Who was the last tolerable repug President? First? Any?

[thereismore]

I am wise to Lincoln's tricks (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761526463/qid=1129762141/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3797123-8984604?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0761526463.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
so you'll have to do better than that.

[natrat]

1. nixon did alot of good shit

[MnFats]

5. Bullshit. Nixon was a monstrous war criminal.

were you there?
he had the blood of 58,000 of my generation and millions of Vietnamese on his hands, not to mention Cambodians killed in an illegal invasion of a neutral country.

Don't get me started on Nixon. He was a pig.

[question everything]

12. He did not have the blood of 58,000

He shared it with Johnson and, I suppose with Kennedy.

But Nixon established the EPA, removed the tie between the dollar and gold and, frankly, in today's standards he would be considered a liberal. Same for Goldwater who was pro-choice.

The GOP of yesteryear were country club men and women of education and, dare I say it? class. They believed in small government, in the "invisible hand" of the market and would be embarrassed to be associated with personal beliefs like evolution and matters of privacy.

Even Barbara Bush, as an evil person that she is, is pro-choice and her husband probably is, too. They just did not think that such very personal matter is anyone's business, certainly not the court or a government body.

[karynnj]

41. But Johnson eventually realized the war was wrong

and announced he wasn't running and dedicated his efforts to ending the war - and effort thwarted by Nixon et al. He expanded the war into all of Cambodia. After winning re-election, he initiated an intense end ofyear bombing of NV even though he had to know the war couldn't be won.

[demzilla]

80. On what planet

did Johnson "dedicate his efforts to ending the war?"

It was Nixon who began to withdraw American troops from Vietnam -- no excuses for him, either, since he prolonged the war unnecessarily at the cost of thousands of lives.

They were both WRONG.

[alcibiades_mystery]

92. You're insane

Johnson insisted on the correctness of the war to his dying breath.

Don't apologize for that murderous sonuvebitch just because he was a Democrat. You're embarrassing yourself.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

73. In addition Nixon kickstarted the Middle East peace process

Which led to the eventual signing of the Camp David Peace Accord, established diplomatic relations with China, attempted to come to a diplomatic agreement with the Soviet Union to ease tensions over the Cold War and signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty

Don't get me wrong -I think Nixon was engaged in deeply criminal behavior and his deliberate prolonging of the war in Vietnam, his pussyfooting around in trying to end the conflict and his bombing of Cambodia was extremely reprehnsible and abhorrent. But Nixon did a lot of good during his presidency and I'd take him over * any day He should still have been prosecuted for Watergate though and I am in no way justifying his unethical and crooked deeds

[July]

93. While Nixon did establish the EPA, I'd never use his name and "class" in

the same sentence.

[Nederland]

69. Wrong

It was Johnson's war, not Nixon's.

When Johnson took office we had 10,000 troops in Vietnam; when he left we had half a million.

When Nixon took office we had half a million troops in Vietnam; when he left we had almost none.

You say "my generation". In case you've forgotten, the chant went "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

[Zhade]

87. A bit disingenuous.

"When Nixon took office we had half a million troops in Vietnam; when he left we had almost none."

I think the Vietnamese kicking us out had more to do with that than any desire on Nixon's part to end the war.

[ISUGRADIA]

95. What Vietnamese kicked us out?

The South? The North?
The South wanted us to stay, the North did not gain territory really until 1974/1975. Troop levels steaily declined during Nixon. He was still a bastard with the Xmas bombin of Hanoi but the war obviously did not hurt him during the 1972 election.

[HockeyMom]

6. Never in my lifetime would I have EVER

dreamed I would say Nixon was better than anybody. Tricky Dick, you were a SAINT compared to GW Bush and his crew.

[mrcheerful]

7. Yeah like kill kids at Kent state and invade Cambodia

Nixon did nothing but exploit the republican agenda. His law and order platform only meant that those not in the WH or repuke party were supposed to follow his laws. BTW, it was Tricky Dick that started making adjustments to the Constitution to make protesting the government illegal. It was also Tricky Dick that let Japan use america as a dumping ground for cars and motorcycles. Yeah he did so many wonderful things for america........ not.

[July]

94. Not to mention his slimy treatment of rivals and perceived "enemies." nt

[truebrit71]

39. You are out of your mind if you really think that...

..

