DiamondDave,
The OP asked who your favorite Presidents are, not who the best are. I don't think you should attach my credibility to having Obama as my 10th favorite President. A group of folks have W. Bush listed in their top 5. I'm not going to dismiss them outright because of it.
I do... as I stated in a prior response to someone else... I don't see how anyone can put GWB up there on a list either
And if Obama is one of your 'favs'.. then your self labeling as 'fiscal conservative' was a complete bluff bullshit deception.... and as stated also, I do not put him in anything as he has not completed his time... hence why I did not include him in my list of worst Presidents, even with how much I detest what he is doing while in office so far
DiamondDave,
I've been a fiscal conservative since Reagan was running up the debt and it wasn't popular to be fiscally conservative. Now that it's the in thing and everyone thinks their fiscally conservative, that doesn't mean they are and I'm not. I'm not radical about it like some tea partiers. In some cases, you have to put the fire out. Much of what Obama has spent money on has been necessary in my opinion. He inherited a nightmare economic situation. No one had answers that they were confident would work, so he had to try multiple things. You add that with a House led by Nancy Pelosi and you're going to get some spending that's less than ideal. In the end, I've followed Obama very closely and read Audacity of Hope. He's not a tax and spend liberal that he's painted to be. Over the next two years, maybe over the next 6 he'll get to prove it. I think he's a generally a centrist, with some left leans. Above all though he's pragmatic. A free-falling economy and a full bore Democratic Congress, led by the bluest of the blue, Pelosi, he was going to end up with some legislation that was let's just say not fiscally conservative. That will change going forward. He had to do some things to stave off disaster. Perhaps he wasn't a strong enough leader walking in the door to stand up to Pelosi more, but hey Kennedy had his challenges in the beginning too (see Khruschev)