ranking US Presidents

[Dragon]

It makes you ask the question about why Lincoln was in the worst crisis...? Was it possibly because he forcefully was stripping the states of their individual sovereignty...maybe?

The crisis began when the states seceded, not when the fighting started.

 

[Dragon]

The best argument against the conspiracy theory involving FDR and Pearl Harbor is that we lost the battle. A victory would have served as well as a defeat to get the U.S. into the war, and would have left us in a better position in regard to winning it. Roosevelt would have had to be a cretin (which he certainly wasn't) to allow the attack to come off successfully if he'd had detailed advanced warning of it.

What a completely convoluted argument.

Win or loss, the Japanese attack would've been launched and a state of war would have existed.

Do you FDR fluffer schmucks bother to rub two cells of grey matter together before hitting submit?

That was his point. As soon as Japan launched an attack, we were at war. Why would FDR sacrifice his entire fleet of battleships for no reason?

Exactly. If he had had advance warning, not only that an attack was coming, but exactly where and when and with what, he'd have arranged to WIN that battle, sink the Japanese fleet, and save our own ships. We'd still have been at war, but we'd have been that much stronger and the Japanese that much weaker.

The fact that we lost the battle shows that Roosevelt did NOT have advance knowledge in any detail (although I believe he did have a good idea that an attack was coming, somewhere, sometime soon).

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Sending the carriers out to engage and destroy the Japanese fleet would have left Americans scratching their heads over what was going on.

But having Pearl lay in ruins and fire with thousands dead is what was needed to stir the public to war

 

[Dragon]

Sending the carriers out to engage and destroy the Japanese fleet would have left Americans scratching their heads over what was going on.

Nonsense. "Those bastards sneak-attacked us and we kicked their asses." Clear as day. Remember, Roosevelt was looking for a pretext for war against Germany, not Japan. He was expecting a U-boat attack on a U.S. Navy convoy ship. That would have caused far less damage than Pearl Harbor, but he would have used it as his casus belli and gotten a declaration of war from Congress. Pearl Harbor was far greater loss than was necessary to get us into the war.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Sending the carriers out to engage and destroy the Japanese fleet would have left Americans scratching their heads over what was going on.

Nonsense. "Those bastards sneak-attacked us and we kicked their asses." Clear as day.

Really?

Japanese fleet out on recon is engaged and attacked by the US Fleet, where was the "sneak attack"? It seems the US was the ones who ordered the sneak attack.

How would we have known they were on their way here, Sunshine? That would have tipped our hand that we cracked their codes, no?

 

[Dragon]

Really?

Japanese fleet out on recon is engaged and attacked by the US Fleet, where was the "sneak attack"? It seems the US was the ones who ordered the sneak attack.

How would we have known they were on their way here, Sunshine? That would have tipped our hand that we cracked their codes, no?

So all ships and personnel are removed from Pearl Harbor, the attack goes in and does no significant damage, and the ships are attacked and sunk after that. Simple enough.

The point is that we lost most of our battleships in that attack. Now, you know and I know that battleships were dinosaurs in World War II and aircraft carriers and submarines were the important ships, but FDR didn't know that -- most naval opinion hadn't caught up yet, and he was far from a naval-tactics visionary. If he had known what was coming, he'd have saved the battleships, and he'd have sunk the enemy fleet. He didn't. Therefore, he didn't know.

 

[freedombecki]

My personal ranking of US Presidents. I didn't include any Presidents who were in office less than 20 years ago (too early to judge) and I also left out William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and James Garfield because they served for too brief a period to judge.

Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Theodore Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon B. Johnson
James Knox Polk
Harry Truman
William McKinley
James Monroe
John Adams
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight Eisenhower
William Howard Taft
Grover Cleveland
Calvin Coolidge
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
Rutherford B. Hayes
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Jackson
Chester Alan Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Herbert Hoover
Ulysses S. Grant
Martin Van Buren
John Tyler
Franklin Pierce
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Millard Fillmore
James Buchanan

I guess everyone has their own way of ranking presidents.

Just from what I've read about all the Presidents, I'd have to say that George Washington gave up the most. He was out there on the front line battling an enemy who trained him for war and to whom he once was loyal. But his heart was changed when he saw a monarch turn his back completely on his fellow Americans, and he simply knew what he had to do to free his fellow countrymen from injustice.

