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2009-02-08T03:45:00.000-05:00

Jack-be-nimble praising Bush:"Rallied the country ...

2009-01-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

Jack-be-nimble praising Bush:

"Rallied the country after 9-11."

And alienated the rest of the world. Plus rallying the country to go shopping instead of sacrificing was pretty stupid.

"Took down the Taliban government in record time."

Except they came back... still under his watch.

"Took Iraq from a feared regional enemy to a democratic regional force to be a buttress to Iran for the forseeable future."

I think you mean to buffer Iran? If so, no. Iraq is more likely to become a strong ally to Iran at this point.

"Taught our enemies that we would do whatever it took to crush them, including toture to keep the country safe."

Yes, I'm sure proving we could do an Abu Ghraib helped America a whole lot. Not.

"Now that daddy (Bush/Cheney) have done the dirty work, mommy (Obama/Biden) can inherit the benefits of work well done. Bush/Cheney is Jack Nicholsen character in "A few good men", whereas Obama/Biden is Tom Cruise and his lady Navy waife."

You do realize that the movie is about how Nicholson is wrong, don't you?

"Inherited a recession/9-11 economic slump and grew the ecomomy for 52 consecutive months."

The growth was not a real one. It relied on a housing boom that turned into a bust.

Compare your unwarranted praise of Bush to what he did wrong: Bush doubled the national debt, led the nation into a trillion dollar pre-emptive war against a country that was a minor threat to us, let New Orleans suffer for days after Hurrican Katrina, destroyed the environment, installed political cronies left and right while forsaking experience to do the job called for, and had the country suffer the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression at the end of his eight years.

As much as I think Bush was horrible at defending ...

2009-01-19T01:35:00.000-05:00

As much as I think Bush was horrible at defending the constitution and standing up for American values (i.e. allowing torture, politicizing the justice department), I think that Iraq will settle out to a stable democracy, and as much as it pains me to think it, I believe Bush WILL indeed rank at least in the top half of American presidents all time.

"There is nothing that I can see about the Clinton...

2009-01-18T22:31:00.000-05:00

"There is nothing that I can see about the Clinton presidency that would cause him to go up...perceived as asleep on terrorism."

No sir. I'm amazed to see anyone seriously make such a statement (if you were being sarcastic, then I'm just tonedeaf and I apologize). Clinton was actively on guard, aware, and responding to the Al Qaida threat. Even to the extent of leaving notes and explanation of policy for his successor... who completely ignored them and did NOTHING WHATSOEVER until after the attack came. If anyone has been asleep on terrorism, it has been GWB up to 2001, and after that he simply reacted as Bin Lauded led him around, much to the misfortune of our contry, and much to the advantage of Al Qaida.

Truman is the outlier. As Nate says, "Here, the r...

2009-01-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

Truman is the outlier. As Nate says, "Here, the relationship is a bit stronger (very strong, in fact, if we exclude Harry Truman.)" Maybe somebody out there can help me with this, possibly point me towards some info that explains why historians think he's so great. He had his share of scandals, as Nate points out. He is the first American president that I'm aware of that got us into what any sensible person would call a war, but he labeled it a "Police Action" (Korea). This set a precedent for legitimizing other "conflicts" (Viet Nam), "incursions" (Grenada), or just ordinary mucking in other people's business (Iran-Contra). He is the author of the relationship that President, and former General, Eisenhower later warned would dramatically change America, likely for the worse, the Military-Industrial Complex. From everything I've read about him, he was a nasty, stubborn little man, sort of a "my way or the highway" kind of guy. Sound familiar? And, while people can change, the things he wrote about the Germans while serving in the U.S. military in World War One, paint the picture of a bigot with a mean streak. Let's not forget, he is the only person in the world who has ever deployed a nuclear device, and he used two - on civilians. For me, the fact that Dubya thinks he's great is the final nail in the coffin. Call it guilt by association, if you will.

So, if there are any historians out there (real ones, not amateurs like me), please fill me in on why "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" is now so revered.

So outgoing ones get a bump when it is known they ...

2009-01-17T14:29:00.000-05:00

So outgoing ones get a bump when it is known they are going or are about to leave? I wonder if Obama helped Bush along by taking charge so much right after the election? People may have indulged in the notion that W had actually already ended his time of influence, months ahead of Inauguration Day, and started the "nostalgic looking back" earlier than usual.

