Posted on 02/13/2013 7:59:52 AM PST by Kaslin
As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives.
While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four: Broken promises and gloomy temperaments lead inevitably to an alienated public.
All the chief executives unmistakably identified as failures displayed a self-destructive tendency to violate the core promises of their campaigns. Take Tyler, the unbending Virginia aristocrat who won election to the vice presidency in 1840 and assumed the highest office when his predecessor died just a month after inauguration. The new chief executive, dubbed "His Accidency" by critics, used 10 unpopular vetoes to block implementation of his own party's longstanding ledges. Most of his Cabinet resigned in protest, and eventually they all quit while the hostile Senate voted down four new Cabinet appointments — a record that stands to this day.
Between 1853 and 1861, Pierce and Buchanan completed back-to-back disastrous terms in which personal weakness and pro-Southern sympathies shattered confident promises of unifying leadership. Buchanan pledged to stop "agitation of the slavery question" and to "destroy sectional parties." By the end of his term, seven Southern states seceded from the union and the nation lunged toward the Civil War.
After that war and Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson (Lincoln's vice president) defied members of the martyred president's Cabinet and congressional leaders, ignoring commitments to lead former slaves to dignity and full civil rights.
In the 20th century, Herbert Hoover's slogan promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," but he presided over the beginning of the Great Depression. Similarly, Jimmy Carter's 1976 platform pledged to reduce unemployment to 3%, but Carter ran for re-election with more than twice that rate.
No wonder that Hoover and Carter, like other unsuccessful presidents, came across as gloomy, self-righteous sufferers. Hoover's secretary of State said that a meeting with him was "like sitting in a bath of ink." Carter staked his presidency on a notoriously sour televised address that became known as "The Malaise Speech," warning the appalled public of a "crisis of the American spirit."
None of our least successful presidents displayed the self-deprecatory humor of Lincoln or the sunny dispositions that powered the Roosevelts (Theodore and Franklin) and Ronald Reagan. A visitor described the Pierce White House as a "cold and cheerless place," noting the isolation of the invalid first lady, in deep mourning for three dead sons.
When Buchanan welcomed successor Lincoln, he plaintively declared: "My dear, sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a very happy man indeed."
The result of the depressing and erratic leadership of our six most conspicuous presidential failures is that all managed to estrange a once-admiring electorate within the space of a single term. Tyler,Pierce, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan all earned rejection by their own party, failed to win their own party's nominations, entering retirement as discredited figures. Hoover and Carter appeared on national tickets and campaigned vigorously but got wiped out in historic landslides, with each incumbent carrying a mere six states.
Democrats, who denounce George W. Bush as the worst president ever, along with Republicans who apply the same ugly title to Barack Obama, can't explain away the inconvenient fact that both of our most recent incumbents won re-election with 51% of the vote. Regardless of controversies blighting Bush's second term, or setbacks that might afflict Obama's, their legislative and electoral successes place them in a different category from the White House worst.
This baleful history should warn the current occupant and all successors against visibly disregarding commitments while encouraging voters to steer clear of presidential candidates with dour, inflexible temperaments. By selecting aspirants with clear, consistent agendas and cheerful, persuasive personalities, we'll face fewer shattered presidencies that leave reviled incumbents and a disillusioned electorate.
I have ancestors and relatives who served in every major American war, beginning with the Revolutionary War, including the Civil War all the way through Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, war by definition is h*ll, and nobody wants war, but when wars must be fought, they require absolute devotion to the cause of victory.
Anything less can lead to unthinkable consequences.
So let's see if I understand you -- you claim ancestors / relatives who died fighting for the North, but you are here condemning the Union, and praising the Confederacy for starting and declaring war on the United States?
What sense does that make, FRiend?
Neoliberalnot: "I can tell by your expressions, you dot every i and cross every t because one size fits all and those who violate such nonsense deserve death."
Is there some rational thought behind your expression here, and if so, can you explain what it is?
Neoliberalnot: "Tell me more about the rule of law when 20 million foreign invaders in the contemporary world are so easily permitted to ignore it. "
And this is in reference to what, exactly?
I did not defend the confederacy, but I recognize, they are my American brothers and simply wanted to be left alone. I condemn Lincoln for ordering the death of soldiers on both sides.
I said you are bean counter stuck with the notion that written rules somehow are to be followed, even if it means killing people who wish to be left alone. The notion that if it is the law then you must follow orders to kill. We heard this defense by German officers post WWII.
I am referring to illegal aliens. Some laws are selectively enforced when those seeking political gain will benefit. Lincoln clearly solidified his power over others and started the rapid rise of the federal govt monster.
That's not the first time you've offered up that absurd non sequitur, but this time you followed it with the equally idiotic "I condemn Lincoln for ordering the death of soldiers on both sides".
The southron slavrocracy insisted on calling the shots, doing so within the constitution when it suited their purposes, and then happily abandoning it when it no longer did.
The south did not want to "be left alone" - the south merely wanted to do any damned thing they pleased. The south wasn't going anywhere, but was setting itself as a belligerent, hostile, and aggressive competitor to the nation in a fashion that didn't just invite war, but demanded it.
It is foolishly naive to make such a sweeping and unflinchingly declarative statement blaming everything on one individual. Both sides of the conflict share responsibility, accountability, and blame.
The rest of your post is too goofy or irrelevant to even respond to.
So your first problem is confusion and ignorance about actual historical facts.