[Zynx]

58. You CANNOT remove Watergate from his presidency.

Also, he was involved in the destruction of democracy in Chile, the murder of 600,000 in Cambodia needlessly, and the blame of our current problems with China has to rest with Nixon as well.

[YDogg]

2. Theodore Roosevelt ? I dunno.

Not that I was around then, but he sounds better than many others.

[PurityOfEssence]

29. Yeah, he's got my vote.

He was a warmonger and an unapologetic imperialist, but he busted the trust and gave a damn about the common man. What really gives me a soft spot in my heart is how he ended his political career ratfucking the Republican Party in the 1912 election; he was so disgusted at the iron-fisted elitist greed of those controlling the party that he split the vote and screwed 'em out of another term.

Bully for him.

Mixed bag, old Teddy, and the sadness of his end is a karmic backlash: a big, strutting manly man who extolled the virtues of war lost one of his sons in World War 1 and it pretty much broke his spirit.

[1932]

33. Mark Twain really didn't like TR at all, and had I been alive then, I'd

have been on Twain's side of that debate.

At the time there was debate over whether the US should be an Empire or nor. TR won that debate. Three decades later, they had the same debate, briefly, with New Deal Keynesians saying that the US should help developing countries develop wealthy middle classes and Business and Military Keynesians (democrat and republican) saying that we need to support the powerful, wealthy, corporate elements in order to spread free-market liberalism and stop the spread of communism. Truman and Eisenhower won that debate. I think we're going to have the same debate again over the next ten years, and either neoliberal democrats and republicans are going to win, or the heirs of Twain and New Deal democrats are going to win. But if the Twain and FDR heirs lose, it won't be the end of the debate. Eventually they're going to win.

[Zhade]

88. Indeed!

Panama Canal, anyone?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Gerald Ford

He was pro choice, pro affirmative action, pro ERA and if he was president today he's presumably be pro gay rights....

That's why freepers call him a RINO...

[terrya]

4. I agree...Gerald Ford was the last decent one.

And yes, he is now pro gay rights.

A decent, honorable man.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. He Wrote An Amicus Brief In The Last Big Affirmative Action Case

eom

[yellowcanine]

78. Gerald Ford was decent but in way over his head. Remember the

WIN buttons? Whip Inflation Now. Somebody noted that if one turned them upside down they said NIM for No Immediate Miracles.

And then there was the "Poland is not under the domination of the Soviet Union" in the debate with Carter - which probably lost him the election.

[ay3100]

15. Ford?

It should be noted that Carter was not Pro-Choice and woudl probably be seen as a moderate-conservative republican today.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Carter Was Pro-Choice

What about abortion? How would you speak to moderate evangelicals who withhold support for Democratic candidates on that single issue?

This was an issue that I had to face when I was campaigning 25 years ago. I have always been against abortion; it?s not possible for me in my own concept of Christ to believe that Jesus would favor abortion. But at the same time, I have supported the Supreme Court ruling of our country as the law of the land. And the present arrangement, whereby a woman is authorized to have an abortion in the first trimester of the pregnancy, or when the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest -- these are the things that moderates who have beliefs like mine can accept as the present circumstances in our country. The liberality of abortion is anointed by the laws of our country, including the ultimate ruling of the Supreme Court.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18378/

[bmbmd]

27. Well said.

Many Christian liberals struggle with the abortion issue. Thanks for addressing the matter so succinctly.

[newyawker99]

38. Hi ay3100!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Nightwing]

18. Ford would be my choice as well

He wasnt anything like Nixon, Reagan, *41 and *43. He may have been clumsy as hell in public but he is the best of a sad lot.

[thereismore]

28. Interesting...the best republican president was never elected

(Ford). Neither was the worst republican resident (*).

[JerseygirlCT]

70. Would be my pick as well.

A decent man.

[MN ChimpH8R]

9. Ford and Eisenhower

were the last of the real Republicans. That "party" is now nothing more than a collection of religious lunatics, criminals and corporate proto-fascist thugs.

[ChiciB1]

67. Ike Was Long Ago, But As A Very Young Politico....

seems like all I ever heard was that he played golf!

Hey, it's what my father told me anyway! And my father was career MILITARY!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. TR

was a bit of a warmonger in his youth, but once he was Pres, he had the fleet go around the world in a mission of peace, and won the Nobel Peace Prize on the strength of that, I believe. He was a progressive; the Pure Food and Drug Act came into being during his watch. He was a maverick Republican, not a corporate lackey like McKinley. He was put in the VP slot to get rid of him, but one GOP boss said, "Do you realize that there is only one life between this madman and the Presidency?" The fact that the GOP reverted to corporate lackey with the advent of Taft made TR run in 1912 on the Progressive ticket.

