"Name Another Great Modern Republican President, Other Than Reagan"

When you argue with a freeper and they start going on and on about Reagan, pose that challenge to them. Just for argument sake, give them Reagan. I know that it's hard, but give them Reagan. Then challenge them to name another great modern, post-industrial revolution Republican president.

Let's review:

Eisenhower - Nothing much there.

Nixon - Impeached, disgraced, and resigned his office amid scandal

Ford - Out of control inflation. Gas shortages. High unemployment.

Bush I and Bush II - They gave us three recessions, four wars, high unemployment, and soaring budget deficits.



Now for the Dems:

FDR - Rescued the nation from the Great Depression. Installed major new social programs that generated the vibrant American middle class. Guided the nation through WWII.

Truman - Ended the war in Japan. Rebuilt Western Europe which was the key to containing Soviet expansion and brought about peace on the European continent.

Kennedy - Fought for Civil Rights and launched the space program that landed a man on the moon. Inspired a generation of young Americans to go into public service.

Clinton - brought us 8 years of peace and record prosperity. Balanced the budget to the point that we ran a surplus.

He was way worse than Carter.

Look at the people in the Bush administration who have authored the current mess we are in - most came out of the Nixon White House and those who did not actually work there were trained by Nixon people. It is those people who have shaped our country since the mid-seventies and done a shitty job of it. We are still cleaning up from the Nixon Gang and will be for years.

If Nixon and all his cohorts had been impeached and convicted, it might have ended their public careers forever (I say 'might' since the only criminals Republicans want to keep out of office are the Democrats they have convicted in their own minds). And if the truth had come out in the 1970s, it would have weakened the Republican party enough that maybe Reagan would not have won in 1980.

Maybe Jimmy Carter wouldn't have been as ineffective president with a Republican Party out to save its ass. Maybe he could have gotten his energy initiative implemented and by the end of the 1980s the US would have been less reliant on foreign oil instead of ever more tied to the Middle East. Without that need for oil, we may not have been so quick to go to the rescue of Kuwait and willing to attack Saddam; would not have been in Saudi Arabia and given Osama bin Laden an excuse to start Al Qaeda.

The entire last quarter of the twentieth century would have been different and maybe better. A lot of ifs and maybes, but I will forever believe that Nixon should have been impeached for the good of the country. Of course, I also believe Reagan should have been impeached for Iran-Contra, an even bigger crime.

And George H.W. Bush was CIA director.

You got any equivalents of those three to point to during the Carter administration?


On edit: Almost forgot -- Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State.

in prison

Seriously, get some perspective.

is still pretty fucking evil
As pointed out earlier, many of the neocon players got their start in good ol' Gerry's White House.

talk about palinesque idiotic incompetence!

ford had a kind, genial PERSONALITY and IMAGE but he was an incompetent and lousy president.
the only reason he may not seem so horrible is that he thankfully didn't get a full 4 years to screw things up.

carter at least had some good ideas and a good vision for the future. it's a whole lot easier to blame carter's bad image on a petulantly uncooperative congress and subsequent decades of relentless republicans bashing carter's image and record.

if democrats did to ford half of what republicans did to carter, not only would there be no debate on this matter, but national politics would have played out VERY differently, starting with reagan never becoming president.

really sucked in his own right. He was more sane about foreign policy, but that was only because the corporations that owned him didn't want to tear up their equipment with and extended military effort in the Mideast. The neo-con cabal hadn't quite taken over the reins of the GOP at that time. The party still had a few people in power who were not totally guano insane.

For that reason alone, he's burning in Hell right now.

He could have opened the Warren Commission records to the public, but chose to die a coward by sitting on those secrets.

He was Cheney and Rumsfeld's stooge at best, corrupt traitor at the worst.

and the "Bush Recession" was actually starting to get better when Clinton kicked his ass.

But I am no fan of Reagan.

It's just for argument's sake.

ala Cheney.

got credit for "dealing with the commie threat".

It has always been evident to me at least that if Americans had a better knowledge of even recent history like the Reagan years, there would be fewer teabaggers and other random republican idiots out there...

thanks St. Ronnie! :patriot:

was Dwight Eisenhower.

We certainly should have listened to him regarding the Military Industrial Complex, that's for sure.

If he had had the balls to do it before that, he might have been able to lead the fight against them.

That played a huge role in creating the mess that we have there today

And he was the last republican president or presidential candidate to believe in civil rights. If only all republicans were like Ike.

As for the question, Bush I was really not that bad at all. Nice multilateral foreign policy, unlike his doofus son.

Martin luther King.How's that...

They rant on about fiscal responsibility. Who trashed the budget and tripled the deficit? Ronnie.

The last great Republican president was Teddy Roosevelt. There hasn't been one since that comes close.

That's scraping the bottom of the barrel to begin with.

He was actually a good man. I think he was the last really good man who was a republican president. Nixon was evil. Reagan was destructive and selfish. And the Bush's were ignorant and evil.

Same with Teddy Roosevelt.

Hell, even Calvin Coolidge might have considered it after seeing the depths of anti-intellectualism the Republican party has sunk to.

It's silly to dismiss the man. His years brought our nation great prosperity, and during that time, we forged some major alliances with other nations that have served both them and ourselves well, for the most part.

