RSS Feed MenuWriting about Woodrow Wilson the other day got me to thinking.
Six Democratic administrations were elected in the 20th century. (Counting FDR/Truman and JFK/LBJ as one each.) Five of them ended in economic and foreign policy chaos. The only one that didn’t – Clinton’s – ended in his own personal brand of chaos. (And the 9/11 plot was well underway when he left office and the bursting of the dot.com bubble in the spring of 2000 unleashed a recession.)
There have been unsuccessful GOP presidents, of course (Hoover, Nixon). But the pattern is pretty stark, I think. (John O’Sullivan has pointed out a similar pattern with regard to the stewardship of the British Labour Party.) Is the pattern repeating itself? Too soon to say, of course, but the auguries don’t look encouraging.
ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“Counting FDR/Truman and JFK/LBJ as one each.)”
……..Convenient for slanted theories maybe……. but not really accurate………And neither the Truman or Wilson admins ended in foreign policy chaos…….The US emerged from the first world war as the richest country in the world and potentially the most powerful….. just because it didn’t ratify the treaty of Versailles doesn’t mean a thing in terms of realpolitik…..It emerged from the second world war at the end of the Roosevelt administration as indisputably the worlds superpower…….The Truman administration had an enormously successful record with the creation of the Marshall plan and really the entire strategy of containment and the creation of the institutions that won the cold war which is why he’s generally regarded as the third greatest president of the 20th century…….the only cases where your arguments have some merit are those of Johnson and Carter and Nixon essentially continued Johnson’s policy in Vietnam ……..As against this we have five Republican presidents who regularly appear in the list of the “ten worst” and whose administrations either ended scandal or disaster or laid seeds of it (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon and Bush)……..In fact it’s probably fair to say that Wilson, FDR, Truman and Johnson essentially collectively created the entire modern system of US govt……..the only Republican with a record approaching theirs for creativity was TR who along with Eisenhower are the two outstanding……….good luck with convincing the world that Coolidge, Harding and Ford were superior to Truman, Johnson and Wilson.
ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 2:33 pm
………As a follow up to my earlier comment here’s a link to a summary of ALL the polls on presidential greatness over the last 100 years…….In summary the blended average of all these polls produces this outcome:
Top quartile: Three Republicans and five Democrats
Bottom quartile: Six Republicans and one Democrat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents
oldgal // Aug 19, 2009 at 6:44 pm
This somehow feels like reading the history of the GOP from the GOP’s point of view. I note you did not include George W. Bush as unsuccessful, which makes me wonder what measure you use for economic and foreign policy chaos?
Bulldoglover100 // Aug 20, 2009 at 10:23 am
The Republicans failed with Bush for 2 terms for certain. He sank our party just as sure as he passed the biggest entitlement program in history.
IF you intend to be a “reporter” you need to learn to be honest because even people who are in your own party want the FACTS even if they don’t like them.
Nixon? A real problem and still the butt of jokes today.
Bush 1? Many found him a milktoast President lead by others without original thought who left our economy in pretty much a shambles.
Bush 2? Enough said just saying his name.
Facts are important.
DFL // Aug 20, 2009 at 11:19 am
All presidents have failures and almost all have some successes. Even Jimmy Carter can crow about the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaty and William Henry Harrison spared Americans his follies by dying a month after his inauguration. Despite his successful presidency, Ronald Reagan had notable failures- the 1982 tax increases, the Iran-Contra scandal, two mediocre picks for the Supreme Court, his choice of George HW Bush for Vice-President, and, as far as I am concerned, what effectively became a federally imposed 21 year old drinking limit.
balconesfault // Aug 20, 2009 at 3:14 pm
“Ronald Reagan had notable failures- the 1982 tax increases” It is particularly ideological, and not exactly pragmatic, to consider a tax increase a “failure”.
But if you do consider tax increases to be a failure – let’s be honest – it wasn’t just 1982. Reagan signed major tax increases every year after 1981.
ottovbvs // Aug 20, 2009 at 4:59 pm
dfl // Aug 20, 2009 at 11:19 am
“his choice of George HW Bush for Vice-President, and, as far as I am concerned, what effectively became a federally imposed 21 year old drinking limit.”
……..disagree about Bush but agree wholeheartedly about the age limit on drinking which is total nonsense and does more harm than good…….it was another one of those “feel good” laws we love in America……we’ve passed a law, the problems solved…..aren’t clever
ottovbvs // Aug 20, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Bulldoglover100 // Aug 20, 2009 at 10:23 am
“his choice of George HW Bush for Vice-President, and, as far as I am concerned, what effectively became a federally imposed 21 year old drinking limit.”
…….recheck the history books you couldn’t be more wrong…….he took the first steps to bringing the monstrous federal deficit created by Reagan under control…….the soviet union actually collapsed on his watch…….when he left office the economy was recovering and Clinton benefited to a degree…..and he led a world coalition that kicked Hussein out of Kuwait and from which the US emerged with immense credit
DFL // Aug 21, 2009 at 8:46 am
Bush had the collapse of communism handed to him. Although the Soviet system imploded for the most part(and Gorbachev was inadvertantly helpful here), it was the Reagan-Shultz policies that pushed the Soviets toward collapse. If memory serves, Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker actually tried to discourage the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As for Bush’s 1990 tax hikes, they not only ripped apart his party and led to his defeat in 1992, but also proved him a “Read My Lips” liar. Had Reagan not picked Bush in 1980 as his VP, not only would the US not have had Bush I for four years, George W. Bush would never have been able to afflict us with his disasterous presidency.
ottovbvs // Aug 21, 2009 at 9:45 am
dfl // Aug 21, 2009 at 8:46 am
“Bush had the collapse of communism handed to him. Although the Soviet system imploded for the most part(and Gorbachev was inadvertantly helpful here), it was the Reagan-Shultz policies that pushed the Soviets toward collapse.”
………..Nothing to do with a 40 odd year effort relying on containment strategies and institutions developed by the Truman administration and essentially pursued with varying degrees of aggressiveness by every subsequent administration?……in addition as you say the Soviet Union was doomed by it’s own contradictions as I know from the personal experience of visits there in the seventies
” As for Bush’s 1990 tax hikes, they not only ripped apart his party and led to his defeat in 1992,”
………..Yep he put country before party and the party hated him for it…….he needed to raise taxes to bring down the disastrous Reagan deficits which were pushing up borrowing costs and weakening the dollar ……it was all anyone talked about in the business community at the start of the 90’s…..I know I was there