Topic: The President's: Mostly Mediocre, Few Great!

[richb]

This thread will be for discussing the Presidents of the US.    Their qualities or the lack of them.   Probably mostly the lack of them.    Not just modern or recent ones,  I want to talk about all of them,  even the ones we don't hear much about.

Today its crystal clear we have a mediocre (OK, terrible) president.    There is no question of that.   But I think we often forget that most presidents aren't that great.   Most seem barely competent.   But through the fog of history, we forget the really dumb things many presidents did.

We also forget some of the better things presidents did too.   Sometimes we don't hear about them because many historians don't often see things that are positive (at least to regular people like us) as positives.   Silent Cal Coolidge is one of those presidents.   He did what many people think is now impossible (including many folks here),  downsize the federal government.   Not one or two percent.  But a good twenty percent.   Imagine getting rid of twenty percent of today's federal government?    Even then,  many people thought it was an impossible job.  Plus,  don't forget,  he did it in one term,  and refused to even run for a second term.

Does that make Coolidge a great president?   Not necessarily so,  but he is great for something that all presidents should be,  and maybe that something should be a requirement for the job.

He is one of the very few that really understood what the founders wanted in a president.

He understood that many of the things he DIDN'T do were more important then the things he DID do.  He was one of the few that truly believed in a small federal government.    And more importantly,  don't allow himself to be distracted by politicians that didn't believe it.   Unfortunately,  FDR undid everything Coolidge did,  after Hoover continued for a while following what Coolidge had set.

Frankly,  being a small government proponent should be a requirement of the job.   Calvin Coolidge should be the norm for president. 

So,  lets hear your stories of mediocre or great presidents.   Why they are bad or good,  or somewhere in between.   Maybe if this goes good we can do a vice presidents thread too.

[Dan]

Being cynical as of late, I can only ,come up with some examples of the bad ones (though I wholeheartedly agree with your asses,net of Coolidge).

FDR might be the worst, IMO, not just for the (disastrous) policies he enacted, but for the sheer arrogance displayed in breaking with tradition and holding the office for four terms. So blinded by the "love" of the people he bought with social programs and economic manipulation, he never saw or cared that he was the worst thing for them.

Wilson, for his complete lack of real-world experience, having been in nothing but academia Iirc. He was susceptible to lofty sounding ideas such as international collectivism and using the power of the gov to quash political dissent....sounds familiar to me!

JFK, for signing an EO allowing federal employees to unionize. We see where that's taken us.
Not sure of the sequence of events off the top of my head, but that may have been why he was labelled as soft on communism, and his last minute withdrawal of support during the bay of pigs invasion certainly gives credence to that claim.

LBJ, from his gawdawful mis-micromanagement (did I just coin a new term?) of the Vietnam war to the rise of the welfare state and destruction of the black family unit. What, something like $37,000,000,000,000 of other people's money and all they got was a solid voting bloc...and generations of pent up racial animosity.

Lincoln, for invading and subjugating a foreign, sovereign nation under false pretenses on behalf of mercantilist s and bankers.

The current asshole is too easy to include. Hell, look at the majority of threads from the last 5 years.

[Weisshaupt]

Coolidge was able to reduce the size of the Govt due to conditions that do not exist today

1) Roaring 20s and the massive stock bubble.  Even Bill Clinton was able to run a small , couple of month surplus during the Tech Stock Bubble, and for the same reasons
2) Govt made up 5% of GDP, not 25%  and there were minimal entitlements, and therefore few entitlement monkeys to complain



You cannot cut like Coolidge did because Coolidge did not have  the New Deal/ and Great Society Govt Trough programs  in his mix.

In general "good" presidents don't make history.  They maintain the status quo.  Its the asshats who want "fundamental transformation" because "I believe and dream of a country that provides <fill in the blank entitlement funded through unconstitutional programs that exceed the powers granted to the federal govt and are funded by the indentured servitude to the collective of those with abilities here>" that are the problem. And there hasn't been a single President who has rolled those back.  Not one.  Not even Reagan.  No "progress" only happens when the govt threatens its citizens with fines, imprisonment or death for not embracing the changes proposed by their betters at the cost of their individual liberties and rights.

[Libertas]

Ugh!  I'll have to get back to y'all on this one...I could go all Bluebook on this subject...

[rustybayonet]

From other postings I have done on this forum, obviously presidential history has been one of my forms of study.  All of us here easily can state verbaitum the losers; so I will start with the first winner in my opinion - simply by his own words ---

"   I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of it's Chief Magistrate.  When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distringuished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.
    Previous to the execution of any official act to the President, the Constitution requires on oath of office.  This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may [besides incurring contitutional punishment], be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony."

The oath referred to - "I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that  I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of mu ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

  That is the entire 'Second' inaugural address of our first President, George Washington.
His entire 133 words never referred to any specific 'problems or diasasters', but to only his promise to execute his job and performance to anything that was to happen, keeping the Constitution as the guide and law of the land.  In my opionion he set the bar for future leaders and unfortunately all have been more interested in their own self adulation, than their oath of office - some much more than others.  As a bit of side information - he didn't want a second term, but excepted it only when almost forced into it by the country, knowing more was needed to be done toward setting guidelines for the countries future.  Again IMO we have slowly declined little by little, because of poor self centered leadership, but that is 'preaching to the choir here'.
  For some more insight into his life, I would recommend reading "Being George Washington", by Glenn Beck.