WTF? Historian Douglas Brinkley calls Reagan one of the Top 5 Greatest Presidents

[mod mom]

CBS Sunday Morning had a segment on yesterday discussing how historians and journalists would view *. They interviewed the usual lackeys such as Dan Bartlett and David Frum extolling chimpy's virtues, but my mouth dropped when Historian Douglas Brinkley called Reagan one of the 5 greatest presidents! Did I miss something? Is the fact that there was never a formal investigation into Iran Contra, mean that the president and his administration didn't pursue their RW agenda and cover it up? Was he possibly given credit for ending the cold war when in fact USSR's involvement in a war in Afghanistan did more to precipitate it? Am I missing something here?

Here is some info on the segment:

History's First Draft Of The Bush Legacy
Historians And Journalists Discuss How They Believe The 43rd President Will Be Judged

-snip

So is President Bush's current low rating among historians just liberal bias? Rice University's Douglas Brinkley doesn't buy it.

"When I'm sitting here telling you that Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower were outstanding presidents? These are Republicans," Brinkley said. "I'm telling you Ronald Reagan was one of the five greatest presidents in American history. I'm not saying that because I'm a liberal. I'm just saying it 'cause it's a fact.

"But you have to then accept when I'm telling you George Bush is one of the five worst presidents in American history. It's not 'cause I want to stick it to him. He simply failed on the big questions of his day."

-snip

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/11/sunday/main4712837.shtml?source=mostpop_story

He got Chimpy correct so why so far off on Raygun?

[ColbertWatcher]

1. What I don't understand is ...

"I'm telling you Ronald Reagan was one of the five greatest presidents in American history.

Okay, maybe he doesn't remember, but then he says this:

"I'm not saying that because I'm a liberal."

WTF does that mean anyway?

[blm]

2. Historians still haven't been able to ACCESS all the important documents of that era, so until

that happens any assessment of Reagan is premature.

[shraby]

3. That's something when an historian names

a person with alzheimer's as the greatest president. :crazy: :crazy:

[BeyondGeography]

4. He ranks Top 5 on those who had the most impact

Then again, you could say the same for W. Difference with Reagan is he did what he said he would do (apart from the little thingy about cutting taxes resulting in increased government revenue, that is) and the Murkans mostly approved.

A case could be made that Reagan is top-five in terms of the most politically successful presidents. That doesn't mean great in my book, but, then again, I'm not trying to be David McCullough's successor on PBS/the next great popular establishment historian like Brinkley is.

[mod mom]

6. He definitely should have discussed what criteria he made that judgement.

You're correct that * had most impact but unfortunately for the world/planet that impact was devastating!

[Cha]

21. Exactly..as in name one thing

that made him so "great". Was it the catsup?

[blm]

13. I agree with this. Until the books from that time are opened up, Reagan will be seen as successful

BECAUSE of the fact that he did transform politics towards his way of thinking. That was cemented the day Bill Clinton, a Democratic (allegedly) president, declared in an official speech to the nation that "The era of big government is over." That was the sound of Reagan's legacy being set in stone. I still hope to break that stone into dust and powder.

[BeyondGeography]

27. Yep, me too

Cheers.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. Time's annual top pick is not necessarily a good person (Hitler)

but the one who had the most impact. I can agree that Reagan had a huge impact, kickstarting the neocon revolution and giving his criminal aides more chances to screw up this country.

[Fearless]

7. Define "greatest"

Certainly he has had a great impact. Evil granted, but nevertheless great.

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Greatest thanks given that he and the other four like him shall never again have a chance

to effect America and the world.

[Fearless]

11. Does he even mention who the other 4 are?

In terms of impact I would agree. I teach high school US history, and granted most of these picks I wouldn't want as a president, they certainly impacted the nation. Here would be my top five based on policy and ideological impact.

1. FDR (b/c of the New Deal)
2. Abraham Lincoln (b/c of the Civil War, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments)
3. Andrew Jackson (American expansionism, anti-American Indian sentiments)
4. Ronnie Raygun (Reaganomics, deregulation)
5. George Washington (national isolation, two term president, being the first prez.)


