History

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I know we’re only half-way through, but can we take a moment to consider Barak Obama’s legacy as President?  How’s he shaping up against his competition?

Reagan and Bush I ended the Cold War.

Nixon opened China.

Johnson – civil rights.  Like it or hate it, he made it happen.

Kennedy – I credit the inspirational ‘put a man on the moon speech’. That was a pivotal moment.

Truman won The War by dropping The Bomb.  World changing event.

Slick Willie, Carter, Eisenhower – nothing much happened, good or bad, they’re as forgettable as Hayes or Cleveland.

The Light Bringer?  So far, the subjects for his legacy include:

the worst economy since the Great Depression

the worst race relations in 50 years
global terrorists rebounding bigger, stronger and more confident than ever
alienating our allies and destroyed all hope of working relations with our associates (China, Russia for example).
destroyed the concept of rule of law with scandals such as IRS, Fast and Furious, GM bailout
executed American citizens without trial, hearing or oversight
increased surveillance of American citizens to levels the KGB only dreamed of
has drones over everyone
has people reading this email
This is Barak Obama’s legacy – The hope and change – so far.  It’s bad enough.  And we have three years left.

Maybe if we invade Syria, things will get better?

Joe Doakes

 I love all the liberals who used to furrow their brows back in 2003 and talk about the “tail wagging the dog” who’ve suddenly become raging hawks.

5 thoughts on “History

  1. I think Eisenhower was a little more consequential than Joe suggests — starting the interstate highway system was a pretty transforming event in our history. And I think Grover Cleveland is underrated. But otherwise, spot on.

  2. Eisenhower was quiet, but gave us not only the interstate highways, but also the nuclear shield that protected us pretty darned well against the Warsaw Pact, a group of nations that were not shy about inserting themselves into the affairs of nations that could not nuke Moscow. Billions of people breathing the air of freedom are quietly grateful.

  3. Eisenhower’s image in pop culture suffers because he dared to win over lefty intellectual Adlai Stevenson. Ike always saw the big picture. His thinking was insightful, especially in matters of defense. While the rest of the country, especially the media and the intellectual class, panicked over Sputnik, Ike was calm. He knew that the ‘overflight’ of Sputnik meant that the Russians couldn’t claim that American U2 overflights of Soviet territory were an act of war. I

  4. America always does best with divided government.
    Giving house, senate, and presidency to one party was a mistake in ’04, ’92, ’76, ’68 and all the way back to ’32. Reagan’s legislative accomplishments were compromises with Tip O’Neill, and Clinton accomplished more with Newt than with the Democrats. The American system works best when the ideologues can’t ramrod their poorly thought out reforms through, and are forced to hammer out the details.

  5. The balanced force option has historical precedent. I can’t find a cite right now, but I’ve read that Churchill purposely put minorities in charge of the ME states partitioned from the old Ottoman Empire after WWI. His reasoning was that a minority can govern a majority, but (in most places), a majority run government will destroy minority populations.

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