Ford wasn't bad, except for pardoning Nixon before he was tried and convicted. Arthur helped bring about the Civil Service, cutting down on corruption, which surprised his cronies from New York City, where he was known doing favors for a price.

The rest of them? Eh!

[youngred]

44. The Nobel Prize was awarded

because of his mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, not the Big Stick fleet he sent around the world to burnish the America's military might.

Aside from that I agree

[Tesla]

11. An old but interesting Lincoln article

THE GUN THAT SHOT ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND IS DISPLAYED ON THE WALL OF FORDS

THEATER TODAY IS A WOMAN'S DERRINGER WITH A WHITE PEARL HANDLE!!



Would anyone (especially a man in the 1860s) in their right mind try to

kill the President of the United States with a one shot small pistol

normally carried by a woman? Six shooter revolvers existed in the 1860s

and if one were to plot to kill a President, one would logically have

more than one bullet in the barrel.

http://web2.airmail.net/dsh440/roots.html

[mrcheerful]

13. Well Hinkley shot Reagan

with a .22. Now a serious gun nut knows that if your out to kill a .44 mag. or a .45 would have done the most damage and that fraction of an inch from the heart wouldn't have saved Reagan as either a .44 or .45 would have blown Reagans heart out his back and would have killed or injured anyone close to Reagans bullet path. A .22 didn't even kill Brady who had been shot in the head.

[overdub]

40. Re: Well Hinkley shot Reagan

Hi, MrCheerful,

Although the larger calibers of guns you mentioned will definitely do more damage than a .22, the weapon of choice for assassins is, in fact, the .22 caliber pistol. Noise is probably the main deciding factor since .22s are not nearly as loud as the bigger guns, however, when an assassin decides to go to work, s/he is going to get in a position to put the bullet(s) in the most effective location and at very close range.

A .44 cal GLOCK is what I carry (legally) and a high velocity hollow point round will, like you say, do enough damage to any assailant, presumably a Repug, to prevent any further threat from that individual. That is, unless the person is wearing protective clothing or is under the influence of a drug such as PCP, which may allow the targeted individual to continue aggressive behavior somewhat longer than if not having taken the drug.

Had Brady or Lincoln or Reagan been hit in just the right spot with a .22, none would have survived for an hour, even with our most advanced medical interventions.

"with a .22. Now a serious gun nut knows that if your out to kill a .44 mag. or a .45 would have done the most damage and that fraction of an inch from the heart wouldn't have saved Reagan as either a .44 or .45 would have blown Reagans heart out his back and would have killed or injured anyone close to Reagans bullet path. A .22 didn't even kill Brady who had been shot in the head."

[rsdsharp]

81. I don't mean to be an ass

but Glock doesn't make a .44 calibre weapon. .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .45 GAP, yes. But there are very few semi auto weapons that chamber a .44, and Glock ain't one of them.

Having said that, Booth's Deringer WAS a .44, firing a round lead ball of .41 calibre. It was a good choice for an assassination, even if it was single shot. It was powerful, and easily concealed. And unlike what someone else said in this thread, it was neither a lady's weapon (although a woman could certainly use it) nor pearl handled. Numerous pictures, and quite a bit of information appear here:

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/jan2001/schehl.htm

[NoPasaran]

24. Booth wasn't "in his right mind"

He was a fucking lunatic

[ISUGRADIA]

34. OK that article was crap, NO ONE seriously thinks Lincoln's wife

killed him.

[WildEyedLiberal]

14. You're being sarcastic about that book, right?

It's a right-wing slam on Lincoln that apparently, from the Amazon page, is a darling of the Republicans (I noticed other "similar" titles were pro-Confederate crap like "The South Was Right!" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History"). Apparently the cons hate that Lincoln wanted, you know, national unity and an end to slavery.

I assume you're being sarcastic about that book, and Lincoln, and I'm just being slow tonight. Lord knows it's a possibility. :P

[thereismore]

30. No, I mean it. Lincoln was a racist who did not free a single slave

by his executive order. All he wanted was to incite a slave rebellion in the South. He wanted all blacks to leave the US for Liberia or Haiti or Cuba. He did not care about the black people...wait a minute, where did I hear that? Read the book.

