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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 10:17 PM, EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net> wrote:
> OK, so who, if not Reagan?
>
I think Reagan will lose lustre as the years pass. Eisenhower has not
yet been closely examined by historians, but he wasn't bad. Kennedy
had lots of good vibes going for him (as Obama does), but I thought
then, and I still believe, that he didn't have what it takes to shove
a program through Congress or be really effective. Johnson did that.
Had JFK lived on, he might well have been whittled down to the size of
say, a Bush 41. Not that 41 wasn't an honorable and decent president,
but he wasn't the ruler of Camelot, either.

Carter was, well, Carter; a man with forward looking ideas who was
hamstrung by circumstances (if we'd adopted his energy policies, we'd
not be where we are with regard to energy). Reagan was another Kennedy
but with less substance (sorry, St. Ronnie fans). Bush 41 was a place
holder, Clinton was a slick technocrat, Bush 43 is worse than a bad
joke.

Of this sorry lot, I'd say that Nixon had the most potential. Had he
not been completely paranoid and a drunk, he would have been right up
there with Washington, Lincoln, et al. As it was, he did some really
great things in the early days of his presidency and before he had had
to leave town right before the tar and feathers were ready.

Johnson, overall, was the most effective and led profound changes, but
his plan of going full tilt with guns and butter gave us insane
inflation and lots of dead troops. He at least had the decency to be
ashamed and go away quietly.

McCain's place in this pantheon would be somewhere behind Gerald Ford
except that he'd have made a name for himself by going to war against
Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan -- something that is so far
outside acceptable that it's almost worth electing him to see just how
Congress might try to rein him in.

Bev, where were you going with the line of inquiry?

Marie