Which former president do you admire?

[quinnox]

We have had some great presidents in our history, and some who are considered icons for liberals/progressives such as FDR, or JFK. These men were the kind of leaders with great qualities, that are sadly lacking today in our modern age. I put Kennedy in this august league, because I think he had amazing potential to accomplish great things, but was sadly cut short due to his assassination. And everyone knows what FDR did, in terms of progressive achievements, not to mention defeating Hitler and fascism, of course. These bold leaders seem to be rare, as seen in our recent presidents which have ranged from, let's be honest, just OK to mediocre, to an abomination (Bush Jr.).

Which president's of the past do you admire?

[cali]

1. Definitely not FDR. I learned yesterday on DU that he's nothing but a bigot

and that President Obama is a far greater President. In fact, President Obama is the greatest president in history.

that's what learned on DU.

[quinnox]

3. heh

Well, who can possibly argue with that?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

4. they did bring up some good points that "in the moment"...future great presidents aren't seen as

such by many contemporaries and they all have their flaws and mistaken policies that are a part of their legacy.

[cali]

9. uh, calling him a bigot and the rest of what that post said

is hardly what your reasonable post here is saying.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

10. if you don't understand that was sarcasm....then I can't help you

[cali]

13. bwahahahahahahahahahaha.

sure.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

14. you truly believe Cali_Democrat thinks FDR was a bigot? it was in response to the thread(s)

saying we need an FDR in the Oval Office--not Obama. Whereas you are beside yourself defending a great Democratic president who had many flaws, to be sure...you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time casting aspersions on our current Democratic president, and you are not alone in that. But when it is done ignorant of circumstances such as the makeup of congress for FDR vs. Obama...well, it needs to be responded to.

[cali]

21. it was crystal fucking clear that that *person* meant every word

of that vile post.

duh. duh. duh.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

25. ok

[DrDan]

7. we had some here declare PBO the "greatest President ever" 2 weeks after his first inauguration

(no exaggeration)

I guess "achievements" are not a measure of greatness to those DUers

[11 Bravo]

41. Thank God! If someone else had gotten in first with a gratuitous back-handed slap at the President -

I would have worried that you were unconscious and in the ICU somewhere! Glad you're OK.

[cali]

50. It was a backhanded slap- just not at the President, dear.

[truebluegreen]

55. Heh. +1

[11 Bravo]

63. WHEW, I'm back to "dear". I was terrified that I might be relegated to one of your lesser ...

passive-aggressive horseshit terms of endearment, such as "sweetie" or "honey"!
And FYI, I already have a "dear". You ain't her.

[joshcryer]

76. Um, he despised Native Americans.

He was objectively a bigot.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

2. Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Clinton

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. Respect more than admire, I guess.

I can only judge presidents from my lifetime because history books are often shaded. So, I respect Jimmy Carter for taking the office and the responsibility seriously.

[Rambis]

6. "Jimeh" Carter (nm)

[broiles]

17. I love, admire and respect Jimmy Carter.

[etherealtruth]

67. I LOVE Jimmy Carter

[jwirr]

8. FDR

[Raine]

11. Franklin Roosevelt. nt

[ruffburr]

12. Jimmy Carter-

Why, Cause Carter was/is A truly good man Even though he wasn't prepared to be dropped into the shark tank that is presidential politics the last 50 yrs., I still think carter was just not mean enough to kick some republican ass when it was needed

[davidpdx]

84. I like Carter as well

I was much too young to remember when he was in office (I do remember watching the election returns in 80' when he lost). It will be interesting to see if in the future people say the same thing about Obama in terms of him being drop kicked into the shark tank. There are some interesting parallels there.

[1-Old-Man]

15. FDR, Carter, Johnson.

[Tikki]

16. Jmmy Carter for all the correct reasons...LBJ for some of what he accomplished...

Bill Clinton because he kept nearly everyone afloat and we can see NOW how important that is for our Nation.



Tikki
reagan was a horrid little corporate whore...

