Analogy for this year's election
- Thread starter Section112
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George HW Bush was a good President. He was the first to recognize the folly of Ronald Reagan's trickle down economic theory as voodoo economics. However, he ran against one of the most charismatic and adept politicians of all time, Bill Clinton.
And you are right Source, Clinton and Bush had a very good relationship. They are more alike in terms of politics and policies than most people want to admit on the left and on the right.
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Nixon's conduct of the war was bi-polar if you ask me..... on one hand.. pulling Marines out of Northern I Corps in '69 (which proved to be the undoing of the South in 73 and finally in 75) and the other the parrot's beak incursion of 1970.
some the other stuff you mention I don't get.... war on drugs to punish the left and blacks????? where did you get that.... and Willie Horton ..... that was your big complaint about Bush?
War on drugs? How about this quote from John Erlichman?
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Nixon on Nam:
"K. We've had 10 years of total control of the air over Laos and V.Nam. The result = Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force," he wrote.
Woodward noted that just the day before, Nixon had asserted in an hour-long interview with Dan Rather of CBS News that the bombing had been "very, very effective."
The claim was "a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it," writes Woodward in "The Last of the President's Men," arguing that Nixon defended and intensified the bombing anyway to advance his re-election prospects, according to the Washington Post, which had access to the book.
"K. We've had 10 years of total control of the air over Laos and V.Nam. The result = Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force," he wrote.
Woodward noted that just the day before, Nixon had asserted in an hour-long interview with Dan Rather of CBS News that the bombing had been "very, very effective."
The claim was "a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it," writes Woodward in "The Last of the President's Men," arguing that Nixon defended and intensified the bombing anyway to advance his re-election prospects, according to the Washington Post, which had access to the book.
I wasn't around then, but it would seem to me that the war on drugs may have had to do something with drug-fueled violence and civil disobedience. Manson family?
Really can't see this ranking of the Presidents. Obama, while not the best President is certainly not the worst even in my lifetime. Without question, George W Bush was the worst. (His invasion and lying to the public on the Iraq War and creating the instability that we have to deal with today). Nixon then Carter.
Carter is an interesting point about how timing is everything in life. First half of the Carter Administration is marked with incredible success with the Camp David Peace Agreement with Egypt and Israel. However, the gas crisis and inflation coupled with the hostages in Iran was his downfall. I always wondered what would have happened if the rescue attempt was successful? Would this have turned the tide for Carter? IS the line between greatness and failure that thin?
This is the thing I can't get around. No administration (since W certainly did not act alone, by any means) did more to create an atmosphere conducive to the rise of al-Queda, then ISIS, than this one. Most amazing and ironic is how this destabilization of the Middle East and enabling of radical jihadism was done in the name of a "War on Terror," too. The truth really is stranger than fiction.
Oh the Middle East - with the Brits screwing things up first with their stealing the oil back in the early 20th century, back when Europe decided on arbitrary borders for the countries in the region. Later we overthrew the closest Iran has come to a democratic leader cause he said a nice thing or two about the USSR and said if it was good for Iran, he would certainly sell them oil. So we had him overthrown and set up the Shah, who paved the way for the return of the Ayatollah and the fermenting of anti Western thinking. The presence of our Armies in Saudi Arabia gave way to the rise of Al Qaeda, and Bush's wars put it out of control.
And then we have our greatest ally in the middle who none of the Arab nations will acknowledge has the right to exist. An Arab statesman makes a deal, and he gets murdered. The leader of the PLO is found to be more crooked than anyone.
So clearly, the Middle East, it is all Obama's fault!
I don't think Obama has been that good of a pres, but his options in the Middle East are very comparable to our options in this election, as the OP stated. And I sincerely believe that Obama's opposition would have stridently bitched about what Obama did if he had done what they later suggested he should have done. To them, the right thing is what Obama didn't do.
And then we have our greatest ally in the middle who none of the Arab nations will acknowledge has the right to exist. An Arab statesman makes a deal, and he gets murdered. The leader of the PLO is found to be more crooked than anyone.
So clearly, the Middle East, it is all Obama's fault!
I don't think Obama has been that good of a pres, but his options in the Middle East are very comparable to our options in this election, as the OP stated. And I sincerely believe that Obama's opposition would have stridently bitched about what Obama did if he had done what they later suggested he should have done. To them, the right thing is what Obama didn't do.
Obama would look alot better to libertarians and progressives alike if he would simply stop illegally drone attacking brown people all over the world, stop spying on all Americans & reject TPP.
an international trade deal with potentially far reaching effects on not just economic policy, but Constitutional implications as well. Only people that seem for it are typical big money interests. Cannot see the benefit to the common working American at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
This is a bad deal again for America. It's being negotiated in private by large companies and countries with no oversight. Bad deal
