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how do you define the 'worst president'? In his ability to govern, pass laws, or push your own agenda.

For instance, many presidential historians put Nixon on the 'Very Good' list because of his ability to get things passed, but you won't see him on anyone's list here. His paranoia was his downfall.

I'm going to have to go with FDR for my choice because of the way he flaunted the law to acheive his own ends. You know exploiting the Court, ignoring the spirit of the Constitution so as to acheive immediate goals, etc.

1) We attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban regime was harboring thousands of al Qaeda terrorists, as well as Osama bin Laden and his top aides.

They offered to hand him over THREE times. Harbouring indeed. Although they did make the totally unreasonable stipulation that he must go to a neutral country!

If you don't like it, too bad. What the hell is the US supposed to do? Sit back and let the terrorists prepare another attack? Oh, I know! Let's handle it through "peaceful negotiations."

Or instead you could just randomly carpet bomb the entire country, because, hell, there could be terrorists! They didn't even prove that it was Osama, talk about justice!

Yes, let's negotiate with a government that is openly hostile towards the US! That's sure to work!

A government not even recognised by the US.

i would have to say Richard Nixon. He was so paranoid about everything. he planted tape recorders all over the white house. thats messed up.

I think there is a very fine line between good and bad presidents. It is the problems and situations they face that defines a president. Perhaps if Lincoln had been around for WWI instead of woodrow wilson, they might have lost. Or perhaps done a little bit more for the war effort.

Personally, Bush sucks. The current bush. not his father the smarter bush.

I think FDR handled the situation of pearl harbor quite well. However, he could have done more in the war. I mean he hardly did anything but protected America's interests in tht one. Except Iwo Gima. But even that was retaliation for Pearl Harbor.

Nobody has really mentioned LBJ. Why haven't anyone mentioned LBJ?

LBJ lied to the U.S., saying that North Vietnam attacked us first. Igniting the Vietnam War that killed tens of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese all because LBJ lied.

I don't think any other president except for probably George Bush's Donald Rumsfield has ever gotten this far into warmongering.

At 1/14/03 11:20 PM, TheShrike wrote:

besides NASA has given us cool things like Velcro, Tang, MICROCHIPS...

So Kennedy was a good President because NASA did work that he didn't, which includes Hi-C? As an argumentitative standpoint, that's pretty damn ludicrous.

It's impossible to find a single military man that I've heard of who is for this war. I haven't seen one quoted to that effect. It's all civilians. But the civilians include Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, all of whom were of age to be close to combat in Vietnam. To extend the range here a bit, I was 34 when I went over, and 36 when I came back. So if you really wanted to see war up close, rather than watch it from Washington, which is the way I did feel as a government official, you could do it. You didn't have to pull strings, and I did get to Vietnam. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Cheney and Bush did not manage to do that. That may be related, or not, to the fact that they are all enthusiastic about this video game that they feel is about to be played, on the model of the way they see the Gulf War, or Afghanistan, or Kosovo, where nearly all the people who die are adversaries, and not Americans.

I don't know how much of a difference it makes. But it is there. General Zinni, a Marine general, who was Bush's representative to the Middle East did point to the fact that all the people who were enthusiastic about going into this war, without exception, did not manage to get close to what combat really looks like.

I don't think, by the way, it's a matter of courage. I don't really doubt the physical courage of any of these people at all. I don't think that's the issue. So what is the difference? Well, seeing it up close, you see two things very strikingly. One, the extreme uncertainties—almost hard to imagine, if your only contact with war has been through press reports or simulations or games of some sort or other. You just can't imagine how wrong things can go and how regularly. And the other part is, you do see, if you're anywhere near populated areas in the war you're in, you see the effect on humans of that war. Not only on soldiers, but of course, the women and children, and the impact on that.

I do think the one difference it made to me to be in Vietnam was that the people of Vietnam became more real to me than could ever have happened otherwise. There are plenty of places in the world where I read about suffering, but it remains, as you say, abstract—at most, it's a matter of pictures, perhaps very moving pictures. But in the case of Vietnam, I knew people, I know there names, or if I didn't know there names, which was usually the case, I knew what they looked like, up close. I saw what the meaning of war actually is, and the main impact is on civilians.