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Re: Current Events Thread
Dude, he ended JFK’s war and there’s no way to dispute that. Just like Obama “escalated” Iraq and Afghanistan when he promised to end it. It’s pretty complicated inheriting someone else’s war.
JFK wasn’t even president for 2 years…JFKs war?!
Re: Current Events Thread
“Around 700 US military personnel were in South Vietnam when he [JFK] was inaugurated; on his death there were roughly 16,000.”
If we want, we can blame Eisenhower, but he escalated intervention in Vietnam. This was then left to Johnson and then Nixon. There’s no reason to argue about this, Mitch.
Re: Current Events Thread
mitchejw wrote:Smoking Guns wrote:Policy wise Bush senior was good, Clinton was pretty damn good. Trump was excellent.
Obama was bad, Carter was worse, Biden is an absolute dumpster fire
Trump left this country as it was burning to the ground and felt the need to make it worse on Jan. 6th.
Trump was an abysmal failure. All smoke and mirrors.
Yeah, as much as I dislike Bush Jr, he had at least stood for something or had some policy ideas. Trump just went with what the wind blew at that day and total chaos and clusterfuck.
On Nixon, I'll just say that the personal demons overshadow whatever good he did (and they should). I just don't think there's anyway around Watergate with him. You can argue he's underated and I won't disagree with that. But he'll always be amongst the list of worst presidents because of how his presidency ended.
I think he suffered a mental breakdown after losing to Kennedy. But if we compare Watergate to other scandals, Iran Contra (or hostage crisis), Whitewater/Monica gate. IRS scandal, etc, I think he deserves a revisiting. Can’t make excuses for him, though. When I look just at the policy platform, it’s kind of what I want in a candidate now.
Re: Current Events Thread
“Around 700 US military personnel were in South Vietnam when he [JFK] was inaugurated; on his death there were roughly 16,000.”
If we want, we can blame Eisenhower, but he escalated intervention in Vietnam. This was then left to Johnson and then Nixon. There’s no reason to argue about this, Mitch.
The part that’s debatable is that Nixon ended it.
Re: Current Events Thread
You’re leaving out a lot of details here. Most notably, he agreed to a deal he could’ve gotten on day 1. 10s of thousands more died on both sides while he bombed the shit out of Vietnam. Only when he was trying to save face during the watergate scandal did he abruptly give up on the ‘peace with honor’ strategy.
Re: Current Events Thread
You keep moving the goalpost. You said he didn't end the war. I showed you actual video of him announcing an end to Vietnam. Suddenly that doesn't count because before that he was.... Fighting the war? When you're negotiating a peace deal it kind of follows logic that the war will continue until an agreement is reached.
Re: Current Events Thread
James wrote:The country has been overdue for a maverick since 2008. It's unfortunate that the era was wasted on Obama...and then Trump.
Only another Teddy Roosevelt is capable of saving us.
What a strange take. When was the last good president then? Bc W was just a continuation of daddy and daddy was just more Reagan.
Surely you didn’t like Carter because you don’t like Biden.
You’ve never said anything positive about the Clintons.
Nixon was a real POS.
Are you on crack?
Wanting a type of leader who wasn't scared to go up against the elites for what they were doing to this country is a strange take?
Who else could possibly get us back on track?
He isn't garbage just because he had an R next to his name. He was actually fairly progressive for his time. Shockingly, so was Nixon in hindsight.....ID brought up a couple examples.
Never said anything positive about Clinton?!?
My only criticism of Clinton is on the issues of Somalia, ignoring the Rwandan genocide, his slow moving on Yugoslavia/Kosovo, and the insanity of the Lewinsky blowjob.
His presidency looks even better in hindsight.
On this subject, we're damn lucky Russia or China didn't try to test us in his first two years. He wasn't ready for the job yet and his secretaries of state and defense (Christopher and Aspen) were both complete disasters.
China probably regrets not attempting an invasion of Taiwan in 93-94.
Not liking Carter or Biden has no relation whatsoever. Had the current Biden run in Carter's day, he'd be a Republican.
When was the last good president then?
W could've been a potentially great president without 9/11 and of course Iraq. He's a tad similar in this regard to LBJ....he allowed a conflict to devour his presidency.
People forget he initially wanted to focus more on the US with a foreign policy devoted to the containment of China.
Clinton presided over the last great decade so he's not great ....but pretty damn good.
Reagan qualifies as great regardless of how much you hate him....a massive economic boom while at the same time presiding over the largest military buildup in history to modernize our military while bankrupting the Soviet Union.
Imagine the economy if not required to spend so much on defense.
Not even sure how Daddy Bush can be ranked. Other than Desert Storm, his one term was essentially a third Reagan term running on fumes.
Re: Current Events Thread
misterID wrote:Dude, he ended JFK’s war and there’s no way to dispute that. Just like Obama “escalated” Iraq and Afghanistan when he promised to end it. It’s pretty complicated inheriting someone else’s war.
JFK wasn’t even president for 2 years…JFKs war?!
No offense but I think you either need to read a history book or watch a lengthy documentary on the Vietnam conflict.
It had its birth pangs on Eisenhower's watch and JFK massively escalated the crisis. He almost went even further....he briefly considered invading Laos in 61-62. Right before his own assassination (two weeks?), he sorta gave the order for the assassination of South Vietnam's president but was then horrified when it actually happened.
It's romanticizing and revisionist history to paint JFK as this dove who was going to get us out of Vietnam.
He had an ego the size of the Andromeda Galaxy....you really believe he would've walked out of Vietnam with his tail between his legs? No....it would've escalated.... probably worse than it did with LBJ.
He was still on that high of causing the Soviets to blink hours before a nuclear war...he wasn't going to back down.