[ISUGRADIA]

35. The emancipation proclaimation free more than a single slave

neo-conferate books are not the best sources of knowledge. Lincoln had views that were somewhat more advance than his time but he was still a man of the 1800s. Read Frederck Douglass and other contemporary accounts of Lincoln and one gets a more realistic picture of the man.

[youngred]

45. He was a Segregationist you are correct

and believed that it would be better for freed slaves to go back to Africa. However, that doesn't make him a racist. He did want to incite a slave revolt in the South and not in the border stsates of course because it was necessary to win the war. The politics of the time were very different from now.

That book is a piece of horseshite btw, utterly unscholarly, and lame.

[Zynx]

63. Our own Democratic presidents didn't have enlightened policies towards

blacks either. I'm not just talking about the pre-Civil War ones either. Cleveland didn't particularly care. Wilson was a KKK suporter. Roosevelt didn't want to suffer politically from pushing an anti-lynching bil. Truman was personally racist, but supported civil rights politically. The same sorts of things can be said of any president from Washington on forward although some personally felt different.

[WildEyedLiberal]

66. Um, well, if you want to take seriously a book...

... that was promoted by Limbaugh, conservative neoconfederates, and historical revisionists, go right ahead. :shrug: Political statements that masquerade as "history", like that book, disgust me thoroughly. I just think you should know that you swallowed a huge load of pro-Confederate right-wing swill, before you start praising the book too much.

[cantstandbush]

16. I like Ike. Ford pardoned Nixon. bad n/t

[txaslftist]

19. If 'tolerable' is your criteria, Reagan was 'tolerable'.

I hated the moron by the end of his second term, but he was 'tolerable'.

[Zhade]

89. Yeah, unless you lived in South America. Or the Middle East.

Or, shit, AMERICA.

"Reagan was tolerable".

What website am I at, again? Amnesia Underground?

[cyn2]

20. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

Ford is a decent man, but not a great president.

[HootieMcBoob]

57. I agree

Eisenhower was the last tolerable Republican President. He warned us about the military industrial complex, too bad no one listened. Theodore Roosevelt was a very good President. If Roosevelt were alive today he'd be considered a radical liberal.

I don't know about Ford though - remember a lot of the same people in the Bush administration today also worked under Ford.

[zann725]

21. Sorry, can't think of a one. Notta.

Even the more moderates, lack "core values" for the "we the people."

[warrens]

22. Ike

[DaveinMD]

23. Eisenhower

was a very good President and often got along better with Democrats in Congress than Republicans. He warned us about the Military Industrial Complex and built the interstate highway system.

[Awsi Dooger]

71. I agree, based on history books I've read

Plus my dad, who despises Republicans, grudgingly gives Ike credit for a few things, notably the Eisenhower Interstate System.

I'm surprised at the positive reviews for Gerald Ford. I guess I was so enraged post-Watergate that I blamed every Republican. Ford spoke at USC when I was a student there in the '80s, and I was among many who booed him.

Also, I'll get flamed for this but I thought Bush 41 was a decent human being, at least compared to the GOP presidents who preceeded him and served at least one full term during my lifetime, Nixon and Reagan. At least I could listen to him speak and not be totally repulsed.

[NoPasaran]

25. I'll go with Ford

He was fairly benign. The dust was settling from Watergate and Vietnam. It was actually a good time to be alive, even though the fashions now look dreadful.

[Thirtieschild]

26. Eisenhower

I was 21 in 1956, a senior in college and cast my first vote for Ike. I don't regret it. He was an honorable man.

[WinkyDink]

31. ZEEE-RO.

Reagan? Iran-Contra? Ed "Let them eat cheese" Mease? James "Kill the Trees" Watt? The October Surprise of 1980? Bitburg? 160 Admin indictments? NANCY?

Ford? Pardon of Nixon? The Warren Report white-wash? "Whip Inflation Now"?

Ike? The Korean War? Gary "Who dat?" Powers? The initiation of the Bay of Pigs and VietNam disasters?

Nixon? OMG, there isn't enough space here. Enemies list? War-criminal Kissinger? Bebe Rebozo? ITT? VietNam escalation? Illegal Cambodia incursion? ETC.

Give me a break. Sure, there were some positives (Nixon's EPA, as someone noted; Ike's attempts at integration), but over-all, it's a da*n good thing the Congress wasn't also Republican-dominated.

