At 12:16 AM 1/18/02 -0500 Gautam Mukunda wrote: >>Not to get into the argument, but I actually think that Woodrow Wilson was >>the second-worst President in American history, after only the pathetic >>James Buchanan... > >I think LBJ belongs below Wilson somewheres...... > >JDG > >Not even close. For the Civil Rights Act of 1968 _alone_ LBJ gets into my >"near-great" Presidents list. Screw Vietnam. Yes, he botched it. He >wasn't alone in that. His efforts on behalf of racial justice - that is, >the eternal attempt of the United States to redeem itself from its original >sin - are so much more important that Vietnam shrinks into insignificance in >comparison.
Yes, the Vietnam is a big strike against him, but there is more. Most important is The Great Society, which probably has produced the least bang for the buck of any government program in US History. Indeed, it was the massive spending combiantion of The Great Society and The Vietnam War that produced the economic debacle of the 1970's. As for Civil Rights - every President has their achivements, but on this issue a lot of credit has to go to Kennedy as well. JDG Alright, stop picking on Buchanan; Pennsylvania's favorite (gay?) son. How can he be worse than William Henry Harrison, who only served 5 weeks before he died...and was sick the whole time? James Garfield Served six months before he was shot but was doing great things so I can put him above Buchanan. Buchanan tried to use compromise, not force (until the end), to keep the states together. Right at the start of his presidency the supreme court screwed him. They ruled that the government had no power to deprive slave-owners of their property, i.e. slaves. What if they had ruled the other way? Would the southern states had seceded four years earlier? It's easy now to Monday morning quarterback the issues and say he should have 'obviously' made rulings that would outlaw slavery...but I don't hear too many rational people detracting from Jefferson because he owned slaves.
