|
Herbert Hoover wasn't a bad President, he was just spectacularly unlucky. Remember, the stock market crash took place barely after Hoover had sworn the Oval Office Oath, and he was blindsided by it. Coolidge and Harding were maybe more responsible. Harding wasn't great, but upon examining other aspects of his Presidency and his general management, he wasn't bad. I'd say the worst (excluding *, who hasn't yet plumbed his depths) are probably Buchanan, Woodrow Wilson, Nixon, Grant (corrupt administration), Johnson and Harding, sorta roughly in that order. I would not be surprised if George W. soon finds himself near the top of that list-- hard to estimate the number of places in which he's messed up royally.
Best are George Washington at #1 (though Washington is a special case above everyone else-- he was more than a President, he was *the* founder of the nation in many respects, not just as Chief Executive but as general and Constitution supporter, and as one who refused power!). Second-best I'd say is either Lincoln or Jefferson, despite their detractors-- for their time they were champions of liberal ideals, and Jefferson (besides doubling US territory with the Louisiana Purchase and sending Lewis and Clark, very important acts), and Jefferson of course also did important things as a Founding Father so he's more than a President alone. Third I'd say is maybe James Madison for his work on the Constitution, fourth I'd say is JFK for the moon landing alone (recent President with tremendous impact), fifth, maybe, ironically, Eisenhower for being about the only President of the century to keep us totally our of debt over his entire Presidency (Clinton gets a special mention since he inherited a mess from George HW Bush), warning us against the military-industrial complex, maintaining prosperity, providing the first steps in enforcing civil rights and enabling the same through his judicial picks, and generally doing a strong job all around. Eisenhower was officially a Republican but he made it clear he was going either way, in his policies he was more like today's Democrats. Remember, he was also one of the few Presidents to keep the US totally out of needless military engagements since the late 1940's. It's a bit early for Bill Clinton, but I sense in retrospect he'll rank highly, if not in the Top 5.
FDR? Sorry to say, because I used to be a big fan and would have put him at #3, but some of my own Dem friends have made me think twice. FDR was central not only to the Japanese internment camps but also in the massive deportation of Mexican-American citizens in the 1930's, one of the ugliest incidents in our country's history in which thousands upon thousands of Mexicans died in what we can only call a sort of ethnic cleansing. One of my Polish friends also soured me on him-- apparently, FDR had full knowledge of the Russian Katyn Massacre of the Poles in around 1943, but he did not even censure Stalin for it despite his position of power. I'm sorry, but this sounds too much like a cop-out and a sell-out to me. It was also FDR who initially formulated the policy that the US would intervene to essentially regulate the supply of Mideast oil, although I doubt he could have imagined that ^ would foul it up so much. I still lean quite favorably to FDR overall, but I've soured on him based on what I've learned. He wasn't quite as determined the defender of human rights as I used to believe.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