[rurallib]

71. I have been a strong supporter of LBJ as one of the greatest

had it not been for Viet Nam, I think he would be in that rare air.
And this from a guy who used to chant "hey, hey , LBJ - how many kids did you kill today"

[get the red out]

78. Same here

[Katashi_itto]

18. Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln and Carter

[BluegrassStateBlues]

20. FDR. nt

[JaneyVee]

22. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the Roosevelt's.

[leeroysphitz]

23. Well I would take FDR but I just read somewhere that he LITERALLY had blood dripping from his hands.

So I'll go with WJC.

[quinnox]

27. heh heh

that thread was quite a doozy, wasn't it, the OP didn't even know what "literally" actually means!

[Cali_Democrat]

24. FDR. n/t

[Pretzel_Warrior]

28. lol. impossible. your cousin just got done saying you loathe the man

and your post about him was in ALL SERIOUSNESS!

[Cali_Democrat]

30. BWHAHAH

[quinnox]

29. lol

so, it was all an act, huh?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

32. you had doubts?

[Rex]

52. When someone self-deletes their posts, why?

If it is all just in 'good fun', why self delete both threads? Nothing to be ashamed of, so why?

[Cali_Democrat]

64. I was essentially asked by a DUer I respect very much to self-delete in a PM

so I did.

[PragmaticLiberal]

26. Theodore Roosevelt.

[PeteSelman]

31. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, particularly FDR.

All had flaws and all were great in spite of them.

[Nye Bevan]

33. John Adams. Opposed to slavery and refused to employ slaves.

In stark contrast to others of his era, like Washington and Jefferson.

[yuiyoshida]

34. I believe we had some great presidents ..

but in my life time, I think President Obama is the best we have had yet.. I don't know who the next President will be, but it will be hard to step into those big shoes, anyone who has ever graced a stage knows what its like to follow a great act... its pressure that makes that next person, try to be better.

[quinnox]

38. interesting. By the way,

cute picture. You remind me of another duer, her name is Ashani-something, are you friends with her? I was just curious. She seems to put the same kinds of asian themed illustrations in her posts as you do.

[yuiyoshida]

43. I know her...

She invited me to DU. AsahinaKimiko. I call her my big sis though we are not blood related. I learned a lot from her, and shes my good friend. I still want her pumpkin spice cookie recipe!!!!

[quinnox]

44. ok, that's what I thought

great, it is nice to see two beautiful and charming women like you both are on Du! Glad she invited you to Du.

[yuiyoshida]

45. Sank yuuuuuu!

I love this place!

[quinnox]

47. heh, don't we all!

[riverbendviewgal]

35. Jimmy Carter

He was right on everything he said. Reagan tea partied him.

[John1956PA]

36. I like IKE for this 1953 quote:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

[rurallib]

72. Lot to like about IKE

sending federal troops to Little Rock for another. Earl Warren is another (even though Ike had no idea what Warren would do)

[Cleita]

37. Jed Bartlett, but he was fictional, however,

Martin Sheen brought to life the President we all wanted. Too bad we can't find the real deal although I believe Paul Wellstone, had he lived, would have come close, and I'm pretty certain he would have eventually run for President.

[truebluegreen]

56. Looking back, Jed Bartlett was too much a DLC guy...

or as a soon-to-retire Supreme Court Justice put it: " I waited for a Democrat and instead I got you."

But he had his moments, and was capable of learning.

Wellstone would have been awesome.

[Cleita]

58. That was the later Jed Bartlett, when they changed writers.

Also it was about that time that Bush stole the presidency and the Republicans were in charge so I think they had Bartlett's character become more DLC. I think Lawrence O'Donnell took over the writing duties from Sorkin who was fired.

[truebluegreen]

59. You could be right--although I think the incident with that SC Justice was first season.

Don't remember as much policy early on, as process...dang, may have to dig out my Entire 7-Season DVD set and review!

[Cleita]

62. I was thinking the same thing.

I too have all the season's .DVDs. I haven't watched them in years.