[ieoeja]

54. How do you blame Ike for the Korean War?

The war was initiated under Truman. Ike ended it with most of the killing happening before he took office. And most of that wouldn't have taken place if Truman had followed Ike's recommendation the day North Korea invaded.

At Eisenhower's urging the Pentagon asked for permission to remove MacArthur on day one (they would repeat this request eleve more times before MacArthur imploded). Would any other general of the time have charged into North Korea without White House approval? If he'd have stopped at the border as ordered there would have been no war with China at that time.

[WinkyDink]

68. Ooops

I erred, about Ike and the Korean War. But I COULD still fault him for the permanent non-ending!
Anywho, he was famous for being a golfer on the job.

[bunny planet]

32. Honest Abe and more recently perhaps Eisenhower.

[Rambis]

36. Ford he had no power

basically a good guy but he was cut off at the knees after Nixon. No one wanted to give the president power after Nixon. Unfortunately * makes Nixon look like a candy striper. It is fucking scary if you long for the days of Nixon. Newt looks respectable compared to this clown god help us all!

[Robeson]

37. Actually.....none.

[gulfcoastliberal]

42. Uh.... Maybe - Garfield

But we know what happened to him, unfortunately.

[youngred]

43. Eisenhower

Though as my Mom says "I never imagined I'd be wanting someone like Nixon back in the WH but the current occupants make him look like a Socialist"

There have been many good Republican Presidents through history, and for a long time they were the liberal/populist party in America. The party switch of the 20s-60s changed all that though

[hippiegranny]

46. Ike

he warned about the military industrial complex - and he was right.

[MissMarple]

47. Ike, as well.

And John Eisenhower left the Republican Party and registered as an Independent after George was elected.

[Hawkowl]

48. Ford pardoned Nixon

That means he isn't tolerable. If Nixon ended up behind bars it would've served as a caution to Iran-Contra and the Bush crime family.
So Ike with his "beware the military-industrial complex" is the last tolerable Republican. Probably the last Republican period. The rest are just a bunch of neo-nazi's.

[Arkana]

49. Teddy Roosevelt.

Trust-busting man of the people, he was. Loved his kids, loved being President, and did a lot to shape America into what it is today.

[NoPasaran]

50. Also a bit of a war monger and he loved big game hunting

Not that we necessarily should hold that against him... I think it's unfair to historical figures to judge them by the social mores of the present day.

[Arkana]

52. A warmonger?

Possibly, but he actually served, unlike some warmongers I know. And so what if he loved big-game hunting? It's allowed. Roosevelt did more for the country than a lot of Democrats after him did.

[NoPasaran]

53. Granted, he raised and led the Rough Riders

Later was very critical of Wilson's reluctance to bring the US into World War One.

[Zynx]

60. He was actually less of a trust buster than Taft.

Roosevelt felt that Taft went too far with trust-busting. Teddy was a grandstaning fool and the most overrated president in American history except for Reagan.

[Arkana]

62. If TR was a grandstanding fool, then we need more grandstanding fools.

That man did more to revolutionize labor than any President before or after him did. He improved conditions in the packing plants and the industrial complexes. He created the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Roosevelt didn't trust big business. No more than Taft.

[ReadTomPaine]

51. Bill Clinton n/t

[meganmonkey]

55. ...

:rofl:

:popcorn:

[ArkDem]

77. Second...

[deutsey]

79. There was that "my fellow Republicans" remark he made...

:evilgrin:

[Alcibiades]

56. None

They were all bad. Those of you who think Ford was OK must be too young to remember him. He was very much like * in his incompetence. Teddy Roosevelt was good, but we must remember that, in the end, he split with the Republicans, so, despite the fact that he served as a Republican president, his republicaness should be held in doubt historically. Eisenhower? Great general, medicore president.

[Zynx]

61. Eisenhower was a pretty damn good president.

He kept the world at peace during his presidency, continued the successful policies of Truman in preventing the spread of authoritarian Communism into Western Europe, created the interstate highway system, passed the most significant civil rights bill up to that point since right after the Civil War, presided over economic stability, conducted himself honorably with the implementation of the Brown decision, and he also, while inadvertantly, put some good justices on the court. He was certainly a better president than Kennedy or Johnson on our side.

I maintain firmly that the best three presidents of the 20th came right in a row with Roosevelt, Turman, and Eisenhower. That is a powerful line up of superior presidents compared to what we have had in the past four presidents. When you look at it, it is amazing how far we have fallen.