You claim not to know, for example, that the Confederacy did not "simply want to be left alone."
Rather, the Confederacy wanted, needed, provoked, started and formally declared war on the United States -- long before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly by any Union force, or any Confederate state was "invaded" by a Federal army.
The Confederacy did not "want to be left alone", it wanted war because it believed war would lead to victory, which would establish the Confederate Slave Power as recognized among other world empires.
Once the Confederacy started war (i.e., Fort Sumter) and then formally declared war (May 6, 1861), then Lincoln had no other choice.
Constitutionally, he had to defeat the Power which invaded and attempted to destroy the United States.
Neoliberalnot: "I said you are bean counter stuck with the notion that written rules somehow are to be followed, even if it means killing people who wish to be left alone.
The notion that if it is the law then you must follow orders to kill.
We heard this defense by German officers post WWII."
No law on earth prevents a nation (the US) from defending itself from those (Confederates) who start and formally declare war on it.
Your accusation that I am a "bean counter" is just another one of now several false charges, without basis in fact, which you seem to delight in making.
But as to believing that "written rules somehow are to be followed," well, FRiend, there are those pesky things called laws, which, yes, we do have to follow, even when it inconveniences us, and which our government must enforce, even if it means some risk their own lives to protect ours.
It's all in the Constitution.
Read it someday, FRiend.
Neoliberalnot: "Lincoln clearly solidified his power over others and started the rapid rise of the federal govt monster."
That is another false accusation repeated endlessly by our Neo-Confederate propagandists.
In actual fact, Lincoln did nothing more than Constitutionally defeat the military power which had formally declared war on the United States.
Killers always find excuses to justify those they kill. Just following orders is the dogma. The south never once sought to take over the north.
The propaganda is the reconstructed BS that passes for US history.
You nailed it.
Although your post is historically spot on, the Lincoln Coven will never agree.
You are a sick man Don Meaker, batsh1t crazy.
The british crown had some authority, the English Parliament had none, as the colonists were not represented, and could not be represented there. The charters of the various colonies devolved the taxing authority to the local legislature.
Of course RE Lee’s son by one of his slaves served as his cook during the war, and later, was a minister.
I will note that the Touregs in Mali still have slavery.
So much for the horrific institution of slavery dying of its own accord.
It may not be a good relation, but the terms of separation can not be decided unilaterally.
Controversy between a state or states and the federal government is to be settled by the Supreme Court.
The Treaty of Versailles was accepted by Germany. After it was accepted, they were bound to keep it (and following treaties).
The pretended unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles was a propaganda creation of Dr. Goebbels.
Why were there reparations against Germany? Because (1) Germany purposely committed war crimes as they tore up northern France after the armistice as they withdrew and (2) Germany had inflicted reparations on France after 1870.
What ever the confederates were, they had no desire to be left alone. They had a desire and a need to enslave others, not least among the victims of their enslavement were the poor whites who the slave power conscripted/enslaved to fight their treasonous war for slavery.
Rather the confederates were more like Chris Doerner who not getting his way tried to get the requisite amount of attention by murdering. They wanted to run the government, couldn’t and tried to pull the house down in a colossal temper tantrum.
So what was Lee’s excuse for the killing in Maryland due to his invasion at Antietam? What was his excuse for the killing in Pennsylvania near Gettysburg?
What was Forrest’s excuse for his murders at Ft. Pillow?
What were the James brother’s excuse for their many murders in their raids in the US?
1. Pierce - Bleeding Kansas - started the War Between the States
2. Buchanan - Tried to have things both ways
3. Carter - We're still paying for his mess
4. LBJ - See Carter. More competent, but more power-hungry
5. Obama - Could get worse. Combine LBJ and Carter.
6. Andrew Johnson - Tried to have things both ways.
7. Wilson - Birth of the modern dems.
8. Fillmore - Fugitive Slave Act took the issue Up North
9. Tyler - Another mid 1800's foulup.
10. FDR - Packing SCOTUS and power hungry. Considering the types of leaders around in the 30's, it could have been worse (Huey Long, Eugene Debbs, etc)
11. Hoover.
12. Nixon. Take away his anti-communism and what do you have? Clinton without the balanced budget. He makes the list over Slick Willie due to Harry Blackmun and Warren Burger.
Best 10
1. Washington
2. Jefferson
3. Madison
4. Monroe
5. McKinley
6. Cleveland
7. Reagan
8. Harding (Corrupt, but very good at his job)
9. Coolidge (Overrated, but good)
10. Polk.
Crazy? Nah, donny is just getting desperate because his usual spew isn’t convincing anyone. So now he’s resorting to complete fabrications.
Either that or he’s taking a fiction class at the junior college and we’re getting his latest effort.
Eisenhower belongs on the 10 best list and you can boot Harding. I’m glad to see you include the often neglected Polk.
Funny how the big killers so often have a cult that venerates their memory. In Russia you can still find Lenin venerated as a great leader and he killed off a tremendous number of Russians. The same for Rome at its height, when they built Temples to their Emperors. Here we do the same and call it a “Memorial”, but the divine statue is still there for the believers to venerate.
Speaking of Russia, I often wonder if Breshnev developed his doctrine with an eye to 19th century America; once you were in, there was no getting out. And if you intended to put him to the test you were going to be met with steel. I’m sure the irony of us arguing for the self-determination of the captive nations wasn’t lost on him.
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