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Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:44 PM by kurtyboy
I've been trying to compile an accurate account of how many servicemen and women have died under each US President. The rankings, which are incomplete, come out this way for the top-10:
1 Abraham Lincoln/Jefferson Davis 623,026 2 Franklin D Roosevelt 357,316 3 Woodrow Wilson 116,708 4 Harry Truman 86,954 5 Lyndon Johnson 35,957 6 Richard Nixon 22,401 7 James K Polk 13,283 8 George W Bush 3,870* 9 William McKinley 2,446 10 James Madison 2,398
*-active
As you can see, GW Bush has a long way to go to catch up to #7, James K Polk. Polk, as you'll no doubt remember, led us into a war on Mexico over, er uh, I dunno, a Hemispheric War on The-Bastards-Who-Want-Their-Land-Back. Later, Congress appoved a memorial mentioning, "A war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." (Thank #1 on the list, old Honest Abe himself, for that little bomb) Anyhoo, GW better get movin' if he wants to rub a little extra salt in Poppy's eyes (a dismal #13 at 553 KIA).
That said, W now finds himself tied for #1 in one other important statistic--Most Years with 500 or More US Personnel Killed.
1 Lyndon Johnson 5 1 Richard Nixon 5 1 George W Bush 5 * 4 Abraham Lincoln/Jefferson Davis 4 4 Franklin D Roosevelt 4 4 Harry Truman 4 4 James Madison 4 8 James K Polk 3 8 Andrew Jackson 3 10 Woodrow Wilson 2
*-active
The little Bush shares the honor with LBJ and Tricky Dick Nixon, who each spent 5 years justifying the pointless war in SE Asia (although to be honest, each of them might not have made the 500 mark every single year--LBJ started kinda slow, and the Dickster had other troubles in 1974...) No matter, if next year's pace matches this year's torrid upticks (and it will, thanks to a Democrat-controlled Congress), 2008 will have the undisputed warfaring-est President EVER taking over the top slot, sometime around April.
Damn shame--and I knew it was coming in 2000, sometime in December. I locked in on that opinion when he got inaugurated the first time, and I swore it looked just like one of those Nazi rallies Hitler so loved. This piece of doo is also taking over the top ranking for greatest builder of Constitutional crisis, edging out a feckless James Buchanan. I didn't see THAT coming...
But as Lily Tomlin says, "No matter how cynical I get, I find I just can't keep up"
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