Hiya,
I was just wondering… Who would you say your greatest President of the last century has been and why? Let’s say from 1900 up until now.
I reckon (and this is purely anecdotal from asking people over here) that Brits and other Europeans would say either FDR, Clinton or JFK, although the whole Cuban Missile Crisis seemed to be a big prob for the older people I asked in relation to Kennedy - Although naturally their foreign policy would play a big part in those choices for us.
Any thoughts?
Its a toss up between LBJ, Nixon, and GWB.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Its a toss up between LBJ, Nixon, and GWB.[/quote]
lol…
[quote]1-packlondoner wrote:
Hiya,
I was just wondering… Who would you say your greatest President of the last century has been and why? Let’s say from 1900 up until now.
I reckon (and this is purely anecdotal from asking people over here) that Brits and other Europeans would say either FDR, Clinton or JFK, although the whole Cuban Missile Crisis seemed to be a big prob for the older people I asked in relation to Kennedy - Although naturally their foreign policy would play a big part in those choices for us.
Any thoughts?[/quote]
FDR was the worst president this country ever had. My bet for best president since 1900 would have to be TR.
mike
Wow, this is a tough question!!!
Imagine that you are extremely wealthy. Now, if you don’t run the show, someone else will who will be working for HIS interests and not yours. You therefore capture and monopolize both political parties and create training clubs, like the Rhodes Scholars or the CFR, from whom you choose your puppet-candidates. So, in essence, you’re asking who the best puppet was, when asking this question.
The best president must then be Eisenhower, since he admitted he was a puppet, assuming of course that integrity and honour are the standards of measure.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
My bet for best president since 1900 would have to be TR.
mike[/quote]
I would wholeheartedly agree. Followed directly Reagan
TR was great!
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
FDR was the worst president this country ever had. My bet for best president since 1900 would have to be TR.
mike[/quote]
I don’t know if he was the worst, but he sucked that’s for sure. I am thinking LBJ or Nixon as the worst. TR was fine, I like Reagan, but continue to dislike the cockamamie war on drugs his silly wife propagated. Of couse that bullshit was started by Nixon, but I digress.
Reagan. But i’m a fan of “Reaganomics” myself.
many others mentioned have just been too socialistic ideally to be great presidents by an american measure in my opinion.
[quote]1-packlondoner wrote:
Hiya,
I was just wondering… Who would you say your greatest President of the last century has been and why? Let’s say from 1900 up until now.
I reckon (and this is purely anecdotal from asking people over here) that Brits and other Europeans would say either FDR, Clinton or JFK, although the whole Cuban Missile Crisis seemed to be a big prob for the older people I asked in relation to Kennedy - Although naturally their foreign policy would play a big part in those choices for us.
Any thoughts?[/quote]
Clinton? You are joking, right? I mean, this is T-Nation, but I still don’t think serious people would consider scoring a blowjob in the oval office a major accomplishment.
I have to go with Regan.
FDR.
Hands fucking down.
Wow, that is a good question. To be honest, due to my perverse nature, I’ve never considered who was the best, but only who has f-ed up the worst.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
FDR.
Hands fucking down.
[/quote]
Hands down? For what? Creating a society that becomes more and more dependent on the government because of all the BS social programs he started. All hail FDR for social security and welfare! You must be joking…
As for my vote it’s Reagan. After Carter plummeted the country into high inflation and doom gloom such as the U.S. being past its greatness, RR brought us back to being a super power.
[quote]snipeout wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
FDR.
Hands fucking down.
Hands down? For what? Creating a society that becomes more and more dependent on the government because of all the BS social programs he started. All hail FDR for social security and welfare! You must be joking…
[/quote]
Well, laissez faire capitalism did a hell of a job on America, huh?
The New Deals were as good as anyone could have handled the Depression, and he handled World War II better than any wartime president this century.
Social security is a good thing- its mismanaged terribly, but the idea is good and it works.
Welfare I’m not a tremendous fan of, but at the time it was introduced it was a relief.
Hell, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enough in my book to have him be number one, all the other stuff aside.
There was no one in the twentieth century that did a better job in a time of greater tribulation.
[quote]
FightinIrish26 wrote:
FDR.
Hands fucking down.
snipeout wrote:
Hands down? For what? Creating a society that becomes more and more dependent on the government because of all the BS social programs he started. All hail FDR for social security and welfare! You must be joking…
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Well, laissez faire capitalism did a hell of a job on America, huh?
The New Deals were as good as anyone could have handled the Depression, and he handled World War II better than any wartime president this century.
Social security is a good thing- its mismanaged terribly, but the idea is good and it works.
