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Who was the best president of the last ten

Who was the best

  • Total voters
    78
Wow, difficult to say. I admire Nixon. I've never understood the hatred of him. He balanced conservative and liberal policies quite well and was quite skilled in foreign policy. There were some ugly things that happened during his administration, such as the overthrow of Allende and the installation of Pinochet as a puppet in Chile. I suppose it was necessary to stop the spread of communism, though. I admire Carter as well, because he told the American people things they didn't want to hear, such as their excessive consumerism was unsustainable. I say it's probably a tie between the two.
 
OKAY! Who's messing with the vote???? Alluhvasudden Bush jr. has TWO VOTES in the last 5 minutes? I wanna talk to the racing commissioner! Someone's dopin the ponies!!! LOL :)
 
Graffias said:
Wow, difficult to say. I admire Nixon. I've never understood the hatred of him. He balanced conservative and liberal policies quite well and was quite skilled in foreign policy. There were some ugly things that happened during his administration, such as the overthrow of Allende and the installation of Pinochet as a puppet in Chile. I suppose it was necessary to stop the spread of communism, though. I admire Carter as well, because he told the American people things they didn't want to hear, such as their excessive consumerism was unsustainable. I say it's probably a tie between the two.
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Well Carter needs the votes...although... JFK is cool, yu know you wanna... LMAO ;)
 
AngryOldGuy said:
Khrushchev wasn't he the guy with the shoe?
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Yep. He was famous for having banged his shoe on the podium while giving a speech. He was also the one who had a fifty megaton bomb in his arsenal, and the one who used a Russian phrase that was translated as, "We will bury you", when the real meaning was more like, "We will leave you in the dust." As it turned out, his economic system was no match for capitalism, and we're the ones who left the Soviets in the dust.
 
Okay! I'm lettin you guys know RIGHT NOW that a vote for Johnson is a vote for Kennedy. So JFK is still in the lead. :fyi: :lol:
 
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If JFK had filled out his term with the promise he had thus showed, he would have been reelected and I believe the USA would be a much better country today. With so little time in office, and the tragedy of his assassination, I couldn't really vote for him.

I had no major problems with Reagan or Bush Sr., but frankly Reagan started the whole deregulation thing and wiped out protections on the use of public funds (by cities, counties, states, etc.) which, being in public finance at the time, I knew would lead to public entities flinging taxpayer money into junk bonds, leading to massive bankruptcy and loss of public funds, which it did, and deregulation in the banking/finance industry would lead to... well, we've seen where it led.

That leaves me with Clinton, who had some hiccups in his administration (besides the obvious) by implementing law that has led to gigantic outsourcing of jobs that went overseas without the "good" jobs coming back. Nonetheless, he had solid foreign policy, the respect of most world leaders, effectively led the congress to balanced budgets, led NATO to finally act against the genocide in Kosovo, and maintained excellent domestic policy that resulted in prosperity here in America, and investments from abroad. I voted for Bill.
 
Right now the poll shows Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton in a dead heat. When you include character and achievements I chose Reagan. Kennedy only served 3 years. And during those three years he had complete control of the House and Senate. With a scenario like that it's pretty easy to pass some of those campaign promises. As far as character goes, he was a womanizer.
Reagan was of good character. He proved his abilities to work with both sides of the aisle. Heck he had to because during his entire presidency he never had control of the House and 75% of the time, the Senate. Because of that a lot of compromising went on and the results of such compromising kept him from really achieving what he wanted to. One thing he really wanted to get accomplished was to shut down the Department of Education that Carter put into place.
 
German guy said:
I think Reagan had only few to do with the Fall of the Iron Curtain. I'd give the many East Bloc people going on the streets to protest the credit foremost, then the Soviet leadership of Gorbachev who had the right ideals and readiness to end the Cold War.

Reagan's arms race just helped making Gorbachev realize that the USSR wouldn't be able to compete on the long run. And yeah, he held a nice speech at the Berlin Wall, like Obama in Berlin in 2008. That's it. Reagan had only very few to do with it.
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Most definitely, I just felt that I'd give Reagan the change he deserved. There were several factors which led to the end of the soviet union, and most of them definitely come down to the individuals who put themselves out there like you said. You could even include Pope John Paul II as well as, but I do like your point towards Gorbachev and how his place in history is largely unappreciated.
 