On another note, in the second chart, I see the single termers dominating in the bottom half, with the double termers and FDR in the top. I know that presidents have a tendency to stumble over some type of bad problem or 'morass' in their last term. Should be be averaging, not over their whole tenure, but just the last term, as someone else suggested?

dorsk188 said...many historians still gauge a pres...

2009-01-16T22:42:00.000-05:00

dorsk188 said...
many historians still gauge a president by how much they grew the president's power

Dork (oops, I mean dorsk),

Many is not most. MOST historians gauge a President by how they conducted their term in office, how they handled problems that were given to them, how their appointments handled the duties they were given, etc.

But the MOST important criteria is how they did their job within the criteria set by law.

dorsk said...
So, traditional historians may rank Bush quite high

Dork, dork, dork (ooops, I mean dorsk):

Traditional historians have NEVER ranked a President according to how they expanded the powers of a President. They rank a President on how that Chief Executive conducted themselves in office in accordance with the laws of the land, and Bush did his best to shred all but the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights; withheld information from the American public and distorted most information he did give; politicized everything he could so meet his ends; neglected those Americans who didn't help him meet his goals (the former residents of New Orleans still living in FEMA trailers, for example); etc.; etc.; I don't see many historians ranking Bush on a very high scale. The only ones who will are the so-called historians who write history for and to the fascist right-wing of the country.

Just as one example of your fallacy of high-ranking Presidents are rated such because they expanded the powers of the Presidency:

George Washington

I think you would agree that Washington is almost universally considered one of the top five American Presidents.

On 23 December 1783, George Washington voluntarily gave up command of the Continental Army when he resigned his commission to the Continental Congress in Annapolis, Maryland.

When George Washington was President, there was no prohibition to a President serving no more than two terms. Yet, in 1796, Washington made it very clear to everyone that he would step down from the Presidency at the end of his second term. By doing that, he did not expand the Presidency at all, but limited it, if not in actual fact, he limited it by custom.

Finally, YOU and your ideological cohorts may not recognize Truman as a top tier President, but it is obvious that many historians (actual, not fake) do. If in fact so many consider him in the top 10 of American Presidents, what did he do to expand the powers of the Presidency for him to be considered in the top tier of Presidents by most legitimate historians?

Kansas: Bush may or may not be judged differently ...

2009-01-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

Kansas: Bush may or may not be judged differently with regards to Iraq, but I venture to say his legacy regarding Afghanistan will not be judged differently. Bush took his eye off the ball there and pre-emptively invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 based upon cherry-picked intelligence. Afghanistan's state of affairs at the time Bush is leaving office is disastrous because of his neglect. If things eventually change there, it will be because of Obama, not Bush.

With any luck, this man will be prosecuted for war crimes and there will be no hope for his legacy.

Speaking of partisanship, AxelIDC sees a world whe...

2009-01-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

Speaking of partisanship, AxelIDC sees a world where Obama, not even president yet, "solved most of the problems Bush created."

I think we can anticipate that Obama will have plenty of his own problems to try to solve and, in any event, how often does a new president come in and "solve" the problems of his predecessor. Maybe Reagan. Maybe IKE on the Korean war. Those who like FDR will say he did, although that is debatable.

What other president solved the problems of his predecessor? Or is that just something that we expect from the magic Obama? I think we need a reality check.

@ dorsk188My own presidency professor accepted thi...

2009-01-16T15:45:00.000-05:00

@ dorsk188

My own presidency professor accepted this more traditional view when I was in college a few years ago. Expanding the powers was always a "good" thing and relinquishing them (as GHWB did when going to Congress for approval to invade Iraq) weakened the presidency and was thus "bad"

Apparently your professor gave no weight to what use the expansion of power was put.And he considered GHWB weak because he followed the Constitution and recognized that the power to declare war rested with Congress.

I hope your old professor is now retired and no longer poisoning young minds.

Johnson's domestic policies are anathema to most Republicans. Johnson moved us toward a Welfare State in their view.

I hope by now that "most" Republicans are more enlightened.As for the remaining Neanderthals,they can't die out soon enough to suit me.

The war was clearly the larger of the two black marks on Johnson's presidency, but Republicans have fairly successfully demonized the social programs, as well.I

In the world of right wing think tanks,yes.But not in my world.And not in world of most citizens today.

Sorry for asking,but how about in your world?

I am always surprised by how political bias causes...

2009-01-16T15:04:00.000-05:00

I am always surprised by how political bias causes people to lose any semblance of objectivity. I like President Bush, but accept the likelihood that inhistory he will not be an upper tier president, although I also consider the contentions that he will be at the bottom to be emotional and partisan arguments. In the scope of history, what has he done that has such awful consequences at to put him near the bottom?

