Posted on 03/18/2014 12:04:23 PM PDT by Phillyred
If “The great presidents had the ability to persuade,” Obama will rank dead last among presidents.
FDR is the worst President. Screwed ours and the world economy, and helped cause WW2. Funny that all the pictures of Hoovervilles were all taken in 1934-1936.
FDR was the one who took over radio, leading to the Dem takeover of TV (same companies), and gave the larger northern cities to the Dems. Chicago’s last Republican Mayor was in 1931.
Whatdayamean? He's got a pen, and he's got a telephone.
I concur,Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Attila the Hun.
James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. president (1857-1861), is used to be commonly regarded as the worst president in our history.
Not much doubt.
A highly respected presidential historian with particular expertise on the Kennedy family, his publications include “Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector” (1998); “The Kennedy Administration” in Presidential Administration Profiles, (1999); “John Fitzgerald Kennedy” and “Robert Francis Kennedy,” Historic World Leaders (1994); and “John F. Kennedy: an Idealist without Illusions” (1975).
"Idealist without illusions"?
“You perhaps would have preferred the Japanese to defend their “divine” emperor to the last man? Doesn’t the fact that before the A-bombs dropped, the military had ordered enough purple heart medals that they lasted most of the way through Vietnam mean anything to you?”
You seem to think that I was/am against the dropping of the atomic bombs. That is not my point. If you want to know my opinion on that then here it is as follows: Atomic bombs should have continued to rain down upon Japan until there was nothing left to rain down upon. The administration held it out to the world that it was ‘unconditional surrender’ when it was not. Letting the emperor in power is not ‘unconditional surrender’.
. . . and you know how many A-bombs we actually had after the first two, I suppose . . .Or maybe you don’t - because the number was a close secret. I think I read many, many years after the war that that number was zero, and that when Truman threatened the use of nukes to forestall Stalin’s invading Iran, that was entirely a bluff.
If that number is correct or very close, the Truman Administration was bluffing Japan as it was - and you are bemoaning the fact that they didn’t push their bluff far enough to suit you.
Actually, the worst thing Truman might have done to Japan at that point might have been - nothing. Nothing except give Japan time to work itself up into an extreme, unsustainable state of alert - and then try to survive for a year with an utterly disrupted national economy. The damage would have at least been comparable to the two A-bombs - and Truman could have had more of them by that time.
“and you are bemoaning the fact that they didn’t push their bluff far enough to suit you.”
Yes, I knew that there were no more atomic bombs.
No, you still do not ‘get’ it. I am not bemoaning the fact that they didn’t push their bluff far enough. What I am saying is that Truman lied to the American people and the world. He said, ‘unconditional surrender’ and it was NOT. There was a ‘condition’ tied to the surrender. The ‘condition’?.....that the emperor stay in power. The emperor should have been arrested, imprisoned, tried, convicted and hung in Tokyo for all to see.
Everyone knew that the survival/position of the Emperor was in fact a condition - but, as the only condition, it left him as a figurehead only - and figureheads can be very useful. Think, King Herod under the Romans.The emperor should have been arrested, imprisoned, tried, convicted and hung in Tokyo for all to see.
. . . which would either have required the US to break its word after the fact, or would - again - have meant the continuation of hostilities. We know that the Japanese military almost prevented the surrender even with the “condition” of the retention of the Emperor.The point about “Unconditional Surrender” was the bitter reflection on what the US military - Pershing, I believe - said about the armistice that “ended” WWI. Namely, that the trouble with stopping the fighting at that point was that although the Germans were defeated, they did not know it and admit it. And that is why WWII came on two decades later, actually as an extension of WWI.The difference at the end of WWII in Japan was that although they had retained their emperor as a figurehead useful to the US, and could cling to some modicum of self-respect on that account,the Japanese were under US occupation and they knew beyond peradventure that they had been beaten. So, as history shows, nothing close to a reprise of WWII was attempted by Japan. Not twenty years later, and no sign of it seventy years later. Killing the emperor might have been shadenfreude - but it would have been too expensive to attain, and also too expensive in its effects.
We all have our opinions. A lie is a lie is a lie. A rose by any other name is still a rose.
I agree with that. And I also believe that my opinion that Obama is one of the very worst presidents on our history will stand the test of time.
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