, had to face the unique prospect of an opposition party only dedicated to the prospect of stopping him. Their interest was not of ideas, but, solely, of gaining power, which was somewhat similar to the Gingrich led revolution of '94, but even he had ideas and a plan. McConnell and the Republicans became solely dedicated to this pursuit of acquiring control for its own sake. Trump? Well...…...People in the future will wonder how and why we decided to debase ourselves for such a monumental shit show.
Re: Ike. In addition to the CIA enabled coup in Guatemala, his other bad move (imo) was Project Wetback, something that Trump has used as inspiration. I suspect under the whispered advice from the wack job, Miller. Trump is ignorant when it comes to anything related to history. I'm all for trying to prevent illegal immigration, but this was not a good thing for Ike. Ranks up there with the Japanese internment and the Trail of Tears. We have done a lot of stupid stuff under most of our Presidents. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/operation-wetback-eisenhower-1954-deportation
but if we could just hit a button and change presidents, no one would serve more than a couple years.
I read more about the Bible signings. If what i read was accurate, more lynch mob mentality imo. Evidently 2 kids walked up and asked him to sign their Bibles. According to the article, other Presidents, including Obama, have signed Bibles as well.