[Alcibiades]

64. But

He also oversaw a large military buildup that has resulted in the situation we have today, wherein we have an army so expensive that it seems a waste not to use it. This peacetime buildup was unprecedented in the rest of American history, and has continued up until this day, so that we have this huge blunt instrument ready to be used by anyone who blunders into the Oval Office. The fact that Eisenhower then warned against the very military-industrial complex he helped to create does not do him credit. Also, though I suspect you'll disagree, the threat of authoritarian communism was always overblown. The economic stability (actually rapid growth isn't stability, but I get your meaning) was not a result of policy choices in the eisenhower White House, but more of a natural function of the US being the only intact industrialized nation, and the rest of the world needing the things we produced in order to repair the war damage. The 1957 Civil Rights Act was also the least substantive piece of major civil rights legislation, and only shows that Eisenhower didn't have the boldness to do what he (rather uniquely) could have done, which was to desegregate the US. You point out that two of his more lasting contributions were accidents, which doesn't really go to his credit.

[Zynx]

65. I could nit-pick the way you do to tear down any president's legacy.

[Alcibiades]

74. Not just any president

Only the Republicans. And it's OK, I don't think it's nit-picking. You had some good points about the Eisenhower administration, and I made what I thought were some valid counterarguments. You like Ike. No problem. It's a free country. I like Johnson for what he did for the disadvantaged in America. I even like Carter more than Eisenhower. We disagree on history.

[Zynx]

75. My point is that I could pick out certain things to even make FDR look bad

I look at a presidency as a whole and think to myself when I am criticizing it, "Does it matter what their party affiliation was? Were they actually beneficial to this country or not?".

[Alcibiades]

84. Yes but

You really, really like Eisenhower, and I suspect that this is based on more than a simple objective assessment of the praiseworthy and blameworthy things you credit his administration with. You probably admire him, which is fine. Of course I'm asking myself whether a given president was good for America or not. The problem is that what you and I hold to be good might be different things. It's all subjective, based on our own readings of history, interpretations of the facts and preexisting values. You give Ike credit for many of the good things that happened during the 1950's. I don't.

[Hippo_Tron]

72. Kennedy sent the army in to force school integration

Eisenhower refused to do just that in the Little Rock incident. I'm not saying that Kennedy was perfect on racial issues, he wasn't. But he and Johnson made far more advances in civil rights than Ike did. That being said, Kennedy and Johnson certainly didn't warn us about the Military Industrial Complex. They continued its buildup.

[Zynx]

76. Please do not re-write history.

http://www.centralhigh57.org/

We have enough bullshit being spewed from the right. Eisenhower used the 101st airborne and federalized the National Guard to make sure those students took their place in school.

I would like to be able to think that members of this board know their history better than that.

[Hippo_Tron]

85. I stand corrected

I'm not trying to re-write history I just mixed up that incident in my mind a tad bit. What I do remembe reading was that he did so with much reluctance. Again, though, I suppose that the same could be said for Kennedy.

[Ignacio Upton]

83. He also consecrated the New Deal and the safety net in political terms

By upholding the safety net and even promising that he would do a better job managing Social Security than the Democrats, he killed off any active Republican hopes to destroy the New Deal (Barry Goldwater later on was the last Presidential candidate to outright call for abolishing Social Security, I guess even through framing Bush could not be subtle.)

[Zynx]

90. You're right. I completely forgot that.

Robert Taft died a very unhappy man after he realized the first Republican president in 20 years was going to save the New Deal rather than dismantle it.

[Zynx]

59. Ford and Ike

[DuaneBidoux]

82. Nixon was actually quite liberal. He is responsible, among many

other programs for the Environmental Protection Agency and although many would argue that the economics was terrible he did put price controls in place to try and tame inflation. Other than being an absolute crook (and I question whether we've had a President this century who wasn't at least a tad corrupt)he was quite intelligent.

[BlueStater]

86. Gerald Ford

Basically a good guy. Just not very qualified to be president.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

91. Dwight D. Eisenhower

A great consensus President, a war hero, a decent guy overall who presided over prosperity yet strongly protested against the "military-industrial complex." Ike was famous for his old German thrift in offices small and large and he refused to pump up the military with hundreds of billions of dollars, yet he was also disciplined enough (especially considering the times) to both preserve FDR's New Deal and help to streamline its administration.