No, read this book and know the truth.
Posted on 06/08/2004 6:19:25 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Was Roosevelt a good president?
Posted: June 8, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Condoleeza Rice said in a newspaper interview last week that President Bush will some day rank in leadership history alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Which begs the question: Was Roosevelt a good president?
If Roosevelt is George W. Bush's model for leadership, his first term begins to make sense.
Roosevelt led the nation through World War II and certainly contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan – for which we should all be thankful.
However, Roosevelt also arguably presided over the creation of more unconstitutional domestic action by the federal government than any of his modern predecessors. As such, he remains the hero of modern-day socialists and an icon for today's Democratic Party extremists.
Is that what Bush wants to be remembered for?
If so, he must give himself extremely high marks. Yes, he has ably led the nation in the war on terrorism. But his administration has also given us unprecedented domestic spending increases.
Perhaps Rice and Bush should also be reminded that while Churchill provided great leadership of the United Kingdom in World War II, he was quickly turned out of office at the war's conclusion.
My guess is Bush will be turned out of office long before American achieves a victory in the war on terrorism. So, perhaps there is some validity to that comparison as well.
Notice that Rice did not compare Bush to a more recent popular Republican, two-term president – Ronald Reagan. Perhaps she understood that such a comparison would be laughable to too many Americans – especially those Bush still hopes to win over before Election Day.
"Statesmanship has to be judged first and foremost by whether you recognize historic opportunities and seize them," Rice said in an interview with Cox Newspapers.
I would agree. But I would not agree that Bush has met the challenge.
He came into office with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives and Senate. He saw that control strengthened in mid-term elections in 2002. Yet he governed like a Democrat – expanding spending for the Department of Education and other agencies the GOP once swore to eliminate.
"When you think of statesmen, you think of people who seized historic opportunities to change the world for the better, people like Roosevelt, people like Churchill, and people like Truman, who understood the challenges of communism. And this president has been an agent of change for the better – historic change for the better," said Rice.
Roosevelt and Truman understood the challenges of communism? Who does she think gave us Alger Hiss? And who does she think sold Chiang Kai-Shek down the Yangtze River?
Until I read this interview, I had an extraordinary amount of respect for Rice's intellectual achievements and her understanding of history. No longer. But it gets worse.
It was Bush, she said, who first recognized "that it was time to stop mumbling about the need for a Palestinian state" and spoke out in favor of a two-state solution to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.
Indeed he did – one of the foreign policy tragedies of his administration. In fact, he has retreated from that position recently, suggesting there was no longer any rush to create a Palestinian state. And why should we want to create a new Middle East state that was founded on terrorism? Why should we support a state whose official policy is "no Jews allowed"? Why should we want to continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results?
Does Rice really believe all she said in this interview? Or is she just being a good political soldier? It's hard to know for sure.
But now I know why the Bush administration has achieved so little in four years. Apparently, from the get-go, it never had the right goals.
Monroe didn't effect things to come.
Monroe Doctrine, abandoned in 1959 by Eisenhower!
Yes, the doctrine was in place (I would argue it was abandoned first by Wilson), but the whole geopolitical landscape didn't change as a result of Monroe's presidency. Foreign policy, even in the Western hemisphere, was an afterthought.
Yes, I know that J.Q. Adams wrote the "Monroe Doctrine," but it was Monroe who appointed JQA as secretary of state.
The Great Creator of The Welfare State
No, read this book and know the truth.
John T. Flynn's book is called "The Roosevelt Myth."
Yay ! Good one. :^D
Still FDR has an "eternal press" to defend him, long after "Uncle Walter," Texan Dan, Peter Jennings, and Dakota Brokaw are gone from the airwaves. When FDR died on April 12, 1945, millions of Americans actually believed that his passing was the death of civilization!
Thanks, Smarty, now as "Uncle Walter" would say, "This is the way is was":
Joseph Warren Stilwell (March 19, 1883 - 1946) was a United States Army four-star general known for his service in China. His military career was unique: throughout it he rarely commanded troops, worked on mostly his own, and still managed to reach the rank of four-star general. He spent most of his career outside the United States in China and, a very capable linguist, spoke Chinese and Japanese fluently.
Vinegar Joe, as he was called, famously lacked tact and a capacity for conventional diplomacy. In spite of this, he tried to convince Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to cede command of his armies to the American military. He intensely hated the Generalissimo, a feeling which was reciprocated, and only managed to keep working together through the tireless diplomacy of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling.
Like many other Americans involved in Chinese affairs, Stilwell's diplomatic efforts were obliterated with the rise to power of the Communist Party of China and retreat of the Kuomintang government to Taiwan in the Chinese Civil War. Biographer Barbara W. Tuchman very fittingly chose the metaphor "sand against the wind", to characterise the futile nature of Stilwell's efforts.
Late in the war, he was reassigned from China to command the Tenth Army during the final stages of the Battle of Okinawa after the Tenth Army's commander was killed by enemy fire.
He was the subject of a noted biography by Barbara W. Tuchman.
"Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, a FL native, was nicknamed because he demanded as much from others as he gave of himself. And, to General Joseph Stilwell, that meant pushing to the limit. In fact, during the greater part of his career, Stilwell himself was nearly blind. Injured by an explosion during World War I, his vision was seriously impaired and throughout the remarkable campaigns to come, his greatest fear ws that his sight would fail before his mission was done. But lean and wiry, the cantankerous Stilwell -- known to the GI's as "Uncle Joe" -- could get the job done despite physical hardship. So, in World War II, he was assigned to what the Army chief of staff called "the most impossible job" of the war: facing fierce jungle fighting, Stilwell personally led his men on a 20-day retreat out of Burma in May 1942. Fighting malaria, typhoid and jungle weather, as well as three advancing Japanese armies, Stilwell and his men walked the many miles to safety. Later they were able to launch an attack and build a road -- the Ledo Road -- through the jungle that had nearly defeated them. The road became a main supply route into China. "The future of all Asia is at stake," said President Roosevelt, and "I know of no other man who has the ability, the force and the determination to offset the disaster that now threatens China." Against all odds, Stilwell trained the Chinese ground troops, working them into an efficient arm of the Allies.
He died of stomach cancer in 1946.
This is a must read for anybody to understand FDR. What is paticulaly revealing is how FDR used the new Federal programs he introduced to ensure his re-election. He funneled money into programs in the marginal contituencies rather than those that needed it the most. The author also provides clear evidence that programs such as the TVA actually stunted economic developement rather than promoted it.
Another emphatic NO!
I know. I read that book.
Thanks
I am thinking that maybe our own Dubya is turning out to be that kind of a leader.......
"..........Besides, he couldn't keep that damned wife of his shut up."
The Eleanor:
http://www.msys.net/cress/ballots2/wpa_outh.htm
As God is my witness, this is the first post I have ever seen from you....
(although I feel like I know you!)
I keep a low profile most of the time. I lurk, and every once in a while speak my mind. Nice to meet you. :)
Engineers as president has nothing to do with it.
Those two men will be revered by the generation they served because of what they meant to that generation in those dark times.
His "decisiveness" prolonged those hard times. Just imagine being an investor back then with that lunatic in the White House changing the rules of business every three months. Imagine trying to hold a business together when taxes are going through the roof and money rapidly losing its value. Imagine running a farm with his minions telling you when to reap and when and what to sow.
Sure, he alleviated the symptoms for a lot of people. But in so doing, he prolonged the disease in a big way.
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