Grand Mal said:
I remember reading that heads of state didn't deal in assassination because they were all vulnerable. I also remember reading that there were rumours Kennedy had tried to have Castro assassinated.
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Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA - Tim Weiner - Google Books

RFK wore two hats in the JFK administration. Attorney General and his brother JFK put him charge of CIA special operations. RFK did order the CIA to assassinate Castro.

The links above are one of those that Captain Adverse was asking for.
 
We Lincoln Dems can speak well for the Kennedys and their legacies. Start with the back-stabber of Carter, in two elections, not to mention quiddick. Obama had to do ACA first to get Ted's endorsement. Hillary wouldn't. And then there's the blunderous NCLB Ted did with Bush-43.
APACHERAT said:
No, Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba because NATO had missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. Khrushchev wanted those missiles out of Turkey and JFK ordered the NATO missiles out of Turkey when Khrushchev said he would remove his missiles from Cuba. JFK insisted that this be kept a secret from the American people and Khrushchev concured. It remained a secret for twenty five years.

You have to remember that the Kennedy klan has a well established machine in place to protect the Kennedy legacy. But that machine is getting rusty and Teddy Kennedy is no longer around to see that machine is well oiled.
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DiAnna said:
If JFK had filled out his term with the promise he had thus showed, he would have been reelected and I believe the USA would be a much better country today. With so little time in office, and the tragedy of his assassination, I couldn't really vote for him.

That leaves me with Clinton, who had some hiccups in his administration (besides the obvious) by implementing law that has led to gigantic outsourcing of jobs that went overseas without the "good" jobs coming back. Nonetheless, he had solid foreign policy, the respect of most world leaders, effectively led the congress to balanced budgets, led NATO to finally act against the genocide in Kosovo, and maintained excellent domestic policy that resulted in prosperity here in America, and investments from abroad. I voted for Bill.
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Diana, Diana, you broke my heart, you going for the price on Clinton. It's not JFK's night!. JFK coulda taken Clinton apart, he coulda been a contender....it was you Diana. :boohoo:



Still luv ya tho. ;)
 
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Captain Adverse said:
Diana, Diana, you broke my heart, you going for the price on Clinton. It's not JFK's night!. JFK coulda taken Clinton apart, he coulda been a contender....it was you Diana. :boohoo:


Still luv ya tho. ;)
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I agree, JFK could have been the best president of my lifetime. Alas, he never got the chance. Clinton did. Sad, but true. :(
 
Xsnake1 said:
John F. Kennedy - 1961-1963
Lyndon B. Johnson - 1963-1969
Richard Nixon - 1969-1974
Gerald Ford - 1974-1977
Jimmy Carter - 1977-1981
Ronald Regan - 1981-1989
George Bush Sr. - 1989-1993
Bill Clinton - 1993-2001
George W. Bush - 2001-2009
Barack Obama - 2009-pres.
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I have to say that the disasters are LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, GWB and Obama. So that left Clinton (a very distant third) JFK and Reagan. I chose Reagan because he served longer (though not JFK's fault). Because Reagan served longer and was able to handle foreign issues like Russian and East/West Germany and Iran while coming out on top (though not without some bumps in the road) all while reviving the economy and overseeing the golden age of space exploration. JFK still gets a lot of my admiration because he handled the Cuban missile crisis effectively and he was a conservative. If democrats thought more like JFK and a lot less like Obama, we'd be a much better nation today.
 
APACHERAT said:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA - Tim Weiner - Google Books

RFK wore two hats in the JFK administration. Attorney General and his brother JFK put him charge of CIA special operations. RFK did order the CIA to assassinate Castro.

The links above are one of those that Captain Adverse was asking for.
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Didn't see anything about Eisenhower warning Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs issue. I also found this response link on the wikipdia site.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...51no3/legacy-of-ashes-the-history-of-cia.html

Seems like at least one informed individual objected to the validity of the author's "facts" regarding history prior to his actual journalistic work in 1990's. Who knows what Ike said to JFK? Maybe not this author? IN any case I don't intend to locate and read an entire book to confirm a claim made in this forum. Sorry bud. :)
 
ksu_aviator said:
I have to say that the disasters are LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, GWB and Obama. So that left Clinton (a very distant third) JFK and Reagan. I chose Reagan because he served longer (though not JFK's fault). Because Reagan served longer and was able to handle foreign issues like Russian and East/West Germany and Iran while coming out on top (though not without some bumps in the road) all while reviving the economy and overseeing the golden age of space exploration. JFK still gets a lot of my admiration because he handled the Cuban missile crisis effectively and he was a conservative. If democrats thought more like JFK and a lot less like Obama, we'd be a much better nation today.
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The golden age of space exploration? You mean Russian space exploration?

