My favorite of my lifetime? Easily Bill Clinton. Carter was - and is - as well meaning as a person can get, but micromanaged himself into incompetence. Reagan was great at making everything seem okay - a quality that can't be underestimated in a politician or leader - but underneath the smile and hair-oil he was essentially Thatcher without the accent. George H.W. Bush, I honestly admire to some degree. He's smart, generally honest even when it didn't help him out to be, willing to change his mind and unwilling to go into Baghdad. Still, he was often ineffective, and was unfortunate enough to be serving at a time when Reaganomics was really visibly falling to pieces. Also, I'm not a big fan of the breeding he's done, but that's another issue entirely.
I can't even begin on W's sins and crimes, but suffice it to say that it seems his number one priority, at all times, is getting more power for more power's sake, no matter the costs. He dodges accountability and press conferences for fear-mongering and self-congratulatory photo-ops. 1.20.09, guys - the day the world starts spinning again.
Looking back, the Clinton years felt like a dream - and this was during my adolescence, for God's sake. What I like about Clinton is not just that he was a policy-wonk-workaholic who led us through the greatest economic boom of our nation's history, or the way he just emanated hope-rays every time he opened his mouth, but the way in which he didn't take curtain calls. I can't say whether we should've been in Kosovo or not, but I can say that Clinton handled the job quickly, with zero American casualties, and then didn't even use it as a political issue. I get the feeling that it would have seemed untoward to him, that he saw military action as the worst aspect of his job, rather than the goal as in the present administration.
As for all time, it becomes hard to say. Like old movies and old music, dead statesmen age well, with people willing to look past their shortcomings because they've known the names before they ever got a chance to know who they were, and thus assume a degree of greatness.
Washington was certainly great. He took up the fragments of a war with the world's greatest military force of the time and chose to maintain a democracy instead of a monarchy. Even for all his enemies, he was unanimously elected at the Continental Congress, and then set about a number of experiments to, well... establish court etiquette in the executive branch and act as a King during his terms in office. For refernce, remember that Washington's Birthday was observed while he was still in office. That's kind of messed up.
Lincoln, another easy choice, and hard to argue with. Freed the slaves and held the country together despite being hated by the entirety of the South. I'm from Houston, and as such know how bronco-riders are scored. They get up to fifty points depending on how well they hang on, and up to fifty points depending on how much the bronco tries to buck them off. Lincoln definitely gets the full fifty points for how hard a time he had of it, and a bonus in the public memory because of the assassination. He did well, for sure, but one has to wonder if the circumstances alone are enough to make him "the greatest."
FDR was essentially a Monarch in his own time, though he gets the full fifty bottom points as well. Inheriting a depression, and the the most epic war in world history, and coming out of all of it with America suddenly the world's biggest power? Not bad. Plus, it took a lot of risks and gambles (like Keynesian economics) to make it work out as well as it did. Also, I'm a big fan of the New Deal. So he's gotta be on the list.
JFK, another martyr, with one real credit to his name - hope. When people called Clinton, and call Obama, Kennedyesque, this is what they're talking about. His handling of the Cuban missile crisis was masterful, but evens out with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Still, part of me wants to call him my favorite, if only because he was able to finally lay the framework for broad civil rights reform, almost a hundred years after the end of the civil war.
Still, I'll use this space to appreciate another Prez - not my favorite by a long shot, but still a lot better than we remember him. Richard Milhouse Nixon will always be remembered for Watergate, and how his addiction to power led to his seemingly inevitable downfall. But he also ended the Vietnam war, established the EPA, and built diplomatic bridges with China. I was always taught growing up that Kennedy had great domestic policy and piss-poor foreign policy, and that Nixon was the reverse. Now I know that there's a lot more to it than that, but I'd just like to give some thanks to Nixon for the things nobody else seems to remember.
Also, his SSN is 567-68-0515. Use that as you will.
