who is your favorite president/leader and why

[JoB]

Jimmy Carter was a good president for the most part. you might look up what he accomplished.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/car0bio-1

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/jimmycarter

However…

He was not able to work miracles in the distressed economy..

He told us what we didn’t want to hear… that we needed to tighten our belts and invest in our country…

and… He was also unable to negotiate the release of the hostages in Iran before the election.

Ronald Reagan on the other hand told us what we wanted to hear and beat the drums loudly for American “honor”… and he got elected.

since Jimmy Carter didn’t serve a second term solidifying his accomplishments in the public eye..

Ronald Reagan is erroneously remembered as the president who normalized relations with China and who brought the hostages home…

Jimmy Carter got a bad rap.

I see his post presidency record as nothing more than a continuation of what he tried to accomplish as our president.

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[dawsonct]

Hoop, that is by FAR the most intelligent thing I have ever seen you write. Good question, and I think the answer is ‘no’.

Carter’s presidency would have been quite a bit more successful if we hadn’t been dealing with a recession (which he inherited. Remember Fords WIN initiative?) brought on by the bills coming due for the Vietnam “police action.” And his micro-managing style. And Bill Casey negotiating an arms sale with Iranian militants if they would promise to hold the hostages through the election.

Facts are, the recession he inherited was over by the time of the 1980 election.

I don’t like the fact that he deregulated the airlines and essentially got the whole mergers-and-acquisitions ball rolling.

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[hooper1961]

i do not remember much about the Ford presidency, i was a teenager at the time.

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[JoB]

hooper 1961..

your age does put things into perspective a bit… and I don’t mean that as a criticism at all…

all of your political experience is post Nixon…

the presidency where the far right learned the value of advertising:(

I often wonder what the political landscape looks like to people who grew up after the wave of patriotism fueled optimism that created the boomers.

Our parents and grandparents had a clear idea of what they thought they were fighting for and wanted to pass along everything that America meant to them.. to us.

Unfortunately.. idealism doesn’t last long in politics and cynicism set in long before you started growing your political chops.

Read some Will Rogers. I think his voice is as fresh today as when he entertained the kids who created the cartoons that the generation who created star wars watched :)

He was a very funny man.. and very political.

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[redblack]

carter also gets blamed for his fed chairman, paul volcker, raising interest rates to 15% in order to stave off inflation. (which righties regularly and breathlessly inflate to 20% or 25% – as if we don’t have google.)

which was the right thing to do…

until greenspan and graham and baker III and the like crafted voodoo economics.

and, yes, he was damned right about u.s. energy policy. i cringe when i remember him saying angrily, “the united states will never – ever – again import 5 million barrels of oil per day” to OPEC. and then i remember what reagan did afterwards.

now we import 12 million barrels per day and consume 20+ million.

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[GaryGnu42]

Golly. I didn’t see the OP asking people to jump in and harsh on people’s choices. JoB might want to go back and read some history books herself — principally the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq which began in 1990 after Saddam Hussein invaded another country and compounded for 13 years as he endlessly played cat and mouse with the UN weapons inspectors — before she repeats the tired liberal pablum that “Bush Jr.” invented the Iraq War from whole cloth.

I like Jefferson because he was a revolutionary, an architect, an avid gardener and he also liked a little chocolate in his milk from time to time :-)

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[charlabob]

No rules say we have to follow the original poster’s alleged intentions OR color between the lines. I still find the provincialness of our choices depressing.

Leaders have to have followers — my favorite “thought leader” is Mark Twain followed closely by James Thurber. /s/ irony groupie

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[JoB]

GaryGnu42..

I have read the UN Security Council Resolutions on Iraq.

I read all of the trumped up evidence for WMD too.

Then i read the debunking of all of that evidence.

There was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction either before or after the Iraq war.

There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was fostering Al Queda in any way.

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attack either before or after the invasion.

Al Queda didn’t operate in Iraq until after we toppled Saddam Hussein’s reign.

But there is evidence of a discussion about how to sell a war with Iraq to the American Public in the oval office of Bush’s White House prior to 9/11.

Now.. i am not sure what part of that you think is liberal pablum…

unless you think plain unvarnished truth has a liberal bias…

if so …

there is at least one thing we agree on ;-)

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[tom kelley]

Ronald Reagan.

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[redblack]

to be clear, tom, do you mean reagan the democrat, who, in the 1950’s bragged about how many good-paying union jobs were created? and who openly scorned big oil for their staggering profits and consumer-gouging?

or do you mean reagan the republican, who ran up $4 trillion dollars in debt – redefining the term “deficit spending” – and put the foxes in charge of the hen house?

