Maybe Bush is worse than Harding

[Fluffdaddy]

Truthful read
by Donald Kaul

"There are those who say George W. Bush did a good job responding to Hurricane Katrina and the foul-ups weren’t his fault.

These are the same people who, if Mr. Bush were to nominate his dog Barney to the Supreme Court, would praise the president for attempting to bring real diversity to the court...........

http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=7&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=6102

[marmar]

1. I have no idea what Harding was like...

but I can't imagine anything being worse than this.

[JAbuchan08]

3. Let's put it this way Harding may have been worse

but Bush has more to work with (weapons, bureacracy, nukes) so he's more dangerous.

[struggle4progress]

4. Bush Is No Reagan; He's a Harding (Helvarg / 2001)

<snip> It's not just that Harding was an affable but not too bright politician chosen for office by "fifteen men in a smoke filled room," or that his campaign slogan, "Back to normalcy," reflected his tendency to mangle the English language (he'd meant to say, "normality").

Harding became the 1920 Republican standard-bearer after the front-runners deadlocked at an oil dominated party convention in Chicago. He won the backing of big business based on his pledge to cut the tax rate for the top brackets (what Al Gore would call, "the top one percent"). As President, Harding fulfilled this pledge, even though Americans making below $66,000 saw no tax-relief.

Harding also filled his cabinet with a combination of old cronies and top industry officials. Muckraker H.L. Mencken described Harding's cabinet as "three highly intelligent men of self-interest, six jackasses and one common crook." <snip> http://www.alternet.org/story/11181/

[ugarte]

2. Maybe? How many countries did Harding invade?

Next to Bush, Harding is Abe Lincoln.

[kskiska]

13. Harding was very popular as president

and looked the part. It was only after his untimely death that the corruption of his White House cronies – Teapot Dome – emerged.

[bemildred]

5. Quite a few corrupt amiable boobs have been President.

Why pick on Harding?

One thing about Katrina, it's made the degree to which
Bush is a sock-puppet more evident. The way he's been thrashing
around trying this PR tack and then that one makes the phoniness
of the whole show more evident.

[Berry Cool]

6. I guess it depends on which Harding we're talking about.

Tonya Harding? :rofl:

Hmm. At most, she was responsible for another skater getting whacked in the knee. I think Bush has more to answer for.

[Vitruvius]

7. Harding didn't try to end free elections (by rigged voting machines),

and Harding didn't try to abrogate the Bill of Rights and imprison citizens & foreigners on his say-so. Bu$h did both. Therefore Bu$h is far worse than Harding.

As an incompetent crony capitalist tho', Harding was right up there with Bu$h. But, unlike Bush, Harding never tried to rob us of our liberty.

----- ---

P.S: Harding was elected partly as a reaction against Woodrow Wilson's infringements of our civil liberties, e.g. the Palmer Red Raids (1919 - 1920); Palmer was Wilson's attorney general; his red raids (which were implemented by a vicious young apparatchik named J. Edgar Hoover) involved arbitrary roundups, imprisonments, and deportations of U.S. citizens, including native-born U.S. citizens. If you were -- say -- a labor union organizer, you could be rousted out of bed in the middle of the night and end up on a ship to the USSR.

Which is one reason why Harding's campaign slogan "a return to normalcy" worked...

[shrike]

8. Harding's administration championed the 40-hour work week

And founded the Veteran's Administration. The president and Mrs. Harding invited African-Americans to the White House and SHOOK THEIR HANDS -- a very big deal in the 1920s.

So I would say yes, Bush is worse than Harding.

[colonel odis]

9. wasn't there speculation that harding's wife poisoned him?

c'mon, pickles. you could redeem yourself here.

[shrike]

10. Harding died due to negligence

by his primary care physician, who was basically a quack.

A recent biography of Florence Harding (very good and very fair, to both of them -- the good, the bad and the ugly) put together a very compelling case that convinced me.

The Hardings doctor was a homeopathist (hope I got the word right) who left untreated for years Harding's very serious health conditions and gave him "remedies" which were little more than placebos. When Harding got in the White House, this quack elbowed aside the White House physician and, with the full support of the Hardings, who were under the thrall of this man for some reason, assumed control of the president's medical care.

Harding died after a visit to Alaska -- he was far too sick to make the trip -- and the confusion following his death was due to the doctor's attempt to cover his own ass, and Florence Harding's willingness to hang on said doctor's every word. (Florence did love Harding in her way, and he her, but their marriage was a miserable one.) Florence's biographer makes a very good case that the quack doctor was guilty of criminal negligence in that matter of Harding's death.

[tibbiit]

11. My college History Prof

Who hosted a Warren G Harding annual picnic each spring... told us some dirt on Harding that I have never forgotten. (he (prof) thought harding the worst of the worst with filmore taking up 2nd postion of worst)
Harding got his mistress pregnant by having sex in the Senate Cloakroom.
Is this true? thats what he said 30 some years ago.
tib

edit
here is a url for wierd pres. facts.
http://www.jdbailey.net/Funny%20Stuff/Useless%20Facts.htm

the one I describe is NOT in here but some of them are fun.
tib

[shrike]

12. Don't remember if it was in the Senate cloakroom

But he did get at least one mistress pregnant, yes.

Believe another had to have an abortion. (Been a long time since I read the bio.) One woman was said to have committed suicide over love of him. Just about the only woman on earth he was NOT interested in was his wife.

If you read my above post, you will see that Harding did a few good things while in office. Most presidents do. I think GW Bush will be a first in that department.