But my main point is that there is an obviously possibility that would greatly enhance his "ranking.' Nate recogizes it grudgingly:

"it's hard to imagine what exactly could transpire from here on out to change those perceptions -- the seemingly unlikely prospect a long-run democratic peace in Iraq perhaps being the exception. Still, to assume that the final chapter has been written on Bush's legacy would be wrong."

It is possible that Iraq will turn out to be a big long term success (Afghanistan as well), that could catapult Bush into the upper echelon of presidents, and anyone who does not recognize that possibility is not being truthful and objective. It is also possible that the "war on terror" will be viewed quite favorably.

Compare these issues re Bush with the Clinton presidency. There is nothing that I can see about the Clinton presidency that would cause him to go up and much that will cause him to descend - dishonesty, pardons, impeachment, and perceived as asleep on terrorism.

I am not sure history will be kind on George W Bus...

2009-01-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

I am not sure history will be kind on George W Bush. I think Truman is a bit of an unusual case because of the termoil he inflicted on the Democratic Party through his (albeit tepid) support of the civil rights movement. So many of his own party where not squarely behind him, and partisan republicans where not on his side.

I don't see Bush benefitting from the same level of retrospective respect. I think the Iraq War has done for him in the same way that the Vietnam War did for LBJ, and Bush does not have the same level of domestic successes to rescue any of his reputation.

Over the next few years, the Obama administration ...

2009-01-16T14:33:00.000-05:00

Over the next few years, the Obama administration will reveal more facts about the Bush Administration that are currently being hidden. On top of that, more of Bush's decisions will yield their results, and so far those results have been a terrible economy, foreign policy disasters, more Israeli attacks and unimaginable deficits.

The Bush defense that "he kept us safe" is offensive because a) it ignores the fact that the only act of peacetime foreign terrorism on US soil occurred under his charge; b) it ignores the terrorist attacks on our allies by Al Qaeda in Bali, Madrid and London, as if Bush doesn't have a responsibility to keep them safe.

The public will probably forget Bush over time, but I don't historians will have much kind to say about him. Probably the best we can hope for is that he didn't really matter in the long run, as Obama solved most of the problems Bush created.

The role of the state, as defined by Locke, is to ...

2009-01-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

The role of the state, as defined by Locke, is to protect Life, Liberty, and wealth. (sound eerily familiar?)

Now, life is not protected by the destruction of life, any more than it is possible to prevent theft by stealing.

The State is constrained by the law as much as the citizenry. Were it not so, we would live in a totalitarian society where mistakes made my the State cannot be remedied. In fact, given the awesome power of government, it makes more sense to argue for a disparity that favors the citizens rather than one that favors the State. When a cat is int he presence of a mouse, one does not seek to protect the cat from the mouse.

Further, the State itself does not exist except by the consent of the Governed. Should the State itself disappear, the possibility that the citizenry will continue without it is still there. It is not true that the State can exist without the citizenry. Therefore, the State is not superior to the citizen, rather, it is inferior to it. The citizen is to rule the State, the State is not to rule the citizen.

However, the citizens are prone (as every other society is and has been prone) to mob violence, mass panics, and to collective temporary insanity. While many would argue that there is something about Americans that make them superior to other humans, they are wrong. We are subject to the same errors that brought down every other nation that came before us, and just as subject to ills as those we see int he present, and wish we didn't have to. The minority must be protected from the Tyranny of the Majority, lest we degenerate into an unruly mob. The worst images from our history are those of lynchings and other forms of collective psychosis.

All too often, prisoners are convicted not on evidence but on suspicion, prejudice, and the extremism of the desperate looking for an archetype to blame for their ill fortune.

The Death Penalty allows horrible atrocities to be committed during the depths of mass psychosis. We must therefore protect ourselves from it.

Well, to me the death penalty is murder. Allow me ...

2009-01-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

Well, to me the death penalty is murder. Allow me to explain why I say this. I'm not a theologian, so I'll try to be brief, but forgive my prolix if I fail to do so.

1) The State is not comprised of Gods but of men. If we are to assume that men are capable of error (therefore sin), we mus assume the State is equally capable of error. Should the state falsely find someone guilty of murder (which is a possibility) and then execute him, it cannot make reparations for it's crime. Unlike a life sentence, where the prisoner can be released with an apology and maybe some money to help make up for the years lost, you can't bring the dead back to life. Once they're gone, that's it.

