Who are you picks for best and worst 3 presidents in the 20-21st century

Posted: Nov 17, 2014

I had a hard time choosing between 1 and 2, but here are my top 3 picks and why: 1. Teddy Roosevelt (Republican, Progressive Party): One of the best thought out, organized, and well-implemented presidential goals of all time, the "Square Deal" between companies, consumers and workers with the "3 C's" as the motivating force behind everything he did domestically: Conservation of natural resources (federal protection acts to preserve natural resources) , Control of corporations (anti-trust laws and enforcement, wage labor laws), and consumer protection (Meat inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts). Not a huge fan of his international policy because it appeared to me a ruse to keep us the dominant imperialists in Latin America (a sort of monopoly), but it was a different time and we were still showing off, not realizing we were copying the company we just declared independence from ourselves just over 125 years before. However, he did encourage their independence while helping to keep them on their own two feet economically rather than enslave and exploit them. Plus he was a just total bad A, afraid of no one and following his conscience rather than his party. Not such a fan of the types of animals he hunted on Safari, but he did otherwise appear to respect the delicate nature between nature and man. 2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat): Had enough intelligence to realize he didn't know everything and needed help, developing the "Brain Trust" as his closet advisors, composed of the greatest minds in each area at the time regardless of party affiliation, to develop ideas to pull us out of the Great Depression, develop the Federal Reserve and banking insurance to protect us from such a total financial collapse again, ended overly-used margin credit which caused the crash to begin with, and developed greater social insurance policies to secure our future as we age. He created more Federal temp jobs for this country than Hoover had, but unlike Hoover, realized people just straight up needed aid and social insurance, at least temporarily, but also knew when to start weaning us from it (with a little help from the economic boom the wars created later). He instituted federal agricultural restrictions to keep people from increasing the supply past demand to keep prices still at a competitive level and local agencies to enforce them. And he did all this without anyone ever even thinking of calling him a socialist or Communist because we sorely needed the government's help and he placed a time frame for re-evaluation of the policies he enacted. People must've been happy with him because he was elected a record 4 times before his death in office prompted the passage of the 22nd Amendment which limited terms to 2, mostly due to a lack of a backup plan for death in office. He As far as internationally and the war, I have mixed feelings. He definitely had the right men in charge militarily, but he did somehow let Pearl Harbor sneak up on us. 3. Eisenhower (Republican): I call him the "no nonsense" president. This is a man who didn't play around. Agree with him or not, he did not hesitate to act if he felt the cause was right, including making full use of the executive order and even expanding protection of the executive branch under the executive privilege. If he were president today, he would’ve been sued at least 5 times by his own party and shut the government down even more. He helped draft and sign the first Civil Rights Act in 1957 and people forget that it was Eisenhower, under executive order, who sent federal troops to Little Rock to stop segregation nonsense, and it WAS nonsense. He ended McCarthyistic paranoiac nonsense by expanding executive privilege to give the executive branch the right to resist subpoenas and other forms of harassment and privacy violations by the other branches of government. He ended the Korean War with China in 6 months by threatening nuclear involvement and meaning it, but he also kept us out of war with Russia during the cold war through a gift for diplomacy unless pushed (but did not help in terms of country paranoia and propaganda). Additionally, you have to respect a guy who balanced our budget 3 times. He also created jobs and country unity with the creation of the interstate highway system we still use today. Not a big fan of how he handled immigration, but I admire his reasons for doing it, to avoid their exploitation, and he DID use an executive order to do it, with 1/4 of the manpower we have today. Why didn't I put Kennedy in the top 3? Because although he did well on a few fronts, oftentimes, the Kennedys had a character flaw of having 2 faces, a private one and a public one. Many reports were that he was actually privately racist and elitist and needed instruction on how the other half lived and a lot of convincing by his brother, Bobby. But the good news is, he did listen and he did some round and we’re very glad he did. Unfortunately, he didn't get to finish the job, nor did the better man in my opinion, his brother, Bobby. The Worst 3. I wanted to put #2 and #1 but I realized that was probably due to personal experience and needed to be fair: 1. Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat): Again, privately different than publicly, but really just one word: Vietnam. Vietnam and the lies he told regarding Vietnam, as well as how much money and lives were wasted for no other reason other than hopeful imperialism disguised as promoting democracy in a country which did not even have resources we need. He clearly begrudgingly signed Civil Rights Bills into law, mostly because he had to as a promise to Kennedy. His "War on Poverty" was a great idea, but not very well thought out as to how it should be implemented. It created Medicare and Medicaid, which most of us know was a great idea in theory, but as we know now are fraught with problems. He did establish secondary education funding and scholarships for the poor and minorities to equal out opportunity, for which he receives points, but considering that's become a giant mess that wasn't very well thought out in terms of repayment plans, no soup for you, LBJ. Plus as a personal aside, I have always felt he seemed in shock, but not all that saddened about Kennedy's death, which I thought was just plain weird. 2. George W. Bush (Republican). Really, just one word again: Iraq. Lies told, money and lives wasted. In fact, the only difference between himself and LBJ in this sense is that at least there was oil in Iraq, but OBL and WMD never were as he said. . If only he'd just been honest about that being the reason, I might’ve been more receptive, but he wasn’t, we were manipulated instead (or at least he tried to. Not all of us bought it from day one) Plus if he had been honest, that would lead to his and Cheney’s actual personal reasons for being there, his shareholdings in oil companies, which would have him impeached, arrested, convicted and imprisoned. Reason Two, Hurricane Katrina. You don't need an engraved invitation to show up for moral support, and if not safe in New Orleans, Biloxi MS would've been fine. Whupping it up in San Diego with extraordinarily bad dancing to Mariachi music was the epitome of elitist apathy. But you don't even want to get me started on this subject because I'm personally very close to it and you have no idea how much more that man could've done, particularly in terms of enforcing price gougers penalties that at 100K a pop would've more than paid for Katrina rebuild, but he turned the other way on in favor of "business stimulation" that never trickled down on anyone. Tack on outsourcing pushes, his "no child left behind" education platform that was illogical and failed miserably, and his strategy for dealing with racial issues in this country by pretending they weren't there at all led to, well, extra Obama hatred and Ferguson. And lastly, the Patriot Act. Talk about throwing away the constitution. This was nearly as bad as Nixon’s behavior and yet he got away with all of it scott free. 3. Tie between Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover (both Republican): Harding had absolutely no backbone whatsoever to stop the corruption rampant by those who put him in office so they could plunder. Herbert Hoover increased our debt with pointless foreign wars and trade deals after the crash, then refused to offer any aid or protection programs of any kind to the American people after doing so nor were any sort of preventative or precautionary measures were even discussed, much less implemented. The phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” began with Hoover, which was a ridiculous thing to say, considering jobs were not available and there was no way anyone could’ve without at least a temporary hand up that FDR provided. Why didn’t I choose Nixon? Because other than being a paranoid crook, he actually did much for women’s rights, civil rights, and he created the EPA (environmental protection agency). This was back when Republicans at least gave the appearance of caring about being fair and for the environment like Teddy (though many say it was under the guises of reaching new voters). Whatever the motivation, I’m just glad he did it. However, the Republicans had already abandoned Teddy’s ideas completely of being fair economically and protecting consumers, middle class and the poor in favor of laissez fair economics. In my mind, establishing trace with China was not a good thing, and again one of those great ideas in theory that fail in practice, like trickle down theory, and actually put us in tremendous debt. Never under estimate the element of human greed in corporations or government. It’s just that one should be policing the other and not vice versa. Who are your picks?;