It didn't go well at first. He didn't have a strong record of winning battles, but he gained tactical knowledge from one of the world's finest military organizations in the Western world. He had a wife who loved him passionately at home whose friendship was a bond that enabled him to be all that he could be. I cannot say enough about Martha Washington's support of her husband's career in forging a battle win. He also had a good versatility in mathematics--no fuzzy math in America's first engineer/surveyor, and his mind was a sharp tack, honed by the misery of his fellow patriots and made smart by early losses in his military career.

When he got out to the battlefield, he had enemies on both sides of the line--people who wanted his job and would do devious things to get him fired from the task he was given, and an enemy that had superior provisions and healthier men at their disposal, not to mention firepower.

Many of Washington's men marched the soles off their shoes and had inadequate clothing for bitter winters like the horrible one spent at Valley Forge one year. When the civilized world was in his face and the American people who were treated less well than the dogs in King Charlie's court, and disagreeing men in the Continental Congress could not come up with enough support, Washington did what any man in his unenviable position did: He pled his case to Almighty God. The light and guidance he received from being able to lay his cards out on the table in the cold reaches of a lonesome spot outside his encampment with his only witness His God and a nosey neighbor who left saying nothing, Washington received some kind of insight to help him cope with his soldiers' inadequate supplies, inadequate clothing, constant bickering and occasional flat-out insurrection, he got the strength every great man needs: a trust in other men some better and some worse than himself to do a job few in the world have ever been able to do: he inspired his men with this inspiration and intense love he had inside for others to throw off the world's most reknowned fighting system in the world. God in the meantime, sent a Jewish by the name of Solomon, who organized funding for this skirmish, to help America break loose. You may find a brief notice of this financing in The Almanac of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger, of which I have two copies--my first copy, bought new, is in shambles I read it so many times. I finally got my hands on a hardcover copy of the tome, which I fondly preserve for special trips back in time of events as they happened year by year in our country.

I don't know all the details, I only know a little of suffering, and our first soldiers during the Revolutionary War, finally got their shit together, started doing what General Washington told them to do, timely, and convinced the British things would never be the same again for them on this continent in the lands designated by the Continental Congress as designated over the next 14 years by blood, sweat, and tears of loss.

That is why George Washington is #1. And he remembered who helped him, too. Every official notice he ever turned out always included a remembrance of Almighty God, and his homage to his true freer.

Everybody else is put in the line after Washington. Sometimes it's the one who have the most feces flung at them for having to deal with other countries who rose to the task in the face of almost as much bull-oney as Washington did, less the frozen toes of beloved troops he prayed earnestly and passionately for on a regular basis, who are great presidents.

Not everything is disclosed to the public, and when they are, the saving grace that accompanied something that looks bad is often suppressed by a press who wants to hurt somebody for disagreeing with their pie-in-the-sky delusion that anything else would have work than what trained men focused on an issue had to do to provide for the common defense.

I have no way of knowing who else was a great President. I love them all for stepping up to the plate and taking a swing at benefitting the American people.

There are just too many armchair coaches in the press with hidden agendas for an average person like me to sift through all the mudslinging to tell, and I wasn't in the board room ever in any administration to fully understand the threats there discussed to intelligently rank presidents.

One thing rang true about Washington, though, is that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow countrymen."

O beautiful for pilgrims' feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America, America,
God mend thine every flaw
Confirm our souls in self-control
Thy Liberty in Law!
​

 

[rightwinger]

My personal ranking of US Presidents. I didn't include any Presidents who were in office less than 20 years ago (too early to judge) and I also left out William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and James Garfield because they served for too brief a period to judge.

Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Theodore Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon B. Johnson
James Knox Polk
Harry Truman
William McKinley
James Monroe
John Adams
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight Eisenhower
William Howard Taft
Grover Cleveland
Calvin Coolidge
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
Rutherford B. Hayes
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Jackson
Chester Alan Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Herbert Hoover
Ulysses S. Grant
Martin Van Buren
John Tyler
Franklin Pierce
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Millard Fillmore
James Buchanan

I guess everyone has their own way of ranking presidents.

Just from what I've read about all the Presidents, I'd have to say that George Washington gave up the most. He was out there on the front line battling an enemy who trained him for war and to whom he once was loyal. But his heart was changed when he saw a monarch turn his back completely on his fellow Americans, and he simply knew what he had to do to free his fellow countrymen from injustice.

It didn't go well at first. He didn't have a strong record of winning battles, but he gained tactical knowledge from one of the world's finest military organizations in the Western world. He had a wife who loved him passionately at home whose friendship was a bond that enabled him to be all that he could be. I cannot say enough about Martha Washington's support of her husband's career in forging a battle win. He also had a good versatility in mathematics--no fuzzy math in America's first engineer/surveyor, and his mind was a sharp tack, honed by the misery of his fellow patriots and made smart by early losses in his military career.