[davidpdx]

82. Even though he is fictional it is hard not to love him as a character

I have all seven seasons on DVD. When the government shutdown I watched the two episodes in Season 3. On 9/11 I watched Issac and Ishmael. Hell this Christmas I'll have to watch my all time favorite Christmas episode the one where they have the carolers in the WH and Toby arranges the funeral for the vet. Can't remember the season and episode off the top of my head, but I can find it pretty easily as I remember it was early on in the series.

[spanone]

39. mr jimmy carter. heads above the rest.

[arely staircase]

40. Garfield

Is the most uunderated IMHO. I guess I admire Lincoln the most.

[wandy]

42. Oddly enough Lyndon Johnson. Wish me luck but I'll try to explain...........

At the time Communism WAS a threat. It was not a made up crises like the recent GOP driven government shutdown. Communist leaders were hell bent on world domination.
As I see it (who the heck am I) we had three choices.

1) Concede that entire part of the world to Communism.
2) Risk all out nuclear conflict. Anybody else remember the Cuban missile crises?
3) Continue an unpopular war that could not have been won.

There were no good choices. Any choice would have ended badly.

LBJ had to make that choice. A choice that wore on him to the point that he choose not to seek a second term.
Had he made THAT choice differently it might have speared us Richard Nixon.

[Bucky]

53. LBJ's approach to everything was "more, more, more"

Kennedy was probably on track to find a Third Way solution to the quagmire in Vietnam. Now I'm not one of those kooks who think he was murdered because he was going to seek peace in SE Asia. But his handling of the earlier crises in his administration shows that he was a far more agile policymaker than LBJ. He was a leader seeking solutions, not victories. Johnson's approach was entirely win-by-size, whether he was taking about the war on communism or the war on poverty.

Your list of 3 options reminds me of a critique Joe Biden made of the Reagan administration back in 1988. The United States has an incredible array of arrows in its policy quiver; but Reagan's and Johnson's approach to foriegn policy seemed to ignore economic, diplomatic, moral, and cultural options and just ply away with the military ones.

The way to win an unwinnable war is, first of all, not to fight it. The second move involves undermining the causes of the conflict. I think JFK, based on his deft handling of Cuba and his moral jiu-jitsu demonstrated at West Berlin, would have found a way to strengthen South Vietnam, undermine Hanoi's alliance with Moscow (possibly anticipating Nixon & Kissinger's tactic of widening the gap between China and the Soviets), and build stronger ties with the weaker states in Asia before they fell into Hanoi's orbit.

Nixon's presidency was a trainwreck, but his detente policy was a huge improvement over the brinksmanship favored by LBJ.

[wandy]

65. OK. You know that old thing about going to war with..............

the army you have, not necessarily the army you want?
You go to war with the leadership you have. Not necessary the leadership you want.
Like Obama inherited Iraq, Johnson inherited Vietnam.
That mess got underway during Eisenhower. More or less unfinished business left over from the Korean war.
Could JFK have handled it better? For good or ill, we can never know. My guess would be that JFK would have but then and again.......

Ok, Johnson was an SOB. A loudmouthed, more,more,more, bully.
Now imagine how LBJ would have delt with Ted Cruz.

[Bucky]

46. Of the living presidents, Lincoln only visited with Millard Fillmore before taking office.

That probably says more about the quality of presidents they had in the 1850s than about Lincoln's role models.

I've liked something fierce about all the Democrats in my lifetime. I'm pretty partisan, tho.
The Republican I admire most is Ike. Of the recent Republicans, Poppy Bush has probably done the least to further the cause of terrorism in the world.

[treestar]

48. Jimmy Carter nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

49. Only Carter amongst those still "casting a shadow".

And him... only sometimes.


Amongst the faithful departed: Lincoln, Jefferson... and way further down the road... FDR and Truman.

More or less in that order.

[Brainstormy]

51. Jimmy Carter

would that we had listened to him on energy policy.

