Quote:
Originally Posted by SmootSmack
Look, I don't doubt that W will be judged as one of the worst presidents ever. He's a modern day James Buchanan. Difference of course is that Buchanan did nothing to stop the impending Civil War because he said (rightfully) that the Constituation didn't allow him to really step in. Whereas Bush has essentially said "Damn the Constitution, I have to get shit done"
I'm just saying in overall terms when talking about Presidents in terms of where they rank all-time, it's often difficult to measure their accomplishments until long after. This is mainly because most Presidents aren't in office long enough to see their policies go through. Take Harry Truman, for example. He set the ball rolling on civil rights legislation but nothing truly happened until LBJ. So that's a notch on LBJ's belt, not Truman's. Only now are we starting to see Truman's impact on that issue, and his historical value has gone up.
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Not entirely true. Kennedy had a hand in pushing for social and civil rights. LBJ was his VP and picked up where Kennedy left off after his assasination. In all fairness, Truman never got the chance to finish what he started. Eisenhower pretty much dropped the ball on it and then Kennedy picked it up. This is a very rudimentary explanation, I know. LBJ would have probably been an excellent president had it not been for the whole Vietnam thing. A little wrinkle. He was an expert on domestic issues and got bogged down with foreign affairs, of which he had absolutely no experience hence leading to the ouster of the one man in his cabinet that did: McNamara.
Nixon was very flawed but even DURING his tenure, there were positives that could be isolated. Where are they with GW?