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Who do you think was the greatest U.S President? (1 Viewer)

S1M0

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Hey, the death of Gerald Ford kinda sparked this question? Who do you think, in your opinion was the greatest U.S president and why?

Mine's Jimmy Carter, because of what he did to help the people in Egypt, and because he always tried to find the peaceful solution to what could have turned into a conflict.

Doubt this'll turn into a thriving discussion but yeah, lets see how it goes.
 

banco55

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S1M0 said:
Hey, the death of Gerald Ford kinda sparked this question? Who do you think, in your opinion was the greatest U.S president and why?

Mine's Jimmy Carter, because of what he did to help the people in Egypt, and because he always tried to find the peaceful solution to what could have turned into a conflict.

Doubt this'll turn into a thriving discussion but yeah, lets see how it goes.
LOL Jimmy Carter I suppose from the perspective of an egyptian he might be but depending on how you rank them he's competing with Nixon for second worst post WW II president. FDR was the best IMHO because of his WW II leadership.
 

onebytwo

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G W Bush for liberating the people of iraq and afghanistan, he's not too far off the nobel peace prize either
 
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Testpilot

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JFK usually gets ranked highly in these sought of lists. But it may be because of the circumstances surrounding his death. Though he was still a good president.
 

banco55

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Testpilot said:
JFK usually gets ranked highly in these sought of lists. But it may be because of the circumstances surrounding his death. Though he was still a good president.
He handled the bay of pigs thing masterfully. It's worth listening to the audio tapes of him talking to his staff during the bay of pigs he's very cool under pressure. Not to mention he screwed grace kelly and a beautiful german spy among many others. That should count for something.
 

ZabZu

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Testpilot said:
JFK usually gets ranked highly in these sought of lists. But it may be because of the circumstances surrounding his death. Though he was still a good president.
I studied JFK in history extension a few years ago. Historians are far more critical of him these days because more evidence of his life come to the surface and the pro-JFK historians dont dominate the debates anymore.

I reckon Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson would have to be preddy high up there.

Check out this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents
 
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Testpilot

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banco55 said:
He handled the bay of pigs thing masterfully. It's worth listening to the audio tapes of him talking to his staff during the bay of pigs he's very cool under pressure. Not to mention he screwed grace kelly and a beautiful german spy among many others. That should count for something.
I wasn't trying to say that he was a bad President. What I was trying to say was that his assasination and the way that Americans felt/feel about the Kennedy family in general may have led to people veiwing his presidency with a pro-JFK bias rather than objectively. And for the record i don't think presidential sex lives should be a factor in this list, otherwise it will have to include Clinton near the top too. I'm surprised that nobody has brought in Abraham Lincon yet.

EDIT: (As we replied at the same time)

ZabZu said:
I studied JFK in history extension a few years ago. Historians are far more critical of him these days because more evidence of his life come to the surface and the pro-JFK historians dont dominate the debates anymore.
I was refering more to the way the public sees him.
 
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Serius

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It wouldnt be JKF [like someone else said from the perspective of a historian] although personally i thought he did an ok job. Maybe teddy roosevelt but i will have to come back to this one.

If i wanted to steal from harry potter i could say george bush. he has done 'great' things wether you think what he has done is for evil or good, he has basically brought in a new world era.
 

Sparcod

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JFK-civil rights supporter and brought reform across the country. He was largely responsible for the landing on the moon and the removal of segregation.

Washington- the guy who started it all and fought the English off.
 

Bobness

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I'm pretty certain that JFK himself was racist although this is debatable.

Many people said Ronald Reagan was a champion for social justice as he was the first president to elect a woman to the supreme court (or a similar position in the law field) however the majority of conventional and post-revisionist historians agree that he was very pro-white, pro-religion, pro-white establishment/WASP himself as well.

But reagan was brilliant as a political mastermind mainly because he was the first White House elect who was once an actor. Marvellous man and i get the feeling he was very compassionate to his countrymen too.
 

Unassume

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Reagan. Urinate on the poor economics.

Voodooooo economics. VOOODOOO
 
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littlewing69

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Put me down for Reagan. He was the point at which TV America and Real America intersected.
 

Lockhart

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Nixon, no doubt about it. If it hadn't been for Watergate I’m certain they would have amended the americium constitution to allow him to serve an extra term. But no, seriously he cops a lot of flack but he wasn't that bad, took America out of Vietnam, and went into china. But I don't think you could argue he was the greatest. Roosevelt certainly seems to be the most popular with the public four elections won consecutively so he's probably the most successful. Truman was fairly courageous and I have a lot of respect for Wilson, Reagan and LBJ. But it’s hard to define greatest, the different conditions make them imposable to compare, there is certainly no stand alone candidate. But I recon if you define greatest in terms of popularity, Roosevelt, steering the gov through the depression and WW2 leaves him as a good standing candidate. Personally I also thought that he should have abandoned the isolation policy earlier and should have been stronger against communism.
 

ZabZu

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I not a big fan of Reagan, mostly because im a strong supporter of the Democrats. Also, the Cold War ended not because of Reagan but because of Gorbachev. He was a reformer who backed away from the previous Soviet strategy of intervention in the Eastern bloc.
 

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