[denverbill]

54. Teddy Roosevelt.

Yes, he was a Republican but back then, the Republicans were the liberal party. He busted the trusts, he created the national park system. He even ran on a third party ticket when he thought the Republicans had gone too conservative.

Carter could have been great if he had been reelected. His human rights foreign policy might have ultimately changed the way the US interacted with dictatorships around the world. He is easily the best ex-President in history. If you just considered what he's done since 1981, that would be a great life's work for most any person.

[bravenak]

57. I strangely like Nixon in a way.

Reminds me of my uncle. Paranoid, religious, neatly dressed with shoes shining. And the EPA was cool. But my personal favorite was Clinton, he found a way to slow down conservatism by stealing and toning it down. We had moved so far to the right and it was time for a little sanity and an end to the republican revolution.
Of course conservatism did have one last show, but they had to label it differently ' compassionate conservatism'.

[tularetom]

60. None of them that are still alive that's for goddamn sure

[WhoIsNumberNone]

61. Reagan, the Bushes, Nixon and Coolidge

Gotcha. You didn't really believe I liked any of those clowns did you? The last four Republican presidents (I tend to discount Ford, since he was never elected- just finished out Nixon's term) all have varying degrees of treason on their resume (and in their family tree, in the case of the Bushes) and Coolidge brought us the prototype of Raygunomics, which in turn brought about the Great Depression.

My real answer is pretty much in line with others I've been seeing on this thread;

T Roosevelt- The last pro-labor Republican, would be chased out of today's Republican party with torches and pitchforks. Yet they still take credit for him, despite his being anathema to everything they stand for.

FDR- Do I have to explain this one?

Truman- Very underrated until recently- Pushed for de-segregation when is was wildly unpopular.

Carter- The right guy at the wrong time. Only now are people waking up to how far ahead of his time he was (as well as how disastrously bad the idiot who succeeded him was) He got the ball rolling on environmentalism, and was the first Democrat to have his presidency successfully sabotaged by vindictive Republicans. He's also done more good since leaving office than anybody else I can name.

Eisenhower- The last Republican who wasn't an utter scumbag. He also warned us (and we ignored it) about the military industrial complex.

[Warren DeMontague]

66. JFK: For having 21st century vision in the middle of the 20th century.

[Dpm12]

68. These guys...

...











ALL these men helped to shape this great nation of ours for the better.

[llmart]

69. Jimmy Carter

and Truman.

[RebelOne]

70. JfK and Jimmy Carter. n/t

[tokenlib]

73. FDR..a "traitor to his class"..and not afraid to do the right thing...

Teddy Roosevelt too...for his progressive impulses and willingness to stand up against the entrenched wealthy...

[Enthusiast]

74. Lincoln, TR and FDR.

[joshcryer]

75. Huey Long

Killed because he was a threat to corporate interests. FDRs biggest challenger.

[Recursion]

77. Washington

I still have to go with Washington as the best. Then FDR, Lincoln, and grudgingly Polk (I hate a lot of what he did, but his leadership, oratory, and administrative skills made his single term more effective than most double terms).

[B Calm]

79. FDR

[Rhiannon12866]

80. Jimmy Carter

[startupz]

81. Andrew Jackson

Simply because he had the intestinal fortitude to take on the centralized banking system. It's also cool that he threw down in several duels in his lifetime. I admire his non-nonsense approach and lack of political double-talk. Of course, he had plenty of flaws and he is largely responsible for the Trail of Tears. Nonetheless, he was a stoic leader (as the term "Old Hickory" implies) who would have a hay-day slapping today's Congress into reality.

[gopiscrap]

88. welcome to DU

[Niceguy1]

83. Clinton...good times

[davidpdx]

85. Clinton and Carter

Mostly because they are contemporary. I was in elementary school when Carter left office so I don't remember much. Clinton was the first one I was able to vote for (I missed the 88' election by half a year).

[TBF]

86. Eisenhower for trying to warn us -

Kennedy for ignoring the warnings and pushing forward even though it cost him his life.

[LWolf]

87. Washington, FDR, Carter. nt