NTF

[WI_DEM]

9. I usually have great respect for D. Brinkley, but he did edit "The Reagan Diaries" and

sometimes people become close to their work.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Greatest? No. One of the most influential? Surely.

There is no denying he's had more impact than any president since Roosevelt.

Roosevelt created the New Deal and Reagan did everything in his power to undo it.

[WI_DEM]

12. that is a good comparison.

[Fearless]

14. Who are YOUR top five presidents everyone?

I'll define greatest as the ones with the most impact.

My choices:
1. FDR (b/c of the New Deal)
2. Abraham Lincoln (b/c of the Civil War, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments)
3. Andrew Jackson (American expansionism, anti-American Indian sentiments)
4. Ronnie Raygun (Reaganomics, deregulation)
5. George Washington (national isolation, two term president, being the first prez.)

[ieoeja]

19. Unless Reaganomics really does succeed in destroying America...

I don't see Reagan as that impactful in the long term.

Even regarding the Soviet Union, all he tried doing was restoring the early Cold War strategy of containment. And he failed when PepsiCo opened up a Pizza Hut on Red Square. Reagan actually did all he could to prevent the introduction of capitalism into the Soviet Union having apparently forgotten why there was a Cold War in the first place.

I'd probably name some other guy from the 19th century to the top five. But Reagan doesn't even finish in the top five where the Cold War is concerned.

1. Nixon introduced the strategy that ultimately "won" the Cold War: market-place competition (see: Kitchen Debate), not containment (see: Iron Curtain).
2(tie). Ford & Carter for not fucking up what Nixon gave them.
4. Kennedy stood firm during the scariest portion of the whole damned thing
5. Poppy Bush for welcoming Russia into the world community instead of trying to crush them some more.
6. Truman began it for the US with the very strategy Reagan tried restoring.
7. Ike made it bipartisan: the GOP opposed our entry into the Korean Conflict
8. LBJ for not completely blowing it.
9. And dead last, Reagan, for almost blowing it and rejecting the Soviet Union's attempt to surrender.

[TheKentuckian]

15. Great and effective are often mixed up in these things

Reagan and Jackson are awful, imo.

[Fearless]

23. Of course they are. They were terrible people and terrible presidents.

Yet they did impact American policy for YEARS.

[rasputin1952]

16. REAGAN...this guy is an idiot...

Reagan was nothing more than a fool given scripts to read...the last 2 years, he couldn't even do that right!

Mr. Brinkley forgot that reagan was the first president that was upstaged by a chimp! (And I don't mean bush).

[chelsea0011]

17. I know that Iran/Contra was one of the top five scandals of all time

Imagine a Democrat trading arms to a sworn enemy like Iran right after they kidnapped Americans and held them as hostages for over 400 days? All because they had problems with a guerrilla leader in small South American country who wanted to overthrow a corrupt/murderous government.

[Bucky]

18. Doug Brinkley has fallen victim to the right wing PR machine

They like to say Reagan "won the Cold War," a victory which he certainly contributed his fair share to, but mostly by following the long-established Containment Policy developed under Truman and Eisenhower.

If you want to include a conservative president among the best, the case for Poppy Bush is probably stornger (altho not "strong" per se). It's interesting that Bush Sr doesn't get high marks on the list, although his economy problems are mostly the end result of Reagan Era excesses and the reckless "tax-cut & spend" runaway deficit lunacy that Reagan pioneered and Bush, if anything, curtailed. On foreign policy, Bush ran a smart war while Reagan beat up Granada and sent Marines into Beirut for target practice. Bush perfected Cold War coalition building while Reagan allowed his underlings to break the law and embezzle money from the treasury in order to support Central American terrorists.

Reagan isn't the worst president; politics aside, he did okay by any objective measure. But a great president should have some sort of lasting vision for the country, while Reagan had only a sort of transcendent platitude of a view of the nation's future.

The top five should be Lincoln; Washington; Teddy Roosevelt; then a long drop down the slope; then Jefferson, Polk, & FDR in the flawed-but-brilliant category; then Adams, Monroe, Truman & Eisenhower in the near-great batch.