Welfare I’m not a tremendous fan of, but at the time it was introduced it was a relief.
Hell, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enough in my book to have him be number one, all the other stuff aside.
There was no one in the twentieth century that did a better job in a time of greater tribulation.[/quote]
FDR was much better for foreign policy than for domestic achievement. The New Deal didn’t help the Depression, but it sounded good.
[i]Myth #4: Franklin D. Roosevelt�??s New Deal brought the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression.
Answer: Roosevelt�??s New Deal, which Rothbard says was basically a continuation of the Hoover programs, had the opposite results from what his adoring press claims. When Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the nation�??s rate of unemployment stood at 25 percent. After falling to about 15 percent by 1935, unemployment rose to nearly 20 percent in 1938–a depression within a depression–and stayed in double digits until near the end of 1941, when the United States entered World War II.
Actually, there were two New Deals, the first of which involved attempts to restrict production, force up prices and wages, and organize the entire U.S. economy into a series of agricultural, industrial, and retail cartels. The two mainstays of the first New Deal were the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, both of which were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1935.
Roosevelt’s second New Deal centered on aiding labor unions in organizing the workplace, aggressive antitrust policies, raising taxes on higher-income Americans in order to further transfer wealth. The centerpieces of the second New Deal were the creation of Social Security and passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The first has created literally trillions of dollars of unfunded liability, while the second has led to untold increases in business costs and lost productivity.
On top of raising costs on businesses, the Roosevelt administration also was the source of white-hot anti-enterprise rhetoric. It is no wonder that private investment–and especially long-term investment–fell to extremely low levels during the 1930s, as business owners found themselves facing uncertain fates from a hostile government that was blaming them for the unemployment and the economic crisis.[/i]
FDR could have done a whole lot better with the Depression, but he (or rather, his administration), did do a good thing by getting off the gold standard and helping to stabilize the banking system: FRB: Speech, Bernanke--Money, Gold, and the Great Depression --March 2, 2004
The finding that leaving the gold standard was the key to recovery from the Great Depression was certainly confirmed by the U.S. experience. One of the first actions of President Roosevelt was to eliminate the constraint on U.S. monetary policy created by the gold standard, first by allowing the dollar to float and then by resetting its value at a significantly lower level. The new President also addressed another major source of monetary contraction, the ongoing banking crisis. Within days of his inauguration, Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday,” shutting down all the banks in the country. Banks were allowed to reopen only when certified to be in sound financial condition. Roosevelt pursued other measures to stabilize the banking system as well, such as the creation of a deposit insurance program. With the gold standard constraint removed and the banking system stabilized, the money supply and the price level began to rise. Between Roosevelt’s coming to power in 1933 and the recession of 1937-38, the economy grew strongly.
Still, Roosevelt recognized the need to intervene in WWII and fight against the Nazis and the Japanese, so he gets large kudos on that front.
TR was probably a better man than a President - though there were much worse Presidents in the 20th century.
My personal vote goes to Ronald Reagan for winning the Cold War - not an outcome that could be taken for granted when he took over from Carter. Also note that he, in tandem with Paul Volcker at the Fed, took the U.S. economy out of the stagflation it had been mired in for the better part of 2 decades.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Clinton? You are joking, right? I mean, this is T-Nation, but I still don’t think serious people would consider scoring a blowjob in the oval office a major accomplishment.
I have to go with Regan.
[/quote]
To be fair, not a single person outside the US gives a shit whether Clinton got a blow job off a fat chick and its fairly sad that, whatever you think of him, THAT’s the first thing anyone remembers about him.
And on a personal level, I always score getting a blow job a major accomplishment! 
As I said, naturally people outside the US would gauge a US President almost exclusively on their foreign policy, which is why I was interested in you guys thoughts on their terms as a whole, the impact they made and the legacy they left.
Very interesting that nobody has plumped for JFK. Aside from some efforts on the civil rights front he has always seemed relatively lightweight guy to us outside the US.
But, being such a massive 20th Century icon (and having some great speech writers) I would have expected a few votes in his corner.
Fair play.
[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
Wow, that is a good question. To be honest, due to my perverse nature, I’ve never considered who was the best, but only who has f-ed up the worst.[/quote]
Haha… I stand corrected.
From now on this shall be known as ‘who was the least shit President of the last 107 years’
I don’t know who the best is, but Clinton and JFK most certainly are not anywhere close to the best Presidents in the 20th Century. That has to be a joke.
IMO, FDR gets major points for how he handled WWII, but then gets major strikes for his closet socialism.
I could see how FDR is in the debate (though he should not win, again IMO), but Clinton and JFK were jokes.
na-na na-na boo-boo Commies!