Rank the Presidents Since Kennedy From Best to Worst

[MediumTex]

In retrospect, I'm going to reverse Obama and Nixon's positions on the list. MT is absolutely right that he's basically transformed the war in Afghanistan from a minor if ill-thought out deployment into a full-blown pointless war along with hundreds of billions of wasted dollars and thousands of wasted lives. What an enormous blunder.

I'm not really sure why the press hasn't covered Obama's failure in Afghanistan more closely.  I know the press is friendly toward Obama, but a good story is a good story.

What's really bizarre about Afghanistan is that I think many (and perhaps most) of the people who live outside the cities in Afghanistan have no idea why the Americans are there.  No idea whatsoever.  As far as they can tell, it's just another group of foreigners to shoot at and facilitate traditional Afghan male rites of passage.

As pointless wars go, Afghanistan seems far more pointless than Iraq.  There are several good reasons to try to impose U.S. will in Iraq and in that region (it may not be worth the price, but at least the rationale is coherent), but in Afghanistan I don't even know what imposing U.S. will would look like.  The best explanation I have heard for Afghanistan is that it provides the U.S. with a way of keeping an eye on Iran and Pakistan, but that rationale would suggest a more low profile deployment along the lines of what we saw during the Bush administration.  When Obama came into office, he seemed to just go with the flow of what the military said it needed to "win" without understanding that asking a general if he needs more guns, ships, planes and troops in a combat zone is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

[Kshartle]

There are several good reasons to try to impose U.S. will in Iraq and in that region (it may not be worth the price, but at least the rationale is coherent),

What might those be MT? What's a good reason to try to "impose" U.S. will?

[MediumTex]

There are several good reasons to try to impose U.S. will in Iraq and in that region (it may not be worth the price, but at least the rationale is coherent),

What might those be MT? What's a good reason to try to "impose" U.S. will?

I'm not saying I agree with it, but the U.S. has spent decades trying to impose its will in the middle east to make sure that the feedstock of industrial society continues to flow smoothly.

There is a difference between an argument that is coherent, but that you simply don't find persuasive, and an argument that doesn't make any sense at all.

It would be like saying that Britney Spears is a musician, but I don't like her music.  That's Iraq.  With Afghanistan, however, it would be like saying that a sack of carrots is a musician and asking me if I like its music.

[clacy]

In retrospect, I'm going to reverse Obama and Nixon's positions on the list. MT is absolutely right that he's basically transformed the war in Afghanistan from a minor if ill-thought out deployment into a full-blown pointless war along with hundreds of billions of wasted dollars and thousands of wasted lives. What an enormous blunder.

I'm not really sure why the press hasn't covered Obama's failure in Afghanistan more closely.  I know the press is friendly toward Obama, but a good story is a good story.

What's really bizarre about Afghanistan is that I think many (and perhaps most) of the people who live outside the cities in Afghanistan have no idea why the Americans are there.  No idea whatsoever.  As far as they can tell, it's just another group of foreigners to shoot at and facilitate traditional Afghan male rites of passage.

As pointless wars go, Afghanistan seems far more pointless than Iraq.  There are several good reasons to try to impose U.S. will in Iraq and in that region (it may not be worth the price, but at least the rationale is coherent), but in Afghanistan I don't even know what imposing U.S. will would look like.  The best explanation I have heard for Afghanistan is that it provides the U.S. with a way of keeping an eye on Iran and Pakistan, but that rationale would suggest a more low profile deployment along the lines of what we saw during the Bush administration.  When Obama came into office, he seemed to just go with the flow of what the military said it needed to "win" without understanding that asking a general if he needs more guns, ships, planes and troops in a combat zone is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

We have no press.  Just extensions of the two parties.  The mainstream media largely supports Obama's agenda and I would bet they voted overwhelmingly for him in both elections.  They simply won't cover or will briefly cover it and move on quickly on any story that is unfavorable to him.

It's sad really because I want a press that is aggressive towards any President/party/government.  I don't even trust "the guy I voted for" enough to have a weak press that won't ask tough questions.

Were it not for the internet, talk radio, cable news, etc, this would be a really alarming problem.

[Mountaineer]

Outstanding!