1957 was the year of "OMG! The godless commies have put up the first man made satellite!"
12 years later, 1969, well before Reagan's time, we landed men on the moon. That would have been the golden age of space exploration for America. It's been all downhill from there, with today's astronauts hitch hiking on Russian rockets to get to the space station.
 
ksu_aviator said:
I have to say that the disasters are LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, GWB and Obama. So that left Clinton (a very distant third) JFK and Reagan. I chose Reagan because he served longer (though not JFK's fault). Because Reagan served longer and was able to handle foreign issues like Russian and East/West Germany and Iran while coming out on top (though not without some bumps in the road) all while reviving the economy and overseeing the golden age of space exploration. JFK still gets a lot of my admiration because he handled the Cuban missile crisis effectively and he was a conservative. If democrats thought more like JFK and a lot less like Obama, we'd be a much better nation today.
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Now thats not cool! Sure, JFK died after three years in office...BUT Reagan had been brain-dead for six years of his term. :tocktock2 Nancy and Co. had been running the show, and I don't see her name up there....

That means JFK had at least one more functional year than Ronnie. LOL ;)
 
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Captain Adverse said:
Now thats not cool! Sure, JFK died after three years in office...BUT Reagan had been brain-dead for six years of his term. :tocktock2

That means JFK had at least one more functional year than Ronnie. LOL ;)
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JFK was assassinated after 2 years, not 3
 
Captain Adverse said:
Didn't see anything about Eisenhower warning Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs issue. I also found this response link on the wikipdia site.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...51no3/legacy-of-ashes-the-history-of-cia.html

Seems like at least one informed individual objected to the validity of the author's "facts" regarding history prior to his actual journalistic work in 1990's. Who knows what Ike said to JFK? Maybe not this author? IN any case I don't intend to locate and read an entire book to confirm a claim made in this forum. Sorry bud. :)
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References of Eisenhower telling JFK not to sign off on the CIA backed Bay of Pigs until there was a popular Cuban government in exile and providing air cover and CAS can be found in many biographies on Eisenhower.

In Eisenhower's own memoirs he mentions of JFK calling him asking for advice on many occasions. JFK calling him, not Eisenhower calling JFK. But JFK only listen then he turned to his "Young and Brightest."

Another excellent source that I use all of the time is the CIA. They are always declassifying information under the FOIA and releasing it. Some times they are big dumps of declassified information that keep historians busy for years. The last big CIA dump I believe was in 2006 or around then. They have a search engine. Who knows what you will find. -> Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)
 
Dittohead not! said:
The golden age of space exploration? You mean Russian space exploration?

1957 was the year of "OMG! The godless commies have put up the first man made satellite!"
12 years later, 1969, well before Reagan's time, we landed men on the moon. That would have been the golden age of space exploration for America. It's been all downhill from there, with today's astronauts hitch hiking on Russian rockets to get to the space station.
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The Space Shuttle was the most advanced piece of machinery to ever exit the atmosphere. Not only could it carry 5 to 7 crew members, but it could carry up to 53,600 pounds of payload. That's the equivalent of a fully loaded Canada-air Regional Jet OR 7.5 Chevy Suburbans. It was instrumental in the production of 2 space stations, the Hubble telescope, numerous missions to the moon and countless scientific flights whose research led to disease treatments that might never have been discovered here on earth. Yes, what the Apollo astronauts did in their day was amazing, but it amounted to lighting a giant firecracker under their butt to see how far it could take you. The Shuttle represented space flight. It is still the greatest accomplishment in aviation.
 
WCH said:
I think JFK because he realized the roots of all evil in this country. It cost him his life.
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If Kennedy had not been killed, he would have been considered a mediocre president at best

he had some good points-such as supporting the creation of the special forces he gave good speeches. He had a gorgeous beloved first lady. He was a brave man who saved a crew member's life in combat.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The golden age of space exploration? You mean Russian space exploration?

1957 was the year of "OMG! The godless commies have put up the first man made satellite!"
12 years later, 1969, well before Reagan's time, we landed men on the moon. That would have been the golden age of space exploration for America.
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On air force base schools starting in 1958. It was Math and everything else taught like Math.
It's been all downhill from there, with today's astronauts hitch hiking on Russian rockets to get to the space station.
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On this, I would say the appetite of a certain group of cost-cutters. Hopefully CERN and ITER are worth it. I would like to see Fusion rockets before I leave this Earth.
 
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