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[JoB]

redblack..

i think he means Reagan the actor who successfully delivered his lines in the oval office even after being afflicted with altzheimers.

you have to admire that.

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[GaryGnu42]

That’d be the Reagan whose economic policies generated the economic prosperity that Bill Clinton was happy to take credit for.

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[DP]

tom kelley: If you’re still out there, I’d be interested to hear more about why you, personally, admire President Reagan.

I can’t speak for others, but I promise I will not criticize you or President Reagan on this thread. It’s not that I’m a fan of Reagan; it’s just that I want to hear more from you (and people like you) on this Forum.

Thank you.

–David Preston

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[dawsonct]

Thanks for the huge belly laugh Gary! I’m still wiping tears from my eyes. What a hoot!

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[maplesyrup]

I’m an Eisenhower fan mostly because of the Federal highway system. He had to fight congress to get it done but in the end it was a big accomplishment that had a major impact on the country’s economic development.

Jefferson is also a favorite. The Louisiana Purchase was a steal and I also tend to side with him on state vs. federal power.

And of course, Clinton.

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[maplesyrup]

Lol.

Chavez did not pull Venezuela back from the brink of poverty. He sold its oil reserves and spread the revenue among the poor to basically buy votes. That gravy train is over now.

He also started several big public works projects that remain in a partially complete hiatus and it’s unlikely they will ever be finished.

Further, Chavez has been nationalizing many prominent industries, only to see the government control of these industries result in dramatic output decreases. The national cement company, for example, produces about half of what it did when privately owned. That means fewer jobs in the long run not only for the cement company workers but also for the companies that need cement to work.

The national electric company now has rations and scheduled blackout periods on evenings and Sundays. This means stores and malls have to close. Again, less employment.

Entrepreneurs cannot buy imported merchandise because there’s a limit on credit card purchases made out of the country. It’s $300 per year!

By the way, all of this means foreign companies (as well as locals) are not going to invest in Venezuela. You need investment to create jobs.

My friend in Venezuela told me that soldiers recently started entering certain kinds of shops, seizing merchandise without compensating the shopkeepers. The rationale was that the merchandise they were selling contributed to crime. What was the merchandise in question? Toys and video games.

Chavez has been a train wreck and I can’t wait for the day he gets voted out. At this point I’d even cheer if he were overthrown. That’s how bad the situation is there.

It’s really a shame because Venezuela is a big country with a lot of resources. It could be experiencing the same rates of economic success as Brazil and Chile but Chavez is instead driving it into the ground.

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[JoB]

GaryGnu42…

do you meant the Reagan whose economic policies nearly bankrupted small business?

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[JoB]

maplesyrup…

since the info you just provided on Chavez and Venezuela is far different than what i have read recently..

i guess i am going to have to do some more reading.

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[dawsonct]

Maybe MS would be kind enough to provide links.

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[maplesyrup]

There’s a plenty out there, so I’d suggest using Google to see for yourselves.

But here’s a start: http://www.economist.com/node/17527250?story_id=17527250&CFID=150173333&CFTOKEN=34725558 (I was wrong about cement production. Cement was nationalized in 2008 but the production issues refer to steel.)

The stuff about the merchandise seizures was told to me by a Venezuelan, so sorry no links.

The stuff about electricity was relayed to me by several Venezuelans but here’s a good article on it: http://www.cnnexpansion.com/economia/2010/03/12/crisis-electrica-venezuela-hugo-chavez (sorry it’s in Spanish)

Also when you’re researching, keep in mind that Chavez’ government limits what the media reports (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124717745352519889.html) so half of the stuff that really goes on probably goes unreported.

Anyway, you can believe me or not but the Venezuelans I know- small businesspeople and not the rich elite- are quite frustrated with the Chavez regime.

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[christopherboffoli]

FWIW, I had dinner with a Venezuelan consultant a few weeks ago (in Vietnam of all places) and she was extremely critical of the current state of her government and of Chavez in particular. She suggested that she was not in the minority either.

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[maplesyrup]

BTW JoB that wasn’t meant to be an attack on you personally. Chavez evokes a visceral reaction from me.

And sorry to derail the thread hooper.

Getting back to good presidents…another one I appreciate is Teddy Roosevelt. Trust-buster, conservationist, and built the Panama Canal.

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[JoB]

maplesyrup..

it’s ok..

the US media interpretation of Chavez evokes a visceral reaction from me.

i suspect the truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

thanks to your comments, i really will read more.

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[Smitty]

Ronaldus Maximus

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[redblack]

gary: ahh! then that would be the ronald reagan who ran up $4 trillion in debt – more debt than the u.s. had garnered in 200 years.

thanks for clarifying the definition of “fiscal conservatism.”

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