2) The state does not have Divine Authority. The Bible explicitly states that vengeance belongs to the Lord alone, and is not for men to seek. The Death Penalty is, above all else, about vengeance. The victims do not spring back to life upon the execution of their murderer. Nothing is restored. More pain and suffering is added, and none is taken away.

3) There is a specific proscription against ritual sacrifice, which the Death Penalty comes entirely close to. It is performed in a ritualistic manner, with an appointed time, date, method, a specific role for executioner and audience. The whole grisly mess is little different from Moloch, except instead of sacrificing to a God we sacrifice to the State. The State should not assume such a role.

We are not here to judge other people or to decide who is holy and who is profane. There is another Judge that will make that decision, and any attempts to subvert His role is pretentious at best.

From the stand point of Religion, I can see no reason for the execution of prisoners. I will next attempt to make my stand from a Secular perspective. Again, forgive my prolix, since I'm no lawyer, either.

Statler:The argument the pro-life/pro-death penalt...

2009-01-16T13:54:00.001-05:00

Statler:

The argument the pro-life/pro-death penalty people make is that the fetus is "innocent." I frankly wonder why Christians make that argument, since they believe in Original Sin. Do you lack sin until you are born? But anyway, that's their argument.

Statler, first of all, Legendary is right. The com...

2009-01-16T13:53:00.000-05:00

Statler, first of all, Legendary is right. The commandment is "Thou shalt not murder," and the King James translation that's been copied so many times is simply wrong.

Secondly, if you want to cite the Bible as an anti-war text, you have a problem, because then you can't explain why God told the Israelites to conquer Canaan, etc., etc., etc. The Bible certainly contains anti-war sentiment, but also plenty of war.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the Bible says there are no Christian nations. To me, the New Testament isn't part of the Bible, anyway, but let's include it for the sake of discussion. When the New Testament was written, of course there WERE no Christian nations!

I think it is unreasonable to claim the reason why...

2009-01-16T13:49:00.000-05:00

I think it is unreasonable to claim the reason why abortion should be illegal is because it is anti-life and then to execute prisoners or declare preemptive war. Logically, it makes no sense to say one form of killing is better than any other. To kill is to kill.

Legendary:Sure, pragmatic solutions are good, but ...

2009-01-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

Legendary:

Sure, pragmatic solutions are good, but the need to terminate pregnancies can never be completely ended. Contraceptives fail, and some pregnancies end up having to be ended for health reasons. And on your other point, though crime has plummeted lately, murders will always take place in some amount.

As for the suggestion that disregarding the life of fetuses while being against the death penalty is hypocritical, it doesn't make sense to me. Some of us simply don't consider a fetus to be a human life in the same way that the "already born" are. A greater degree of concern for more highly developed fetuses is certainly logical, but also uncontroversial and built into the Roe v. Wade decision. I have no anguish whatsoever about a woman's decision to have an early abortion, nor about the abortion of a late-term fetus under tragic and potentially life-threatening circumstances for the prospective mother or the diagnosis of horrible birth defects such as spina bifida.

The reason I'm against the death penalty isn't primarily because of concern for the lives of murderers. If you murder someone, you deserve to die, and if police have to kill you in a shootout, good riddance. The problem is that there is no way to allow for the "unreasonable doubt" that has caused a pretty large number of death row inmates to be in fact not guilty of murder - some of whom have been executed, as in the infamous Texas case in which the Supreme Court ruled that evidence of actual innocence is not a sufficient reason to order a stay of execution. I fail to see a compelling reason to execute people already behind bars, that would justify the state-sanctioned murder of unjustly convicted innocents. One exception I'd be willing to consider is what to do with convicted murderers who murder again while in jail, but perhaps solitary confinement in perpetuity might be sufficient to protect people from such individuals. My basic rule of thumb is that the government shouldn't kill people if it's at all possible to avoid killing them and still protect society.

So you're telling me God only speaks to the elites...

2009-01-16T13:45:00.000-05:00

So you're telling me God only speaks to the elites and you have to take a special class to understand what He means?

Isn't that why Luther left the Catholic Church?

Sorry, I don't believe in a God which needs human elites trained in esoteric rituals to communicate to people. That system is just too open to abuse by the priests, who will claim to speak for God and then accuse anyone that challenges them as being too stupid to understand it.

You don't speak for God. God speaks for Himself.

Leg,This is the central point I'm trying to make. ...