Beating Nazi Germany was no small accomplishment, either, and converting that country to a peaceful nation was Ike's crowning glory.

to a peaceful nation". After all, Truman was President for the first 7+ years after the war in Europe ended. His Secretary of State was responsible for the Marshall Plan, the Truman administration arranged for the Berlin Airlift, and (West) Germany was allowed to set up its own government (Bundesrepublik) before Eisenhower took office.

Reading a book right now, "The Conquerors" which talked about the FDR and Truman Administration's efforts to make sure that Germany did not start WWIII by 1965. Of course, they worked with General Eisenhower in this effort, and I give him credit for finally bringing Germany back into the family of Western nations.

Fiscally responsible, pro civil rights (for a republican) and anti-military industrial complex. A little nutty on the anti-communist dogma, but that was very fashionable back then.

But he's easily my favorite Republican to read about because I find his mind so morbidly fascinating.

Plus, he created the EPA, opened relations with China, signed SALT II, and did a few really good things before his paranoia destroyed his political career.

but we failed to heed his warning.

Bill Clinton, I hope he gets well soon.

I've been making a study of him and come to realize we agreed on a ton of stuff in his later years. That being said, I believe he would have jumped ship and joined the Democrats to fight the Theocratic junk science idiots that have a strangle hold todays GOP.

:shrug:

He was vehemently against corruption and worked to limit it as much as he could.

Military Industrial (congressional) complex with its addiction to profitable wars. I think he was a pretty good one (by REPUG) standards. Nixon (who I detested) gave us the first EPA and environmental regulation... I give credit where credit is due.

I believe freepers think he was great, and that was the criteria you submitted. Now you and I both know Bush was less than worthless, but freepers have a different attitude.

Clinton brought us the slaughter/er, uh wars in the Balkans. And for that matter he could have used the peace dividend generated by the end of the Cold War to weaken the MIC - didn't happen.....We could have invested all of that money going to the MIC on the environment or similar programs to change the direction of this country. We also have Clinton to thank for NAFTA

And for that matter, Truman launched the nucler arms industry and let our country be the first and only country to use those weapons

I don't believe that

Think about it----sixty million people.

Truman did the right thing.

It also scared the Soviets, which is probably why a lot of the communists don't like it.

his daughter gave up on today`s republican party.

but either you are not being truthful, or you dont know what you are talking about.

Kennedy attacked South Vietnam setting off a decade and a half of war that devastated the entire region. He also led a terrorist war against Cuba.

Clinton led the sanctions regime against Iraq which according to UN figures killed at least 500.000 children. He also passed NAFTA, while presiding over a period of "prosperity"...for about 10% of the population. Everyone else saw wages decline.

The Republicans are clearly worse than the Democratic presidents, but it would be a blatant fabrication to assert that they were "good" in any literal sense.

the argument has to be simplified.

out of office.

He sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce a judge's order on desegregation.

End of the Korean War

The Interstate Highway system

NASA was created

And the Bush Crime Family (of which Nixon was himself a card carrying member since 1946) has been cashing in on China ever since. Look into Poppy's older brother, Prescott Jr. and his "US-China Chamber of Commerce".

He basically saved the world. Other than that he was a pretty lackluster president. You want a real leader, look up Sargent Shriver.

Teddy Roosevelt was the last truly great Republican.

Eisenhower was...acceptable.


It's been Democrats who have brought us the greatest periods of peace and prosperity. Democrats who have guided this nation through its moments of turmoil. Democrats who are the oldest existing political party (and there's a reason for that).

Also, OP--you forgot Johnson. Yes, Vietnam, but he ranks second only to FDR in terms of domestic policy accomplishments in the list of Dems who have held the office.

Because as soon as they start yammering on about how Nixon got a bad deal, and that he was actually a very good President, it was just the evil liberal media that had it in for him, and blah blah blah, YOU get to counter with this.............

When you consider his policies, Richard Nixon was one of the most liberal Presidents we've had in modern American history. If you like him, you must be a liberal.

They usually shut up pretty quick after that.

I just dont understand all the hype around him.

The 1950s were relatively peaceful and prosperous. Nixon was a personal wacko but in his years the EPA and OSHA were created. Also ERISA which protects pensions came in under him. He "opened up" China, the long term consequences of which can be debatable, but it was bold foreign policy move.

Honestly?


It would be better to show how the current (D) policies are more in line with the accomplishments of this man than to diminish his accomplishments.

here are a couple snips... I could go on all day


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower



In October 1952, the Eisenhower administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue. (racial equality)



One of Eisenhower's enduring achievements was championing and signing the bill that authorized the Interstate Highway System in 1956 (Socialized Road building)



He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. (no explanation needed, I hope)






Eisenhower was a good president. We should point out that he paid down the debt, got us out of Korea and oversaw the expansion of the middle class as well as America's economic power. He also kept the top tax rate above 90% throughout his administration.



http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php


snip



1953 92 <6> 400,000
1954 91 <7> 400,000
1955 91 <7> 400,000
1956 91 <7> 400,000
1957 91 <7> 400,000
1958 91 <7> 400,000
1959 91 <7> 400,000
1960 91 <7> 400,000







I could make similar arguments for Nixon's policies but he was a scum bag.