We have had a number of presidents since Roosevelt who might have been considered great except for one or more glaring mistakes.
Eisenhower I don't know if Eisenhower would have been remembered as a great president. He did stop the Korean War. He did get the interstate highway system through a recalcitrant congress. He balanced the budget for two terms (only President Clinton did more). Unappreciated is that he showed that sometimes the best action to take is no action. Unfortunately, he took out a duly elected prime minister (
Mossaddegh) of Iran that started U.S.-Iran relations on a downward slope in which we even find ourselves mired today. A terrible decision over the demands of the prime minister that Iran get the same deal on oil as Egypt got, i.e. half the profits that resulted in the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. It remains so today. Certainly our abandoning the Hungarians when we had fomented them to rebel against the Soviets was not a shining hour. He also took the initial steps toward what became the
Viet Nam War; however, that could have been stopped by several succeeding presidents and maybe Eisenhower would have done it himself so I won't count that.
Kennedy The problem here is that we don't know what would have happened had President Kennedy not been assassinated; however, he was not able to accomplish anything big in his first 1,000 days, the time when Presidents have their most power. His most outstanding achievement is probably his commitment to putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. He had a very charismatic personality, with me included, and has had a great spin machine promoting him. There was a rush to name things after him such as the Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts. Other things had name changes to him such as
Idlewild Airport to Kennedy International Airport and Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy (The name here has been changed back but the Kennedy Space Center remains.). The attraction of President Kennedy is more spiritual than substantial.
Johnson Lyndon Johnson is maybe the most tragic story. He surely would have been remembered as a great president if he hadn't plunged us into a ground war in
Viet Nam, a war he came to believe we couldn't win. But he did plunge us into it so no matter what else he did, it doesn't count. These accomplishments were many: Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights Act of 1964, voting Rights Act, Immigration Act of 1965, Equal Employment Opportunity Act, certainly the nucleus for consideration as a great president. And of course, he kept our manned space program alive, no mean feat. These were not the only accomplishments . These and others may be seen at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson.
N
ixon Richard Nixon's visit of China has even resulted in an opera. And of course, the first manned landing on the moon happened on his watch. His space accomplishments were many including keeping Apollo alive through Apollo 17 after the Apollo 13 disaster, the Space shuttle, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project agreement with the Soviets. He created the Environmental Protection Agency and he signed the Clean Air Act. He considered that he had stopped the
Viet Nam War with the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops by 1972 and Paris Peace Accords of 1973; however, fighting continued until 1975. I think that most people consider the
Viet Nam War to be over during the Ford administration with the evacuation of our embassy personnel in April 30, 1975 with the fall of Saigon. Nixon had to resign the Presidency over the Watergate Break In to avoid being impeached which eliminates him from being considered a great president. Mark shields, the well known liberal commentator, has said that Nixon was the last liberal president although many of his proposals were to divert attention from the Viet Nam War.
Ford Gerald R. Ford may be most famous for being our only appointed President. He also added stability to our country after Nixon resigned as President. He did pardon President Nixon, a decision with which I agree. It allowed congress to get back to work on more important things. His most famous quote is probably, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over ..." in his inauguration speech. Ford was not president long enough to get into much trouble.
Carter Jimmy Carter is probably the most maligned president we have had since Herbert Hoover. He has even been called one of our worst presidents. While I did not like him as president, I don't understand his treatment. His accomplishment of getting a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is major. He finally put an end to the Panama Canal treaty issue by returning the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Though dire things were forecast, the Canal has operated smoothly for the 35 years since. Considering how difficult this was to attain (President Ford had to stop his effort to do this because of strong opposition within his party.), it is a significant achievement. He made Teddy Roosevelt look like a piker in Carter's locking up wilderness areas throughout the U.S. He created the Departments of Energy and Education. He started a comprehensive program on alternative energy that was unfortunately largely closed by his successor. He lowered the Federal budget deficit in three of his four years of presidency until his efforts to balance the budget were overtaken by a recession. Carter made a terrible strategic error early in his presidency by stopping all the water projects in the U.S. because he considered them pork. But water is a major issue in the WEST, and he lost any reelection right there. He was also hampered by the Iranian hostage crisis that wasn't resolved until minutes after Ronald Reagan took office. Because of his conservative nature, Carter was opposed by Teddy Kennedy for Democratic nomination for President. The hostage crisis probably allowed Carter to defeat Kennedy, but his inability to get the hostages released no doubt was a major factor in his unsuccessful bid for reelection. The conception that unemployment was still rising on election day no doubt also played a major role in Carter's defeat. But this is hardly the record of a worst president.