When he got out to the battlefield, he had enemies on both sides of the line--people who wanted his job and would do devious things to get him fired from the task he was given, and an enemy that had superior provisions and healthier men at their disposal, not to mention firepower.

Many of Washington's men marched the soles off their shoes and had inadequate clothing for bitter winters like the horrible one spent at Valley Forge one year. When the civilized world was in his face and the American people who were treated less well than the dogs in King Charlie's court, and disagreeing men in the Continental Congress could not come up with enough support, Washington did what any man in his unenviable position did: He pled his case to Almighty God. The light and guidance he received from being able to lay his cards out on the table in the cold reaches of a lonesome spot outside his encampment with his only witness His God and a nosey neighbor who left saying nothing, Washington received some kind of insight to help him cope with his soldiers' inadequate supplies, inadequate clothing, constant bickering and occasional flat-out insurrection, he got the strength every great man needs: a trust in other men some better and some worse than himself to do a job few in the world have ever been able to do: he inspired his men with this inspiration and intense love he had inside for others to throw off the world's most reknowned fighting system in the world. God in the meantime, sent a Jewish by the name of Solomon, who organized funding for this skirmish, to help America break loose. You may find a brief notice of this financing in The Almanac of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger, of which I have two copies--my first copy, bought new, is in shambles I read it so many times. I finally got my hands on a hardcover copy of the tome, which I fondly preserve for special trips back in time of events as they happened year by year in our country.

I don't know all the details, I only know a little of suffering, and our first soldiers during the Revolutionary War, finally got their shit together, started doing what General Washington told them to do, timely, and convinced the British things would never be the same again for them on this continent in the lands designated by the Continental Congress as designated over the next 14 years by blood, sweat, and tears of loss.

That is why George Washington is #1. And he remembered who helped him, too. Every official notice he ever turned out always included a remembrance of Almighty God, and his homage to his true freer.

Everybody else is put in the line after Washington. Sometimes it's the one who have the most feces flung at them for having to deal with other countries who rose to the task in the face of almost as much bull-oney as Washington did, less the frozen toes of beloved troops he prayed earnestly and passionately for on a regular basis, who are great presidents.

Not everything is disclosed to the public, and when they are, the saving grace that accompanied something that looks bad is often suppressed by a press who wants to hurt somebody for disagreeing with their pie-in-the-sky delusion that anything else would have work than what trained men focused on an issue had to do to provide for the common defense.

I have no way of knowing who else was a great President. I love them all for stepping up to the plate and taking a swing at benefitting the American people.

There are just too many armchair coaches in the press with hidden agendas for an average person like me to sift through all the mudslinging to tell, and I wasn't in the board room ever in any administration to fully understand the threats there discussed to intelligently rank presidents.

One thing rang true about Washington, though, is that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow countrymen."

O beautiful for pilgrims' feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America, America,
God mend thine every flaw
Confirm our souls in self-control
Thy Liberty in Law!
​

No question Washington was the father of our country. But the question was greatest presidents. What Washington did on the battlefield was before he was president

 

[Oddball]

Nonsense. "Those bastards sneak-attacked us and we kicked their asses." Clear as day. Remember, Roosevelt was looking for a pretext for war against Germany, not Japan..

Then why the provocation of the Japanese, by the deployment and activity of the AVG (AKA Flying Tigers) in China, prior to 7 December?

 

[Dragon]

Nonsense. "Those bastards sneak-attacked us and we kicked their asses." Clear as day. Remember, Roosevelt was looking for a pretext for war against Germany, not Japan..

Then why the provocation of the Japanese, by the deployment and activity of the AVG (AKA Flying Tigers) in China, prior to 7 December?

Why not? The point was to get us into the war. Roosevelt knew that participation had less than majority support, so he had to get the enemy to attack us first, somewhere, anywhere. He did all kinds of provocative things, such as convoying Lend-Lease freighters with U.S. Navy ships, and cutting off sales of oil and scrap metal to the Japanese.

He manipulated events to get us in. There's no doubt about that. The outrageous claim, though, is that he had detailed knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and deliberately sacrificed thousands of American lives and many capital ships. There's no reason to believe that.

 

[bayoubill]

My personal ranking of US Presidents. I didn't include any Presidents who were in office less than 20 years ago (too early to judge) and I also left out William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and James Garfield because they served for too brief a period to judge.

Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Theodore Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon B. Johnson
James Knox Polk
Harry Truman
William McKinley
James Monroe
John Adams
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight Eisenhower
William Howard Taft
Grover Cleveland
Calvin Coolidge
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
Rutherford B. Hayes
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Jackson
Chester Alan Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Herbert Hoover
Ulysses S. Grant
Martin Van Buren
John Tyler
Franklin Pierce
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Millard Fillmore
James Buchanan

I don't see any rhyme or reason to your rankings...

so... just curious... what criteria did you use to reach you decisions...?

 

[Unkotare]

It makes you ask the question about why Lincoln was in the worst crisis...? Was it possibly because he forcefully was stripping the states of their individual sovereignty...maybe?

The crisis began when the states seceded, not when the fighting started.

The crisis began long before that, you ignorant little twerp.

 

[Unkotare]

Really?

Japanese fleet out on recon is engaged and attacked by the US Fleet, where was the "sneak attack"? It seems the US was the ones who ordered the sneak attack.

How would we have known they were on their way here, Sunshine? That would have tipped our hand that we cracked their codes, no?

So all ships and personnel are removed from Pearl Harbor, the attack goes in and does no significant damage, and the ships are attacked and sunk after that. Simple enough.

The point is that we lost most of our battleships in that attack. Now, you know and I know that battleships were dinosaurs in World War II and aircraft carriers and submarines were the important ships, but FDR didn't know that -- most naval opinion hadn't caught up yet, and he was far from a naval-tactics visionary. If he had known what was coming, he'd have saved the battleships, and he'd have sunk the enemy fleet. He didn't. Therefore, he didn't know.

Your shameless disregard for logic is duly noted.

 

[regent]

How many times has Pearl Harbor been investigated?
The latest historians rating of the presidents (Siena) used twenty presidential characteristics and rated each president on the twenty.
As far as I know FDR has never been out of the top three slots on any poll and in this latest Siena poll FDR had the top spot all to himself.
When polling the public to rate the presidents most citizens are unable to name most of the 43 presidents much less rate them on any historical basis.
The public begins rating the candidates as soon as they announce, no need to wait. Obama was rated in the Siena 2010 poll.

 

[Oddball]

Nonsense. "Those bastards sneak-attacked us and we kicked their asses." Clear as day. Remember, Roosevelt was looking for a pretext for war against Germany, not Japan..

Then why the provocation of the Japanese, by the deployment and activity of the AVG (AKA Flying Tigers) in China, prior to 7 December?

Why not? The point was to get us into the war. Roosevelt knew that participation had less than majority support, so he had to get the enemy to attack us first, somewhere, anywhere. He did all kinds of provocative things, such as convoying Lend-Lease freighters with U.S. Navy ships, and cutting off sales of oil and scrap metal to the Japanese.

He manipulated events to get us in. There's no doubt about that. The outrageous claim, though, is that he had detailed knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and deliberately sacrificed thousands of American lives and many capital ships. There's no reason to believe that.

OK...So he provoked Pearl Harbor...Glad we settled that.

So much for your bogus claim that FDR didn't want war with Japan.

 

[Unkotare]

As far as I know FDR has never been out of the top three slots on any poll and in this latest Siena poll FDR had the top spot all to himself. .

He is the ONLY person on the list of presidents who has thrown over 100,000 innocent American civilians into concentration camps.

 

[rightwinger]

As far as I know FDR has never been out of the top three slots on any poll and in this latest Siena poll FDR had the top spot all to himself. .

He is the ONLY person on the list of presidents who has thrown over 100,000 innocent American civilians into concentration camps.

Which was objected to by very few Americans of either party. Including the courts

 

[whitehall]

Give 'em hell Harry Truman couldn't even muster enough support from his own party to run for a second full term. He was a timid bean counter who couldn't stand up to MacArthur and it cost the lives of 35,000 American Troops in Korea.

 

[Unkotare]

As far as I know FDR has never been out of the top three slots on any poll and in this latest Siena poll FDR had the top spot all to himself. .

He is the ONLY person on the list of presidents who has thrown over 100,000 innocent American civilians into concentration camps.

Which was objected to by very few Americans of either party. Including the courts

That let's him off the hook?


There were plenty of people opposed to such an unamerican outrage, including J. Edgar Hoover and Roosevelt's own wife. Maybe if he wasn't so interested in screwing around he would have listened to her and not made himself a villian of history.

 

[regent]

Yep, a lot of wrongs occur during a major war, some with the best of intentions and some with the worst of intentions, but wrongs do occur. Perhaps FDR's biggest wrong during WWII was to appoint MacArthur head of the SW Pacific Theater. That was much more costly.