Who is the best President from Eisenhower to Obama?

ricksfolly said:

Eisenhower by far. Under his administration there were no shooting wars, interstate highways kept millions working, ended the Korean war, balanced the budget three times.

ricksfolly

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Under Ike's administration the first "military advisors" were sent to a little place called Vietnam.

Under JFK, he caused the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Under Ike's administration the first "military advisors" were sent to a little place called Vietnam.

Under JFK, he caused the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Eisenhower started the Bay of Pigs operation. And how is the Cuban Missile Crisis a bad thing? How is the Soviet Union removing missiles from Cuba bad? And we have military advisorers in many places but we don't usually have people like LBJ who decide to make the conflict into a full-blown war and go in using an incident that didn't happen.

pro-bipartisan said:

Why Reagan? And why would you expect Obama to atribute that quote to Reagan? How do you know Reagan is the first to say it but Reagan didn't attribute it to someone else?

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I would expect the Messiah to attribute the quote to Reagan because Reagan is the man who made it famous.

If I recall, and I could be wrong, Reagan attributed that quote to his father.

Regardless, the Messiah was merely demonstrating his third-rate stature, as usual.

Why Reagan? Besides winning the Cold War, reversing That Idiot Carter, and presiding over the American Restoration, he was an all-around likeable guy with the faith that Americans left free to do will use the freedom to do great things. That cannot be said of any of the other presidents on the list.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

I would expect the Messiah to attribute the quote to Reagan because Reagan is the man who made it famous.

If I recall, and I could be wrong, Reagan attributed that quote to his father.

Regardless, the Messiah was merely demonstrating his third-rate stature, as usual.

Why Reagan? Besides winning the Cold War, reversing That Idiot Carter, and presiding over the American Restoration, he was an all-around likeable guy with the faith that Americans left free to do will use the freedom to do great things. That cannot be said of any of the other presidents on the list.

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Yes he sped up the process, by the Soviet Union was crumbling and would have fallen soon anyways. He also expanded the uneffective war on drugs as well and this thing called the Iran-Contra affair happened, not sure if you have heard of it.

phattonez said:

That's like saying the robber who came into the store yesterday didn't do anything bad because the robber who came in today also decided to break all my windows. It's a terrible argument. Bad is bad.

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I have no clue what that analogy is supposed to mean, but I tend to view presidents mostly as a product of their times. So I don't necessarily view presidents as good if the events of their term were mostly good, or bad if the events of their term were mostly bad. I try to look at how the president HIMSELF impacted events, by considering what someone else in his position would have likely done. I tend to evaluate them more on the number of unforced errors they make, and the number of times they can snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. On that count, JFK wins by a considerable margin. IMO very few people would have kept a cool head during the Cuban Missile Crisis the way JFK did, whereas many people would have authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion or something similar.

So it was okay for Kennedy to mess around with Cuba becuse Nixon would have been worse? That's a weak moral justification.

phattonez said:

So it was okay for Kennedy to mess around with Cuba becuse Nixon would have been worse? That's a weak moral justification.

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I'm not trying to morally justify anything, I'm trying to assess which presidents were the best. And I define "best" as doing the most good things that another president in that position would NOT have done, and avoiding the most bad things that another president in that position WOULD have done.

So as I see it:

- Bay of Pigs. Something that most presidents in that situation would have authorized (or they would've authorized some similar plan). Therefore it's a forced error, and I don't ding JFK too many points for this.

- Cuban Missile Crisis. Hugely important situation, and I think most presidents in that situation would've succumbed to pressure from their generals, thus causing a nuclear war. Therefore this is a HUGE plus for JFK. Given the gravity of the situation and the importance of having JFK as opposed to someone else handling it, I'd say that this is the biggest plus for any president on the list.

JFK is the best president to this day and he will always be remembered for his heroism. If we had a Republican in office during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the **** roaches would be over populating the earth right now...

pro-bipartisan said:

I could only fit 10 Presidents in the poll and I think Bush Jr. is the least likely to get a first place vote out of the field, and why?

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At bar one night, I was sitting next to a guy who seemed to think Dubya was going to go down as one of the best Presidents ever. I laughed and went outside, mostly so I wouldn't say anything. :lol:

Eisenhower.