Reagan Ronald Reagan has become known as a champion of small government although he left his presidency with a Federal government larger than he found it, both in terms of the Federal Budget and number of Federal employees. He ran up shockingly large budget deficits and never came close to balancing the budget. I have extensive discussions of Ronald Reagan elsewhere on this blog.* In fact he is the only president to increase the number of Federal employees between Lyndon Johnson and Obama. His major achievement for Republicans may be a large tax cut for the wealthy; however, he later instituted 11 tax increases to recover about half the revenue lost in the tax cut. Reagan initiated work on the Start Treaty that was a major contribution to reduce the threat of nuclear warfare. He signed the Immigration Reform And Control Act that gave amnesty to millions of illegals in the country. He deregulated the Savings & Loan Industry with disastrous results. His doing nothing after the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and the pulling of Marines out of Lebanon after the marine barracks attack perhaps emboldened the terrorists to continue their attacks. Ultimately, Reagan's breaking of the Air Traffic controllers Union might be his greatest achievement in terms of the impact on labor. The Iran-Contra affair was maybe his biggest failure and might even had gotten him impeached. Like so many self-made men and women, he felt the poor were poor by choice. After all he had made it so they could too if they wished. Like Kennedy, Reagan's supporters enthusiastically did things to honor him such as renaming the Washington National Airport the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan even during his lifetime which is unusual. The list of things named for Ronald Reagan is extensive.** Like President Kennedy, the attraction of President Reagan is more spiritual than substantial as proposed by Reagan aid Richard
Darman in his book "Who's In Control" in 1996.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/02/ronald-reagan.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/10/ronald-reagan-further-comments.html
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honors_named_for_Ronald_Reagan
Bush-41 (George H.W. Bush) In retrospect, George H.W. Bush had a pretty good record as president. Unfortunately he raised taxes after famously saying, "Read my lips. No new taxes." This action has caused him to be ignored by his party. He got through the Americans With Disabilities Act and started the ball rolling on NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement). After a mistake by his State Department that led to the first Iraq War (Desert Storm), the allies decisively won and freed Kuwait. Furthermore the U.S. used up existing munitions and other countries contributed to finance the war that cost the U.S. essentially nothing monetarily. Also he knew when to stop the war. He also conducted a war in Panama (Operation Just Cause) over illicit drugs that captured the dictator Noriega, a task that Reagan was unable to accomplish. Although Republicans give Reagan all the credit, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later, both while Bush was president. From what I read, getting there took the skills of Bush to complete the fall. Bush consummated the Start Treaty. Bush also started Operation Restore Hope in Somalia that unfortunately came to a disappointing ending in his successor's term. He cut the Federal labor force by several hundred thousand employees. He was never able to obtain his dream of a capital gains rate of 20%. When speaking in public, Bush tended to speak in a rather
whiny voice that many found unattractive. Like Carter and Ford before him, Bush was plagued by the perception of rising unemployment running up to election day. I was surprised that in one on one interviews, his voice was quite normal and attractive. Bush was noted as a gentleman in his campaign for reelection that should be a model for others, but, as he pointed out, he lost.
Clinton A new era was introduced with the election of Democratic President of President Clinton in which the Republican Party went into a full court press to destroy his presidency in any way they could. Unfortunately, the President helped them along with sexual indiscretions in the Oval office that resulted in his being impeached but not convicted so that he remained President. Unfortunately, this did much to under mine his Presidency. During his first two years, employment increased an average of 250,000 new employees a month. He cut taxes on low income families and most small businesses while increasing taxes on the wealthiest taxpayers. Between the tax increases of Bush-41 and Clinton, the 1990s turned out to be a fantastic economic decade. He passed the Brady Bill, named for Reagan's press secretary who was shot and permanently impaired in the assassination attempt on President Reagan. In addition to instituting a 5-day waiting period in purchasing guns, assault rifles were banned while hunting rifles were exempt. He signed the Family and Medical Leave Act. Under Clinton's National Performance Review, more hundreds of thousands of Federal employees were terminated. He even decreased the number of employees on his staff. He started the Direct Student Loan Program that gives students low cost loans to go to college. He led the fight for the GATT Treaty (General Agreement On Tariffs and Trade) that lowered tariffs. He signed the Violence Against Women Act. He was the only President not to have a recession in his first term and, in fact, didn't have a recession in his second term either, permitting the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. He put 1,000 more police on the streets. He had pledged to reform welfare as a candidate and accomplished this with the welfare reform legislation of 1996, though he had to send the bill back to congress several times to round off some of the rougher edges. Ran a positive cash flow for four years, one without using the Social Security surplus. He had the first female Secretary of State, the first female Attorney General, and the first Asian American cabinet member. His biggest error was in signing a bill to eliminate the Glass-
Steagal Act that restricted the investing opportunities of banks. And they became able to invest like investment banks.
Bush-43(George W. Bush) Bush-43 was elected on a disputed basis that was decided by the Supreme Court where he had a larger electoral vote and his opponent had a larger popular vote. Nonetheless, he was able to push through massive tax cuts for the wealthy and more minor cuts for the rest. The so-called 9/11 attack occurred in his term and he sent American troops to Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 supported by allies and northern Afghanistan tribes. This war continues down to today and is America's longest war. Through an intensive propaganda campaign he also started an optional war in Iraq on March 10, 2003, based on incorrect information. This war finally came to an end on December 15, 2011. Both wars were waged with borrowed money. President Bush's most outstanding achievements undoubtedly were the formation of the Department of Homeland Security (as a result of 9/11), the controversial Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and Medicare D (prescription drug benefits). The massive tax cuts plus the unpaid forign wars and drug benefits, plunged the country into major Federal deficits. Further deregulating banking and the burst of the housing bubble, plunged the nation into a de-leveraging economic crisis from which the nation has not yet recovered. As a result, there was a big turnover in government in the 2008 elections.
Obama It is too early to judge the Barack Obama Presidency; however, my post of August 28, 2010 still holds: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/08/best-one-term-president-ever.html