1 Comments:
My favorite of my lifetime? Easily Bill Clinton. Carter was - and is - as well meaning as a person can get, but micromanaged himself into incompetence. Reagan was great at making everything seem okay - a quality that can't be underestimated in a politician or leader - but underneath the smile and hair-oil he was essentially Thatcher without the accent. George H.W. Bush, I honestly admire to some degree. He's smart, generally honest even when it didn't help him out to be, willing to change his mind and unwilling to go into Baghdad. Still, he was often ineffective, and was unfortunate enough to be serving at a time when Reaganomics was really visibly falling to pieces. Also, I'm not a big fan of the breeding he's done, but that's another issue entirely.
I can't even begin on W's sins and crimes, but suffice it to say that it seems his number one priority, at all times, is getting more power for more power's sake, no matter the costs. He dodges accountability and press conferences for fear-mongering and self-congratulatory photo-ops. 1.20.09, guys - the day the world starts spinning again.
Looking back, the Clinton years felt like a dream - and this was during my adolescence, for God's sake. What I like about Clinton is not just that he was a policy-wonk-workaholic who led us through the greatest economic boom of our nation's history, or the way he just emanated hope-rays every time he opened his mouth, but the way in which he didn't take curtain calls. I can't say whether we should've been in Kosovo or not, but I can say that Clinton handled the job quickly, with zero American casualties, and then didn't even use it as a political issue. I get the feeling that it would have seemed untoward to him, that he saw military action as the worst aspect of his job, rather than the goal as in the present administration.
As for all time, it becomes hard to say. Like old movies and old music, dead statesmen age well, with people willing to look past their shortcomings because they've known the names before they ever got a chance to know who they were, and thus assume a degree of greatness.
Washington was certainly great. He took up the fragments of a war with the world's greatest military force of the time and chose to maintain a democracy instead of a monarchy. Even for all his enemies, he was unanimously elected at the Continental Congress, and then set about a number of experiments to, well... establish court etiquette in the executive branch and act as a King during his terms in office. For refernce, remember that Washington's Birthday was observed while he was still in office. That's kind of messed up.
Lincoln, another easy choice, and hard to argue with. Freed the slaves and held the country together despite being hated by the entirety of the South. I'm from Houston, and as such know how bronco-riders are scored. They get up to fifty points depending on how well they hang on, and up to fifty points depending on how much the bronco tries to buck them off. Lincoln definitely gets the full fifty points for how hard a time he had of it, and a bonus in the public memory because of the assassination. He did well, for sure, but one has to wonder if the circumstances alone are enough to make him "the greatest."
FDR was essentially a Monarch in his own time, though he gets the full fifty bottom points as well. Inheriting a depression, and the the most epic war in world history, and coming out of all of it with America suddenly the world's biggest power? Not bad. Plus, it took a lot of risks and gambles (like Keynesian economics) to make it work out as well as it did. Also, I'm a big fan of the New Deal. So he's gotta be on the list.
JFK, another martyr, with one real credit to his name - hope. When people called Clinton, and call Obama, Kennedyesque, this is what they're talking about. His handling of the Cuban missile crisis was masterful, but evens out with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Still, part of me wants to call him my favorite, if only because he was able to finally lay the framework for broad civil rights reform, almost a hundred years after the end of the civil war.
Still, I'll use this space to appreciate another Prez - not my favorite by a long shot, but still a lot better than we remember him. Richard Milhouse Nixon will always be remembered for Watergate, and how his addiction to power led to his seemingly inevitable downfall. But he also ended the Vietnam war, established the EPA, and built diplomatic bridges with China. I was always taught growing up that Kennedy had great domestic policy and piss-poor foreign policy, and that Nixon was the reverse. Now I know that there's a lot more to it than that, but I'd just like to give some thanks to Nixon for the things nobody else seems to remember.
Also, his SSN is 567-68-0515. Use that as you will.
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