2009-01-16T13:30:00.000-05:00

Leg,

This is the central point I'm trying to make. the Bible says You Shall Not Kill. Period. End of sentence. Doesn't say, "Except when". No qualifiers. End of story.

Cut and dry as they come, in my opinion.

But you will castigate anyone that ignores that in favor of abortion while coming up with excuses in favor of the death penalty.

The Sixth Commandment does not exclude murderers. That exclusion is something you inserted into the Law because it was convenient for you.

Beating your swords into plowshares does not mean preemptively strike suspected holders of WMD. But you'll try to twist it into being acceptable by Biblical terms. It isn't.

You inject your idealism into the Bible, and then you wonder why we stare at you with utter bafflement. You want to shout, "This is God's word!" when two guys ask why they cannot marry. But you're so quyick to execute prisoners in violation of God's word.

You can't pick and chose, man.

You can't use the Bible as a basis for legal argument is the Bible says that the Kingdom of Heaven is not an earthly nation. Christianity is anti-theocracy. So stop trying to make this into a 'christian nation', because the Bible explicitly states that there are no christian nations.

Stop putting words into the mouth of God. He is not your puppet.

@ MichaelGood historians deal in facts, not lying ...

2009-01-16T13:20:00.000-05:00

@ Michael

Good historians deal in facts, not lying propaganda by parties that are ideologically opposed to doing anything appreciable to help poor and black people.

I was talking about average people who are Republicans or Reagan-Democrats, not historians. I don't think we're in disagreement, here. The war was clearly the larger of the two black marks on Johnson's presidency, but Republicans have fairly successfully demonized the social programs, as well. And I was not making a case about Johnson's domestic effectiveness, just the perception of his effectiveness among the center-right of the country (which has been politically dominant since Nixon).

I'd say it's a toss up between Koop and Elders. I ...

2009-01-16T13:17:00.000-05:00

I'd say it's a toss up between Koop and Elders. I like Surgeons General with some fight in them :)

Personally, I hope one day to be appointed to the post of Sturgeon General. All the world's wealthiest will want to eat whatever comes out of my ass.

Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: History May -- or May Not -- Judge Bush More Kindl...

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Jack-be-nimble praising Bush:"Rallied the country ...

As much as I think Bush was horrible at defending ...

"There is nothing that I can see about the Clinton...

Truman is the outlier. As Nate says, "Here, the r...

So outgoing ones get a bump when it is known they ...

dorsk188 said...many historians still gauge a pres...

Kansas: Bush may or may not be judged differently ...

Speaking of partisanship, AxelIDC sees a world whe...

@ dorsk188My own presidency professor accepted thi...

I am always surprised by how political bias causes...

I am not sure history will be kind on George W Bus...

Over the next few years, the Obama administration ...

The role of the state, as defined by Locke, is to ...

Well, to me the death penalty is murder. Allow me ...

Statler:The argument the pro-life/pro-death penalt...

Statler, first of all, Legendary is right. The com...

I think it is unreasonable to claim the reason why...

Legendary:Sure, pragmatic solutions are good, but ...

So you're telling me God only speaks to the elites...

Leg,This is the central point I'm trying to make. ...

@ MichaelGood historians deal in facts, not lying ...

I'd say it's a toss up between Koop and Elders. I ...

Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: History May -- or May Not -- Judge Bush More Kindl...

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Jack-be-nimble praising Bush:"Rallied the country ...

As much as I think Bush was horrible at defending ...

"There is nothing that I can see about the Clinton...

Truman is the outlier. As Nate says, "Here, the r...

So outgoing ones get a bump when it is known they ...

dorsk188 said...many historians still gauge a pres...

Kansas: Bush may or may not be judged differently ...

Speaking of partisanship, AxelIDC sees a world whe...

@ dorsk188My own presidency professor accepted thi...

I am always surprised by how political bias causes...

I am not sure history will be kind on George W Bus...

Over the next few years, the Obama administration ...

The role of the state, as defined by Locke, is to ...

Well, to me the death penalty is murder. Allow me ...

Statler:The argument the pro-life/pro-death penalt...

Statler, first of all, Legendary is right. The com...

I think it is unreasonable to claim the reason why...

Legendary:Sure, pragmatic solutions are good, but ...

So you're telling me God only speaks to the elites...

Leg,This is the central point I'm trying to make. ...

@ MichaelGood historians deal in facts, not lying ...

I'd say it's a toss up between Koop and Elders. I ...

豆豆聊天室 aio交友愛情館 2008真情寫真 2009真情寫真 aa片免費看捷克論壇微風論壇 ...