Here's another useful chart a rightwing friend of mine indirectly explained to me many years ago

                                        Republican                     Democratic
                                                  president                         president

Strong economic               the president               the president does not
performance                 effects the economy           effect the economy


Weak economic           the president does not             the president
performance                 effect the economy             effects the economy

[Zomby Woof]

20. Top 5 Underrated Presidents

1. James K. Polk (1845-1849): Purposely served one term, and did everything he set out to do, from annexing Texas, to peacefully settling the border of the Oregon Territory with Britain, and oh yeah, that forced unpleasantness with Mexico which capped the westward expansion started by Thomas Jefferson resoundingly.

2. James Monroe (1817-1825): Sec'y of State (and presidential successor) John Quincy Adams' "Monroe Doctrine" was an effective response to the breaking of Spain's New World colonies with the mother country - for better or worse, this would establish the foundation of American foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere which lasts to this day. Also must note the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which would hold the slavery expansion issue in check for at least a generation.

3. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981): Maligned in his time by congressional Democrats almost more than the Republicans, because they quite frankly hate the 'outsider' card, and so they thwarted, among other things, his vision of energy independence. Camp David peace accords are holding up 30 years out (as the above noted Missouri Compromise informs us - we must be vigilant with maintaining these agreements, as a generation is but a blink of an eye in history), and he was honest, forthright, and worked harder than any president since the Watergate era. He was also a pro-civil rights Democrat from the south, marking a turning point in the party's base demographics. Unfairly held accountable for the wrecked post-manufacturing stagflation economy set in motion during the Nixon years. His post-presidential years rank as the very best example of any ex-president in history - it reminds us that a prophet is rarely with honor in his own time.

4. John Quincy Adams (1825-1829): Coming into office under the cloud of what Andrew Jackson aptly called a "corrupt bargain" (Henry Clay was a piece of sh.., I mean, um, work), this first son of a former president himself was principled as far as these things (questionable elections) go. He had a helluva vision - a national network of roads and canals, a national university, and a national observatory. He was, like Carter years later, roundly ignored and treated with hostility within his own party - which at this point had more identities than Sybil on a Twinkies binge, and therefore, very little of his agenda found favor (the Erie Canal being a notable exception). Tenth Amendment arguments were used as rationales for sabotaging much of his agenda, but it really came down to very few people actually liking him. Very much his father's son. Like Carter, he found post-presidential redemption, as a long-serving congressman well into the 1840's.

5. Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885): This product of the spoils system came into office with lower expectations from the public than anyone since the Civil War. Assuming office upon the assassination of James Garfield (killed, ironically, by a disgruntled office-seeker), Arthur was expected to be a puppet of the party bosses, and as corrupt as the system which produced him. But Arthur was quietly shrewd, and without much in the way of presidential ambition to color his goals, crafted a model reform presidency (in the same vein as "only Nixon could go to China"). He dismantled the very system which produced him, and proving to be an adept and steady administrator, won the respect of the people at large. Although usually dismissed as middle-to-lower-tier by historians making more money than I do, there is something to be said for a man who left the presidency, and the country, a bit better off than he found it, and made few enemies, while shedding no convictions.

[tabasco]

22. Forced unpleasantness with Mexico?

Even Lincoln and Grant thought the Mexican War was a crime of aggression.

[Zomby Woof]

25. If you can't tell I was being tongue-in-cheek

Well, then, I can't help you. Reading comprehension: You either have it or you don't.

Lincoln and that drunkard "Butcher" Grant would know a thing or two about crimes of aggression, now that you mention it.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

24. brinkley; "it's a fact" Reagan: "facts are stupid things"

"Facts are stupid things." -at the 1988 Republican National Convention, attempting to quote John Adams, who said, "Facts are stubborn things"


more reagan quotes at: http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/quotethis/a/reaganquotes.htm

[mwei924]

26. Whatever. People voted Reagan as the #1 American of all time..

..so let's look at what we're dealing with here. Morons.