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/p ... 08797.html

... Mountaineer

[MediumTex]

In retrospect, I'm going to reverse Obama and Nixon's positions on the list. MT is absolutely right that he's basically transformed the war in Afghanistan from a minor if ill-thought out deployment into a full-blown pointless war along with hundreds of billions of wasted dollars and thousands of wasted lives. What an enormous blunder.

I'm not really sure why the press hasn't covered Obama's failure in Afghanistan more closely.  I know the press is friendly toward Obama, but a good story is a good story.

What's really bizarre about Afghanistan is that I think many (and perhaps most) of the people who live outside the cities in Afghanistan have no idea why the Americans are there.  No idea whatsoever.  As far as they can tell, it's just another group of foreigners to shoot at and facilitate traditional Afghan male rites of passage.

As pointless wars go, Afghanistan seems far more pointless than Iraq.  There are several good reasons to try to impose U.S. will in Iraq and in that region (it may not be worth the price, but at least the rationale is coherent), but in Afghanistan I don't even know what imposing U.S. will would look like.  The best explanation I have heard for Afghanistan is that it provides the U.S. with a way of keeping an eye on Iran and Pakistan, but that rationale would suggest a more low profile deployment along the lines of what we saw during the Bush administration.  When Obama came into office, he seemed to just go with the flow of what the military said it needed to "win" without understanding that asking a general if he needs more guns, ships, planes and troops in a combat zone is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

We have no press.  Just extensions of the two parties.  The mainstream media largely supports Obama's agenda and I would bet they voted overwhelmingly for him in both elections.  They simply won't cover or will briefly cover it and move on quickly on any story that is unfavorable to him.

It's sad really because I want a press that is aggressive towards any President/party/government.  I don't even trust "the guy I voted for" enough to have a weak press that won't ask tough questions.

Were it not for the internet, talk radio, cable news, etc, this would be a really alarming problem.

I think that LBJ would probably say "Where the f*** was that liberal press when I was in office?"

[Benko]

I think that LBJ would probably say "Where the f*** was that liberal press when I was in office?"

I wonder what Obama has that LBJ didn't...

[MediumTex]

I think that LBJ would probably say "Where the f*** was that liberal press when I was in office?"

I wonder what Obama has that LBJ didn't...

Obama is the first black (or half-black) President, while LBJ easily did more for black folks than any other President in history,* so maybe being black is more important than helping black people when it comes to soft media coverage.

*IMHO, Lincoln didn't ultimately do much for black people in this country because he set in motion a chain of events that basically just provided for a transition from an explicit form of slavery to an implicit form of slavery that didn't start to be seriously dismantled until 100 years later under LBJ's administration.

Lincoln should have understood that as long as the Senate was structured the way it was, the southern states would always be able to make sure that no serious civil rights legislation would be enacted or enforced.  If you read the history of the minor civil rights legislation of the late 1950s and the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s, it was LBJ pushing it all, and if he hadn't been from Texas he would never have achieved what he did.  I think that a lot of southern Senators always believed that LBJ was just appeasing the liberal element of the Democratic party and that he didn't seriously believe in civil rights reform.  If it hadn't been for LBJ accidentally becoming President at the exact moment the civil rights movement was peaking in influence, I can easily see it taking another 20-30 years for civil rights legislation to make it into law.  Think South Africa of the 1970s and 1980s, and I can easily see the United States having taken that course, but for LBJ and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Part of the reason that I think so little of Lincoln as a President is that he basically failed at everything he tried as President, including biggies like keeping the country out of a pointless war and actually succeeding at what became the centerpiece of his Presidency--i.e., making the words of the Constitution actually have meaning in the lives of black people in the United States.  (I do, however, think that Lincoln was a remarkable individual, and if I could have dinner with only one U.S. President it might be him).

On a related note, I always get a kick when I think about Thomas Jefferson writing that all men are created equal when he had a couple of cabins full of slaves on his property, and actually had a male son with one of his slaves who people say looked like him with an afro and a deep tan (Jefferson's slave concubine Sally Hemings was actually half-white, which would make the son they had 75% white if my math is right, but to Jefferson he was still just a slave).